Paulo Coelho on Copyright and Internet
Paulo Coelho is one of those great writers that I admire the most. He writes so well that it empowers the soul. You get inspired by the characters and you get to experience being engaged in the story’s plot. His international bestseller “The Alchemist” was his first novel that I read. Not getting enough of him, it was followed by another romantic and spiritual novel "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept". His description as Alchemist of Word is truly an apt title for all his wonderful works. His literary feat is truly of a magnificent magician.
I never thought of him as a blogger and internet enthusiast. Since it is so rare for most of my favorite authors to be seen on the cyberspace. What you could only find
online about them are the books that they've authored not even a chance to personally thank them of the inspiration and life changing influence they made to your life. But the case of Paulo Coelho is different. Thanks to the internet, particularly MYBLOGLOG for the chance of coming across him on the net and to DIGG for the video link of his keynote speech that is found at http://en.sevenload.com/videos/Pi2JT3P/DLD08-Day1-Creating-universes/sliderPage/1
Listening and watching his keynote speech made me admire him even more because of his very progressive stand on the internet and copyright. Internet should be FREE! Re-think Copyright! These are my advocacies in consonance with him. I found an ally with my favorite author on these issues.
Imagine him spending three hours on the internet to interact with his readers, he calls it “sharing the miracle of meeting people”, and even offline too, that he made an emphasis that nothing substitutes for an eye contact. That there still a need to meet with people face to face (an eye-ball with them) even though, as he noticed, the internet is affecting book business significantly on the aspect of language, copyright, social communities or authors interaction with their readers.
Claiming himself as a fan of the democratization that the internet allows, this statement is a cyber-shock call for big publishers and copyright holders, “We need to think twice the copyright idea, let us be generous, let’s share for we also get back in return. The dream of writers is to be read.”
These are other links of interest on Paulo Coelho:
An hp ad for him and hp
http://www.hp.com/united-states/coelho/2007/index.html
Link to his blog
A link to free download of his works in different languages
http://www.paulocoelho.com/engl/index.html
(new update 15 March 2008)
Very good review by Aftab Ahmad on The Alchemist
Comments
Best regards
Aftab