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IPA calls on Turkish Prime Minister to free jailed authors

The IPA today called on Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım to immediately release jailed author Aslı Erdoğan and linguist Necmiye Alpay and to remember his...

World publishers decry Ankara’s abuse of State of Emergency powers to shutter a 30th Turkish publishing house

The Geneva-based International Publishers Association (IPA), speaking for 64 national publishers’ associations in 59 countries, has condemned the de facto state closure of...

IPA hails UAE’s new law exempting books from VAT

The IPA has welcomed a progressive new law announced in the United Arab Emirates on Monday (31 October) that exempts reading materials from...

U.S. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante ‘removed from her job’

According to a Billboard report, U.S. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante was removed from her job on Friday (October 21) by the...

Annual IPA-FEP Global Report on VAT on Books now out

The International Publishers Association (IPA) and Federation of European Publishers (FEP) Annual Global Report on VAT on Books 2016 was released today during...

IPA 2016 Annual Report released in new three-in-one format

The IPA annual report was presented to the General Assembly this week in Frankfurt. This year’s report is more compact than in previous...

Daughter of kidnapped Hong Kong bookseller: ‘IPA members can help my father’

Monday 17 October was not only set-up day at Frankfurt Book Fair, it also marked a year to the day that Gui Minhai vanished from...

IPA General Assembly votes to admit five new members, further expanding IPA’s global footprint

National publishers associations from Iraq, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Morocco and Senegal became provisional members of the International Publishers Association (IPA) today when their...

Michiel Kolman to succeed Richard Charkin as IPA President

Frankfurt — The International Publishers Association (IPA) General Assembly today elected Dutch publisher Michiel Kolman (Elsevier) to be the next President of the...

Indian publishers to appeal Delhi High Court copyright judgement

Indian publishers have begun mounting an appeal against last month’s puzzling judgement by the Delhi High Court that extensive photocopying and the supply...

IPA President tells Turkish publishers their international peers stand beside them

IPA President Richard Charkin has told a gathering of Turkish publishing executives that the global publishing community stands ready to support them as they strive...

WIPO Director General praises Accessible Books Consortium at annual Assemblies

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Director General Francis Gurry hailed the success story that is the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) today as he opened the...

IPA hails new era of accessibility to books on the eve of Marrakesh Treaty’s entry into force

The IPA and its members welcome tomorrow’s entry into force of the Marrakesh Treaty and, with it, a new era of equality and inclusivity for...

The right to write: the bittersweet liberty of a North Korean writer in exile

Lee Ji-myung always wanted to write, even though his creativity could only ever have one possible application in his country — to serve the State....

World publishers and librarians issue joint pledge to strive for universal access to information

Geneva and The Hague — The world bodies speaking for the publishing and library sectors, the IPA and IFLA, today pledge to find mechanisms for...

Public education in Mozambique to suffer under new ‘closed market’ textbook policy

Public educational performance in Mozambique is likely to plunge when a change in textbook policy takes hold, the IPA has warned the country’s...

Copyright in the EU: what do publishers make of the new directive proposal?

On 14 September the European Commission laid out its proposal to modernize copyright rules in the EU, with the aim of enabling ‘European culture to...

IPA at Frankfurt Book Fair 2016

The IPA will hold its annual General Assembly and other key statutory meetings from 18 to 22 October, during Frankfurt Book Fair 2016. Programme highlights...

UNESCO names Athens World Book Capital 2018

Athens has been named World Book Capital 2018 by the Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, on the recommendation...

IPA on the ground to back Kenyan publishers’ #NoVATonBooks campaign

Kenyan lawmakers will this week decide whether to scrap the 16% VAT rate imposed on books in the country, three years after the disastrous levy...

IPA community salutes late former president, Fernando Guedes

The international publishing community has paid warm tribute to former IPA president, Fernando Guedes, a highly accomplished and visionary publisher, who died this week (28...

IPA considering implications of Singaporean copyright review

Singapore’s Ministry of Law and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) have announced a comprehensive review of the city state’s copyright laws,...

IPA calls for immediate release of jailed Turkish novelist Aslı Erdoğan

The IPA has joined the Turkish Publishers Association in urging Ankara to respect the basic rights and freedoms of writers and publishers, in...

