Armitage fears online poetry piracy
One of Britainâs top poets has warned that the growing popularity of ebooks is threatening to put writers out of business. Simon Armitage told a book festival in India that making books available in digital form means authors could find their works being shared for free.
Armitage said that the growing use of iPad and Kindle devices meant that âan author could have worked for three years on his book, have someone buy it for their Kindle for ÂŁ6.99 and then see it shared with everyone in the world for free. How does that add up to a living?â
Armitage added that he hoped many serious readers would still like to own a physical copy of books, and despite his sense of foreboding about the financial implications of digital publishing, said he was âludicrously optimisticâ about the future of poetry as an art form.
He said that poets would always be needed to combat the âoverinformationâ he says people suffer from these days. He also claimed that poetry is an act of dissent that would never enter the mainstream: âYou've never got on a bus and found everyone reading poetry.â Armitage added that poets were âthe awkward squadâ of society. âIf poetry was a frontline art form and everyone was doing it, I wouldn't be.â
Peter Asher
Wed 30th Nov 2011 12:43
I'm all for poetry being accessible, in the publishing sense. If someone wants to make a living out of an art form then they're on a loser from the start. How many poets do actually make a living out of their poems? Not many. so we're not talking here about a mass of people being deprived of a crust. And what about libraries? They have by their very nature been a source of free books for the masses, but now weâre deploying the closure of them.To conclude I donât agree with Simon. Heâs an artist and as such he must âsufferâ for it. And by the way I posses and have read over 1000 books not to mention those Iâve begged, borrowed and lent from a library. And NO I donât down-load books and I canât understand how anyone can read a âbookâ on a computer screen or Kindle or any form of faddish electro device. Simon buy shares in Kindle if you want to make money.