I was particularly intrigued by the presentation of Ana Maria Cabanellas (second left), who runs Argentina's Editorial Heliasta publishing house. I hope that Cabanellas' lucid presentation, which spoke of the growing threat of the digital piracy throughout Latin America, acts as a wake-up to the ostriches in the publishing business who refuse to accept the catastrophic consequences of digital piracy.

All book people need to do is look at the dilemma of their cousins in the recorded music business. The CD came first because it was easiest to pirate. As broadband pipes got thicker, so the movie business is now encountering its own perfect digital storm. And now the book business is about to get hit by the digital pirates who will exploit all the latest peer-to-peer technology to peddle their criminal activities.

Can the reproduced book survive as the core value in the publishing economy? I doubt it. In the long run, publishers and writers have to figure out ways to monetize their business outside the sale of physical books. And that's really bad news for both readers and writers. 

Imagine having no Pamuk to read. It's not hard to do. That's the very concrete consequence of a digital future where the book has lost its economic value.