IPA pays tribute to the late Nick Perren, a ‘strong supporter of freedom to publish’

Two IPA presidents have paid warm tribute to the British publisher and former IPA Executive Committee member, Nick Perren, who  died on Monday (1 August)...

Bankruptcy fears as Turkish government closes 29 publishing houses

The Turkish Publishers Association, an IPA member, has issued the following press release (translated from the Turkish) following the closure of 29 Turkish publishing houses...

Jessica Sänger appointed Director for European and International Affairs at Börsenverein

Dr. Jessica Sänger (39), lawyer and Deputy Head of the Legal Department at Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, will run a newly formed unit for European...

IPA urges Wellington to reject blanket exceptions to technological protection measures

The IPA this month submitted an intervention to the New Zealand government as it considers a bill to amend national law as part of the...

German publishers launch ambitious scheme to give EU innovators a head start

The German Publishers and Booksellers Association, an IPA member, has launched an ambitious Dragons' Den-style initiative where promising European book industry innovators can win €10,000...

IPA welcomes acquittal of ‘Vatileaks 2’ writers but blasts Vatican intimidation tactics

The International Publishers Association (IPA) and the Associazione Italiana Editori (Italian Publishers Association, AIE) has welcomed news that the case against the two...

IPA interventions: Australia and Uruguay

In June 2016, the IPA made two significant international interventions, in Australia and Uruguay, to ensure the voice of publishers is heard as lawmakers try...

Threatened Georgian publishers take their case to European Court of Human Rights

Four Georgian publishers that are facing bankruptcy because of a government scheme to commandeer the textbook market took their case to the European Court of...

Israel scraps fixed book price amid political chicanery

The Knesset has this month voted to abolish Israel’s trial fixed book price law from 1 September 2016, something the Israeli Publishers Association describes as...

IPA country report: Saudi Arabia

In August 2015 the IPA General Assembly, comprising representatives from across the IPA membership, granted full member status to the Saudi Publishers Association (SPA). This...

Structural infringers: how to protect copyright without stifling innovation

In January, the US Copyright Office announced a study of Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the 1998 law in the US...

IPA tells Bangladesh conference: blame for violence belongs only to the perpetrators

The IPA has told Bangladesh’s Secretary of Culture, Aktari Mamtaz, that responsibility for the spate of violent attacks on publishers and writers lies only with...

A hope in hell: publishers throwing the lifeline of literacy to warzone children

NOTHING warms my heart more than seeing children immersed in a book, stoking their imaginations and nourishing their souls, their young faces lighting up as...

Bangladesh: IPA renews call to free publisher and curb violence

The International Publishers Association and its Freedom to Publish Committee today renewed its call for the immediate release of a 73-year-old publisher held in Dhaka...

Alaa Al Aswany: freedom to publish at all-time worst in Egypt

Intentionally or not, Egyptian police marked World Press Freedom on 3 May by raiding the Syndicate of Journalists, in Cairo, and arresting two journalists.

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What does the German copyright levy ruling mean for European publishing?

The recent German Federal Supreme Court ruling that called time on the decades-old practice of apportioning copyright levies between authors and publishers has sent shockwaves through...

Michael Fraser: powerful social forces are attacking copyright

In 1985, Professor Michael Fraser entered the complex world of copyright by accident. Having casually responded to a job ad in the Sydney Morning Herald...

Kenya: VAT on books is harming the quality of public education

Three years after the Kenyan government introduced VAT on books, the country's publishing and bookselling industries – of which educational books represent 85%...

WIPO SCCR 32: Broadcasting Treaty inches forward, Exceptions & Limitations in stasis, UN Sustainable Development Goals next up?

Carlo Scollo Lavizzari, the IPA's expert legal adviser, provides a post-mortem of the 32nd meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR)...

IPA talks to big-hitting authors Philip Pullman, Elif Shafak and Alaa Al Aswany

In an on-camera interview with the IPA (video at the foot of this page), award-winning international authors Philip Pullman, Elif Shafak and Alaa Al Aswany...

5 Seriously Dumb Myths About Copyright the Media Should Stop Repeating

Canadian novelist and poet, John Degen, who is also the Executive Director of The Writers' Union of Canada, wrote a no-nonsense piece...

Publishers take the floor at WIPO Conference on the Global Digital Content Market

Former IPA President Youngsuk 'YS' Chi and current IPA Executive Committee member Trasvin Jittidecharak took part in a publishing panel at the first World Intellectual...