Culture

The Future of Books and Copyright

This past weekend, just before the hurricane, I attended In Re Books, a conference about law and the future of the book convened by James Grimmelmann at the New York Law School. Playing the role of Luddite intruder among the futurologists, I gave a talk about the hazard that digitization may pose to research and preservation. Though there were a few librarians, leaders of nonprofits, and even writers present, most of my fellow conference attendees were lawyers who specialize in copyright, and I discovered that copyright lawyers see the world rather differently than do the writer-editor types with whom I usually rub shoulders. They don't expect publishing as I know it to be around much longer, for one thing. I thought I'd try to write up my impressions of the time I spent in their company. Please keep in mind that I'm not a lawyer myself. I'm just a visitor who went to the fair.