Jammie Thomas

The Americans tend to be much more heavy-handed in defending copyright than say the Europeans. I only just caught up with what was happening to Jammie Thomas thanks to T-post.

The publishing industry needs to avoid a heavy handed pursuit of the individuals in an eBook world if it wants to win the hearts and minds of consumers. The British PA president Simon Allen said recently: " We won't be interested in a single consumer - more when we see people going about [piracy] in an organized and concerted way. We have to be careful not to be seen protecting our own turf in a very old-fashioned way - just protecting our interests." (In a marketing sense: who'd choose to make a single mother who is also a native American as the example in a test case?)

PS Allen also said the end of territoriality would shift English-language publishing to the big players in the US. & he identified the problem (presumably no longer a "problem" here if the PIRs are lifted) of "leakage": low-costs editions from emerging markets being sold into higher-cost Western markets.