In the letter they express concern that websites offering illegal downloads of books are becoming increasingly prevalent. They argue that “online book piracy has the potential to damage the legitimate book market and make it even harder for authors to make a living from their work.”
You can read the full text of the letter and list of signatories here:
Further quotes on book piracy from SoA Council members:
Online piracy of books, music, and other expressions of the human spirit needs to be properly understood: it’s an offence against moral justice. It’s the very opposite of freedom of speech, because it acts to prevent those who create beauty, knowledge, consolation or delight from earning even a modest living from their efforts. The law of copyright is one of the bastions of civilized living, but the acid rain of online piracy is slowly dissolving something we thought was set in stone. Surely it should be a fundamental duty of any decent government to defend the rights of those who help to create what civilization is.
-Philip Pullman, SoA President
In a world in which most authors earn less than a living wage, book piracy threatens authors’ livelihoods, as well as threatening diversity, small publishers and libraries and limiting choice for readers.
-Joanne Harris
This will seriously affect both young authors just starting out and writers whose careers are nearing their end.
-Gillian Reynolds
What all these people who are used to having their music or their books for free don’t realise is that there will be an end to creativity if there is no reward to it. There’ll be no new music. No new writing. No new ideas or expressions of ideas. And piracy only helps hasten that dreary day.
-Joanna Trollope
Letter to Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Dear Mr Clark,
Online Book Piracy
We are writing regarding online book piracy. We are British authors and members of the Council of the Society of Authors.
We are concerned that websites offering illegal downloads of books are becoming increasingly prevalent. Research by the Intellectual Property Office found that a sixth of e-books read online in the UK in 2017 – around four million books – were pirated. We do not want to give any of these sites publicity by naming them here, but they can easily be found.
Authors are not asked for permission before their work appears on these sites, and they do not receive any remuneration. Authors’ earnings are in decline and many are struggling financially. A survey carried out by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) in 2018 found that the median earnings of a UK author from their writing was just £10,500 per annum.
The growth of online book piracy has the potential to damage the legitimate book market and make it even harder for authors to make a living from their work. This will harm writers and readers alike – if authors can no longer afford to write, the supply of new writing will inevitably dry up. It could also cause further damage to our library service (which does pay authors, both for the purchase of books and, through PLR, every time a book is lent), at a time when libraries are already facing cuts and closures across the country.
The UK’s great literary heritage has always been underpinned by a robust copyright regime. Unfortunately, this regime is not respected by online pirates, who flagrantly infringe copyright law by both copying our books and offering them for download. As Secretary of State whose department has responsibility for copyright and piracy, we are calling on you to take action against the blight of online book piracy.
We would be happy to meet to discuss further and we look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Pullman (President, Society of Authors)
Antony Beevor
Malorie Blackman
Tracy Chevalier
Wendy Cope
Lindsey Davis
Margaret Drabble
Maureen Duffy
Clare Francis
Antonia Fraser
Maureen Freely
Neil Gaiman
Victoria Glendinning
Philip Gross
Daniel Hahn
Joanne Harris
Tom Holland
William Horwood
Kazuo Ishiguro
Steve Jones
Penelope Lively
Hilary Mantel
Deborah Moggach
Ben Okri
Derek Parker
Ian Rankin
Piers Paul Read
Gillian Reynolds
Anne Sebba
Tom Stoppard
Joanna Trollope
Sarah Waters
Philip Ziegler
