I am pleased to announce In re Books, a conference on law and the future of books to be held at New York Law School on October 26 and 27. It will feature a wide-ranging conversation among authors, publishers, librarians, readers, and scholars about how law inflects all aspects of the creation, distribution, and consumption of books—and how these laws should change as the digital transition upends publishing. There will be panels devoted to electronic rights, the publishing industry, the future of libraries, readers’ rights, orphan books and mass digitization, and the long view on the history and future of books. There are more hot topics than I can list, from U.S. v. Apple to the first sale cases at the Supreme Court, from fair use to collective licensing, from reader privacy to the perennially fraught author-publisher relationship. Like our previous conference, D is for Digitize, In re Books will be an opportunity for wide-ranging, thoughtful, and good-faith conversation among all of us who share an interest in the written word.
The conference website at nyls.edu/inrebooks is live, and we’ll be adding information about the program and registration in the weeks to come. I look forward to seeing you all there!