International Publishers Association president Gvantsa Jobava listens to a colleague’s points during the April 28 Abu Dhabi International Book Fair conference ‘Digitizing Creativity.’ The IPA is this year has collaborated with ADIBF on its creation of this new conference. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
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‘We Must Continue To Evolve New Digital Advances’
Here at the 34th annual Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, the most powerful moment in the inaugural event of the “Digitizing Creativity” conference came from Gvantsa Jobava, the president of International Publishers Association (IPA).
“Publishing has been digital for many years already,” Jobava said.
“It’s not something really new for us, and we must continue to evolve new digital advances. If we look at accessibility, for instance,” meaning accessibility for reading-challenged citizens, “we see nowadays that people already have access to many more books than in the past. We have this development now; we have this change for better.
“And with the European Accessibility Act” going into force in two months, on June 28, many more publishers, of course, will be encouraged to make their books more accessible. So that means that books will become better for all of us, not just for visually impaired people but for each of us.”
What Jobava had done is to cut through the traditional atmospherics that can surround the great digital context in which much of publishing does indeed exist and move forward today.
If that frank recognition can remain within reach this week during the new conference’s sessions—yes, even while discussing the extensive government-policy difficulties that animate generative AI and its raids on the content—then publishing players in these audiences (today’s “Community Stage ” auditorium was packed) can begin to see opportunity, not all threat, in the broadest concept of “digitization.”
Jobava—a publisher based at Intelekti in Tbilisi—is a formidably serious onstage panelist, despite the infectious sense of humor known by many who work with her. The session was supportive of what she had referred to as a “bright picture,” one reflective of what world book publishing must pursue in working through its challenges, especially in digital issues, which support so much of the industry.
Bringing the international book industry forward—this might be called no market left behind, to paraphrase a great line from education—lies in the domain of the International Publishers Association as a kind of third pillar, alongside the official focal points of copyright and the freedom to publish.
‘Thie Transformation, Which We Find Necessary’
Dr. Ali Bin Tamim, who directs the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair as chair of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, speaks at one of the opening events of the week’s fair before joining the panel on April 28 in inaugurating the new “Digitizing Creativity” conference. Image: ADIBF
Dr. Ali Bin Tamim, who directs the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair as chair of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, had touched on the kind of language than can make it harder for some marketplaces to come to terms even with the great assists provided to publishing by the digital dynamic.
He referred to “this transformation, which we find necessary,” as a means of getting everyone immediately past the is-there-an-alternative? dodge. What digital can and does do daily, of course is sell Abu Dhabi’s books in New Delhi; put their audiobook editions into the ears of readers in New York City; throw their screen adaptations onto the small screens of a world’s streaming networks and onto the large screens of that world’s cinemas; all while printing the UAE’s best works many continents away for immediate sale in Pacific Rim bookstores.
‘The Policy Space Needs To Be Reserved for the Humans’
Dimiter Gantchev, deputy director and senior manager for copyright in the creative industries sector at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva (WIPO), speaks at Abu Dhabi International Book Fair’s ‘Digitizing Creativity: The Beginning of an Era’ conference about how the creative sector forms ‘an economy which develops about 2.5 times faster than the rest of the economy.’ Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
Another especially effective speaker was Dimiter Gantchev, who is the deputy director and senior manager for copyright in the creative industries sector at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva (WIPO).
Gantchev immediately aligned himself with Abdul Rahman Al Maeeni, the assistant under-secretary on intellectual property rights with the UAE economic ministry.
Al Maeeni, Gantchev pointed out, had said “that the creative economy is part of our everyday life already.”
Gantchev went on to enrich that essential understanding, saying that the creative sector forms “an economy which develops about 2.5 times faster than the rest of the economy. This is where the most dynamic developments are happening, and this is the economy of the future.
“And within this creative economy,” he said, “the publishing industry is a core creative sector. It is the biggest employer worldwide within the creative sector, and it is the second-largest value generator among the creative industries. The UAE has been doing studies, and they have confirmed this trend, also in this country, publishing is a core creative industry, and that is why it’s so important to discuss the possibilities, opportunities, and challenges of the publishing industry.”
