Peter Brantley“I wouldn’t say I’m concerned about the future of authors,” Peter Brantley tells Chris Kenneally, “but I think that authors have something to be concerned about as we move into a digital future.”

The director of the Internet Archive’s BookServer project, a not-for-profit digital library, and a co-founder of the Open Book Alliance, Brantley shares insights on the perils for authors hoping to “navigate and arbitrate what their rights are to recreate their product in a digital environment.”

With the excitement and freedom of digital publishing, Brantley warns, there remains a need to remain watchful. “It’s not just that authors [now] have an opportunity to create trans-media works that are new and fresh with new material,” he notes. “They also have an opportunity to create trans-media works that are new and fresh from old material. And, again, trying to work through how those things are created, distributed and how the rights are arbitrated for that content, is a big challenge.

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