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The Publishers Association has criticised the tactics used by the opponents of copyright, with PA chief executive Richard Mollet also stressing that publishers must provide political support for it.
Speaking at the Westminster Media Forum today (24th May), PA chief executive Richard Mollet said publishers, through the PA, must campaign "to ensure the sustained right of authors and writers to earn a living from their work and not be told by those who wish to take it without paying that it is their fundamental right to do so".
He attacked organisations such as the Open Rights Group, research councils and the British Library, who he said all to varying degrees wish to erode copyright, and the tactics of lobby groups, who have "the temerity to appropriate the language of freedom of expression as a cloak for their tawdry theft". He said it was "a grotesque attempt to draw moral equivalence between stealing someone's work and the struggle for political representation".
Mollet criticised "the audacious hyperbole in depicting the consequences of implementing laws like the Digital Economy Act, where even the simple process of sending letters to subscribers has been criticised as disproportionate".
He finished his speech by calling for a more honest approach to copyright and the need for a recognition of the fundamental property rights of creators.