“How much are we going to enable technology to take over, and to what extent are we going to safeguard copyright as the basis for the development of the creative sector?”Dimiter Gantchev
Gantchev pointed out that it’s in the realities of policy, governmental control, and commercial interests, that the key stressors are found.
“How much are we going to enable technology to take over,” he asked, “and to what extent are we going to safeguard copyright as the basis for the development of the creative sector? This is the big policy issue.
“There are many technologies which are being used out there, but we need to control them and not let them take the policy space. The policy space needs to be reserved for the humans and the author remains at the heart of creativity. That’s extremely important to mention,” he said.
“The question now is, of course, to develop and to use technologies which are enabling those innovative licensing models for publishers to be able to survive in this digital environment which is so competitive. So that’s the real issue: how to create intelligent licensing solutions, and how to deal with the march of those non-legal forms which are also taking more and more space in the in the digital world.”
‘Finding the Right Solutions’
This, of course, is the realm of the AI debate that today is the most acute and in some markets, including the United States, has led to extensive, costly, and often vexing legal battles in efforts to protect copyrighted content.
“It is really about finding the right solutions,” Santchev said, “the solutions that will enable the creators to benefit from their creative work, so that they have stimuli to continue to create. Otherwise, there is there’s going to be a very difficult future for All of us.”
Speaking for the UAE, Al Maeeni said that he’s hopeful that Santchev and WIPO will work with the Digitizing Creativity initiative.
Session moderator Ameera Ali Bukadra and Abdul Rahman Al Maeeni in the opening session of ‘Digitizing Creativity: The Beginning of an Era’ at Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
That’s something with which the longtime Cairo-based president of the Arab Publishers Association, Mohamed Rashad, also made his approval of the project known and added that the United States’ Association of American Publishers led by CEO Maria A. Pallante (a former US Register of Copyright) has a leading presence in many of the US court cases, the results of which can be instructive in many more markets of the world on copyright and AI.
Ameera Ali Bukadra was the gracious and welcoming host and moderator of the session.
She’s the chair of the board at the Emirates Publishers Association, and made sure that this new series of talks in the arena of digitization has the best chance of that “bright” potential that Jobava had described. Getting the international book-publishing
Speakers in the ‘Digitizing Creativity Conference Opening Session’ on April 28 at Abu Dhabi International Book Fair are, from left, moderator Ameera Ali Bukadra; Abdul Rahman Al Maeeni; Gvantsa Jobava; Mohamed Rachad; and Dimiter Gantchev. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
Programming note:
In another part of the collaboration between the Abu Dhabi program and the International Publishers Association on the
José Borghino
“Digitizing Creativity” events, José Borghino, the IPA’s secretary-general, speaks on Tuesday (April 39) at 3 p.m. Gulf Time in a conference session called The Digital Impact on the Arts.
Borghino will be joined in this one by Najoom Al Ghanem, a poet, artist, and film director; Momamed El Bassiouni, the co-founding managing director of Tayarah World Digital Content; and moderator Fatima Omar, manager of the department of culture and tourism’s Al Marsam Al Hor.
More from Publishing Perspectives on digital publishing, one of our most heavily covered topics, is here; more on artificial intelligence (AI) is here; more from years of our specialized coverage on the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair is here; more on publishing conferences is here; and more on international book fairs and trade shows in the world publishing industry is here.
The advent of the new Digitizing Creativity conference does not supplant the three-year-old Abu Dhabi International Congress of Arabic Publishing and Creative Industries—held for the past three years at the opening of the fair and this year not onstage in that time frame. The “Congress PCI,” as it’s called, in its upcoming fourth year has been repositioned to September 14 and 15. As more on that presentation plan is announced, we’ll of course have it for you promptly.
Publishing Perspectives is the world media partner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award and of the International Publishers Association.