After His IPA Stint: Richard Charkin on Publishing's Challenges and Promise

"There are many people who think that the world would be a better place if there weren't any copyright," he told his audience.

"Some tech companies spend a lot of money in global capitals trying to convince politicians that copyright is a barrier to progress. In fact, copyright is an enabler of progress."

He cited an IPA statistic that says 2.2 million books were published globally last year, 700,000 of them in English.
"Those books," Charkin said, "were published because the authors had copyright protection.

"Take away that protection and that number will drop. Every time governments tinker with copyright, there's a chance of an unintended-almost certainly negative-consequence."