Constituency MP Name MP Email Your Name Your Email Your House Number Your Street Your City Your Postcode Subject Campaign Message I am writing to you as a constituent to raise concern about a post-Brexit copyright law consultation outcome by the UK government. I would please ask that you write to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ask him to protect the UK copyright system to support author incomes, publishing companies and the wider book trade. This consultation outcome carries huge risk for the sector and all readers will lose out if the Government makes the wrong decision. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has recently consulted on the UK’s future copyright exhaustion regime. The exhaustion regime allows UK rightsholders to price appropriately for international markets and stops the unauthorised importing of international copies of books into the UK, undercutting the domestic market. This copyright protection is crucial for UK authors selling their works abroad. If the IPO consultation decides to remove any copyright border for parallel imports into the UK, in what is termed an ‘international exhaustion regime’, authors will not be able to stop their copies from around the world being sold in the UK. This will erode domestic sales where the majority of UK author income comes from. In light of the difficulties authors have faced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, this would be disastrous. In a worst-case scenario, an international regime could also cost the UK book publishing industry up to 25% of its print revenue – or almost £1bn – in turn prompting publishers to take fewer risks when it comes to acquisitions. Put simply, international exhaustion means fewer books, by fewer authors, for fewer readers. It would also benefit online retailers and big tech at the cost of the British high street, and seriously reduce UK export power. We urge the government to avoid a radical shift to the way the book industry operates, avoiding an international regime and maintaining the current exhaustion model. I would be very grateful if you could raise this serious concern with the government, and join the campaign to #SaveOurBooks. Thank you very much. Message I'm happy for you to store my email address and contact me about the campaign in future. More details about how we use your data in our privacy notice.

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