World Days for Books, Copyright and IP

April comes with two big world days for publishing - World Book and Copyright Day, held on 23 April under the auspices of UNESCO, and World Intellectual Property Day held on 26 April under the auspices of WIPO. A number of IPA members celebrated books and copyright on these occasions.

IPA past President, Hugo Setzer, wroteabout the origins of World Book Day while IPA Secretary General, José Borghino, and our French member, SNE, celebratedStrasbourg as the new UNESCO World Book Capital city.

Artificial Intelligence was a recurrent theme with Maria Pallante, the President and CEO of our US member, AAP, co-signing a powerful piece in The Hill.

Our French member, SNE, also published a series of posts around AI and publishing:

Les IA continuent d'utiliser des contenus protégés par le droit d'auteur pour entraîner leurs logiciels. Stop ! Ils doivent d'abord vérifier si les ayants droits n'ont pas exprimé de refus et envisager des accords contractuels et une rémunération de ces derniers. #worldbookdaypic.twitter.com/F60ee5Btq6

- Syndicat national de l'édition (@SNEedition) April 23, 2024

Post 1,Post 2, Post 3, and Post 4.

In Sweden and Canada our members, Svenska Förläggareföreningen, ANEL and ACP took advantage of World Book and Copyright Day to highlight the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on publishing through a number of posts on Facebook:

In Brazil, there was a brilliant campaign under #diamundialdolivro2024 about books and publishing organised by CBL, SNEL, Abrelivros and IPA, shared through this post on LinkedIn.

Our Bangladeshi member used World Book Day to celebrate books as a source of inspiration for future generations, as reported in the Daily Sun.

Finally, our European member, the FEP, alongside other book sector organisations, secured a victory in the European Parliament at a vote on the Late Payments Directive. You can read more about that here.