Le Web ’08 – Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho in the past refused to give rights in order to make films from his books but, starting with the Witch of Portobello he started a project. Coelho has asked aspiring filmmakers to tell the tale from the point of view of one of the 13 characters in the book. He had an impressive response, with some hundreds of music and movies to select from.

Coelho thinks that privacy, from the book author perspective, should be stimulated. People can’t read online, so they download books but eventually buy the printed copy.

For this reason he decided to put on his site some full texts so that one can “pirate” his books. He only owns the right for the Portuguese version: sometimes readers translate books that are not translated yet.

Being tolerant about the usage of his books let him sell more.

The goal of every writer is to share his works.

He is sure that a period of recession will make people understand the real value of free and of the social networks and new ways  of communication.

Paulo Coelho – Author