Publishers Address Global IP Issues, the Digital Rights Marketplace, and More

The AAP General Annual Meeting went really well. There were roughly 200 people in attendance. Since the International Publishers Association http://www.internationalpublishers.org/ was holding a global meeting in NY that same week, we also had a number of representatives from other countries’ trade associations in attendance.

The speakers were quite strong and very different from each other. Diane Ravitch explained her concerns about No Child Left Behind and how she would reinvent the public school concept; Michele Woods offered a solid understanding of what WIPO does, countries’ differing roles and how it was addressing IP issues; Richard Mollet gave a thoughtful and often entertaining presentation about the development of The Copyright Hub¸ a digital rights marketplace concept being created in the UK; and Senator Olympia Snowe spoke eloquently about the issues facing Congress and how partisanship is challenging the country’s priorities. Each speaker’s session had Q&A time and there was a lot of interesting feedback from the audience.

At the business meeting (which was at the beginning of the day), Ron Dunn turned over the AAP Board Chair gavel to Carolyn Reidy and the AAP budget for next fiscal year was voted in.