Copyright is undergoing serious scrutiny and pressure these days. Some describe the copyright system as “flawed” in a recently published Copyright Manifesto. A draft own-initiative report presented to the European Parliament by MEP Julia Reda earlier this year calls for more exceptions and limitations without any compensation for rightsholders. A handful are interested in having us all accept as common sense the non-obvious concept that copyright needs to be fixed and modernized. And governing bodies in Brazil, Australia, Indonesia, the UK, Poland, Spain and the European Union have been discussing or have recently passed copyright law reforms.

Critics frequently claim that, in addition to restraining access to knowledge, copyright stifles creativity and impedes innovation. This idea is preposterous when one thinks of the numerous ways in which copyright actually stimulates creativity and innovation. The publishing industry offers a number of good examples of this, whether in the publication of scholarly works, newspapers and magazines, or trade and children’s books.

We are facing one of the very unique aspects of what I called “the copyright conundrum” in a presentation I gave a few weeks ago at the London Book Fair. There, I said the publishing industry—built on creativity, inspiration, and innovation—now stands accused of holding onto outmoded models purely for survival’s sake.

I fully agree with Henk Scheenstra and Jojanneke van der Noordt when they state digitization has not reduced, but rather has increased, the need for the protection of copyright, and I support Laurence Kaye in his challenging the assumption that copyright law in its current form is a barrier to innovation.

Ultimately, we need a fair and balanced copyright system that (1) protects exclusive rights, (2) streamlines ways to license these rights through efficient business models that make it easy for consumers to access and use content lawfully, and (3) allows room for appropriate exceptions and limitations that should always stay exceptional and not harm the rightsholders’ ability to continue innovating and continue creating and producing new works. Such a system would be a positive force for economic and cultural progress everywhere.