The non-profit “Fight for the Future” — formed in 2012 to lead the successful fight against the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA) — has turned to protecting libraries from giant publishers who are trying to take away the right to loan books, particularly now that most books are published as ebooks.
For that, they are hosting an open letter from Authors for Libraries, which I was proud to sign.
They also asked authors when signing to make a statement as to why we were signing the letter. I said, “I write about the importance of thinking. Easy access to a full range of books helps people learn how to think. Schools have fallen down on the job, partly by being choked for funding, so libraries are ever more important to pick up the slack.”
FftF has purposely remained very small and tightly focused, but really know how to draw attention to issues. I hope they can make a dent here — and that’s speaking as someone who creates intellectual property protected by copyright for a living.
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