Exercising Your Rights
Publishers of all sizes have to manage detailed and vital information about the rights they own, the rights they have sold, and the royalties they either owe or are owed. It can be a significant accounting undertaking. Especially with the burgeoning digital marketplace, book publishers are increasingly redistributing their content in any number of ways and thus, generating additional revenue––as well as the need to manage additional rights and royalties.
Fortunately, there are a number of solutions on the market today, from services that help publishers license their content to those that help automate the tracking and payments process to save time and hassle, and eliminate errors.
Services for Licensing Content
“We work with a lot of book publishers,” notes Douglas Black, public relations manager at the not-for-profit Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). CCC offers several licensing arrangements—corporate, academic and international—as well as Rightslink, a service that enables publishers to expand their rights and permissions business by offering reprints and reuse permissions to online customers.
“The annual copyright license is our most popular service,” Black adds. “… There are literally thousands of publishers participating who have consented to share rights through this program. Corporations that buy the annual license are preauthorized to use any of the content under that licensing umbrella.”
Facilitating the relationship between content providers and content users is what drove Michael O’Donnell—who had previously started CompuServe, one of the early ISPs—to found iCopyright.com.
“We found that publishers … were very interested in getting their content online, but soon realized that once it was there, it was very easy … for people to take it …,” O’Donnell says. “Publishers began to ask, ‘… How can we communicate with people that they just can’t take content and do anything they want with it? …’ I thought, well, we could build a system for that … .”
iCopyright.com facilitates a number of relationships between content owners and content users. “It’s very time-consuming and bothersome for publishers to handle somewhat routine permissions requests. So, the first group of services that we provide are automatic permission grants …,” says O’Donnell. The company also provides instant licensing services and handles custom licensing requests.
iCopyright.com earns a commission percentage on closed deals, which O’Donnell says is typically between 5 percent and 10 percent, which it uses to cover its operating expenses. There are some modest fees to publishers, but says O’Donnell, “For more than 90 percent of our publishing partners, we’re sending them checks; they don’t owe us anything.”
One of the first questions O’Donnell fields from publishers is, “How much money can I make by licensing my content?” The answer is largely dependent on variables such as: the type and amount of content published; brand recognition; audience; click-thru and sell-thru rates; types of licenses offered; and pass-along value of the content, among others. “Once we know these variables, we can project how much revenue a publisher is likely to earn,” O’Donnell suggests.
Saving Time and Relationships
“… If you send out a royalties statement or payment that’s incorrect, your contributors will likely be pretty upset,” quips Linda Reiss, director of sales for solutions provider Vista International. “… It’s critical that when they gain an author, they can support and retain the relationship.”
The Media Services Group Ltd. (MSGL) has four technologies that help publishers manage rights and royalties. Taking the best-of-breed capabilities of each of its three legacy systems, MSGL has spent years, according to Dan Pelligrini, director of corporate marketing, developing a brand-new application, Élan Rights & Royalties, which he says “is feature-rich.” “We’re even able to help publishers do things like manage fractional royalties and aggregate content,” he notes. “They can sell songs or recipes or other types of media and content—or they can build compilations and track the contracts for all the elements.”
When New York-based Guilford Press sought to replace its rights and royalties solutions with a newer, more efficient workflow, David Mitchell, director of business management and subsidiary rights, recalls that the goal was to integrate permissions with a rights system.
“Our rights and permission business has been growing in the past several years. In fact, we replaced two systems with one from Bradbury Phillips,” Mitchell says.
Guilford Press’ new rights and royalties system went live in late 2006. “We are saving significant staff time …,” Mitchell confides. “…We went into the purchase thinking we would save enough in three years to justify it. I think we’ll find, in time, the ROI [return on investment] will be better than that.”
Publishers would be well-served to look for a rights and royalties developer that can offer more than technical support for the software.
