Thanks. This was enlightening for me about this entire issue - one which I have followed loosely for about half a year or more
My reaction to it is this:
1. The Gibson/Macpherson statements seem well-founded. Shame on the SBT and the SoA.
2. The root of the issue is that this is a "union" whose source of funds is mainly provided by government. I assume that some revenues to these organizations ("charities" they seem to be referred to as) arrive from publishers' proceeds, but, for these purposes that is irrelevant I think.
When one depends on the largess of government, you are serfs asking for crumbs from the Lord of the estate. That is never a good place to be. For the life of me I cannot 'understand why a breakaway is not in order. In the age of the internet, publishing has many avenues to compete with monopolies.
Maybe a clean break is not deemed possible and maybe the distribution of books to schools and the like is also tightly controlled such that they won't go against the SBT and SoA.
Which suggests that your best approach is likely to be a move in Parliament. There is a structure that may be longstanding, but you are at its mercy unless you break it.
Just my thoughts. I'm probably ignorant to a lot of history, to say nothing of culture in the UK. Still ...
Thanks. This was enlightening for me about this entire issue - one which I have followed loosely for about half a year or more
My reaction to it is this:
1. The Gibson/Macpherson statements seem well-founded. Shame on the SBT and the SoA.
2. The root of the issue is that this is a "union" whose source of funds is mainly provided by government. I assume that some revenues to these organizations ("charities" they seem to be referred to as) arrive from publishers' proceeds, but, for these purposes that is irrelevant I think.
When one depends on the largess of government, you are serfs asking for crumbs from the Lord of the estate. That is never a good place to be. For the life of me I cannot 'understand why a breakaway is not in order. In the age of the internet, publishing has many avenues to compete with monopolies.
Maybe a clean break is not deemed possible and maybe the distribution of books to schools and the like is also tightly controlled such that they won't go against the SBT and SoA.
Which suggests that your best approach is likely to be a move in Parliament. There is a structure that may be longstanding, but you are at its mercy unless you break it.
Just my thoughts. I'm probably ignorant to a lot of history, to say nothing of culture in the UK. Still ...