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The Frankfurt Book Fair has committed itself to bringing the set-piece "Tools of Change" conference back in 2010, despite some publishers labelling the O'Reilly-run event a "missed opportunity", geared more towards programmers than publishers.
With day one of the book fair noticeably quiet, Tuesday's TOC conference—the first outside the US—continued to set the agenda, with concern among UK publishers about a perceived DRM-free agenda as expressed by conference speaker Cory Doctorow who labelled DRM advocates "the real pirates".
Fionnuala Duggan, director of Random House Group Digital, told The Bookseller Daily: "Some of the speakers were computer programmers, who have peculiar and particular needs, and what is right for their type of publishing is not necessarily right for ours. There are broader questions that need to be answered and issues that need to be addressed before claiming that DRM-free is the answer. O'Reilly is just one of the many voices we need to listen to."
Referring to another presentation, she added: "The piracy issue was dealt with very poorly."
Sara Lloyd, digital director of Pan Macmillan, was the first keynote speaker at the conference, and has also spoken at its events in New York.
She was cautious about suggestions that O'Reilly was pushing a certain agenda, but said: "The O'Reilly perspective is quite slanted by the content and market that they serve, and that perspective shines through in their choice of speaker and subject matter." She added: "There needs to be a greater understanding of what the differences are between a computer software manual and a fiction bestseller. I'd like to see more of a consumer publishing perspective."
Thomas Minkus, vice-president of sales and marketing for FBF, said the fair was "definitely going to repeat it next year", and added that it would probably be kept separate from the fair itself.
Although FBF largely deals with the logistics of the event, leaving O'Reilly to concentrate on the programme, Minkus said Frankfurt organisers would be looking at the assessment forms filled out by attendees to "improve it for next year".
He added: "In New York, the conference is a standalone event, and so in Frankfurt we have a higher percentage of publishers. It's right that this has an impact on the programme."
No one from O'Reilly could be reached for comment.