“We’ve encountered many situations in which we discovered, as we began working with the customer, that royalties payments, for example, weren’t as accurate as they should have been,” Vista’s Reiss says. “And we helped them with the workflow, to ensure that the terms and rules laid out in their royalty contracts match the rules they’re creating in the royalties system. Just recently, we worked with a mid-sized publisher that simply didn’t have the expertise or the time to input all of their data into the system, so we actually reviewed the contracts with the customer and entered all of their information into the system for them.”
Which Publishers Could Benefit From a Solution?
Reiss says that there is no “model” book publisher, no single demographic of customer, eligible for a rights and royalties solution.
“For example, the smallest customer using our royalty package brings in approximately $1 million in annual revenues. Our largest customers have revenues exceeding several million dollars,” she explains. “They’re pretty different, also, in terms of what they publish. Many sell books; others may sell music, electronic publications or other digital content.”
Anna Roe, marketing manager, Klopotek North America, says Klopotek’s customers share only a desire to provide better author care, improve their rights management and increase their ability to generate more revenue. “Over the last four years, we have invested several million dollars in expanding the capabilities of the system to embrace all types of publishing and also offer it as a hosted, ASP solution, which significantly reduces the up-front implementation costs,” she says.
When choosing a solution to manage rights and royalties, it’s important to consider the unique nature of publishing, suggests MSGL’s Pelligrini. “Often, with royalties, publishers may be using simple [Microsoft] Excel spreadsheets, and they’re able to run a limited number of reports,” he says. “But when you look at the core of the publishing business, it’s really unlike any other industry. Those software applications are not necessarily applicable … I really believe, for many years, most publishers have been underserved by the software systems they have—specifically in the rights and royalties area.”
Rights and Royalties
Solutions
Here are some of the leading rights and royalties management solutions and services on the market:
Bradbury Phillips
International Ltd.
Solutions: Rights 2000, Authors’ Royalties System
Features: Rights 2000 is a rights-management solution for publishers, packagers and agents, designed to manage details about submissions, contracts and sub-rights monies, as well as provide extensive reporting capabilities.
The Authors’ Royalties System is a standalone system designed to enable publishers to accurately calculate royalties and produce statements for authors, as well as manage detailed information on multiple authors and payees; calculate royalties based on net sales, published price or cost per copy; and manage sub-rights income, author expenses and advance payments.
Publishing Customers Include: Holtzbrinck Publications, Guilford Press, Shambhala Publications
Price: $3,500 to $40,000 for Rights 2000, and $4,500 to $40,000 for Authors’ Royalties System, both dependent upon number of titles and users.
Phone: 44 20-8202-0903
URL: www.BradburyPhillips.co.uk
Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Solutions: Corporate Licensing and Permissions, Academic Licensing and Permissions, International Licensing and Permissions, Rightslink
Features: Copyright Clearance Center aims to help publishers reach new audiences, increase impact and maximize revenue with several licensing arrangements (corporate, academic and international) and Rightslink, a service that enables publishers to expand their rights and permissions business by offering reprints and reuse permissions to online customers.
Publishing Customers Include: O’Reilly Media Inc., Elsevier
Price: Not available for publication.
URL: www.Copyright.com
CyberWolf Inc.
Solution: Acumen Book
Features: Acumen Book is an integrated business-management system for book publishers. It’s based on a client-server architecture, capable of operating on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Among the core solution’s capabilities are: general ledger, inventory, accounts payable/receivable, job costing and royalty management.
Publishing Customers Include: Not available for publication.
Price: Not available for publication.
Phone: (505) 983-6463
URL: www.AcumenBook.com
Datasystem Solutions Inc.
Solution: MultiPub
Features: The MultiPub solution manages subscriptions and product sales, and offers consolidated renewals and invoices, sophisticated group processing, P/L analysis for promotions and more. A Royalties Module may be added.
Publishing Customers Include: Not available for publication.
Price: Not available for publication.
Phone: (919) 362-8989
URL: www.MultiPub.com
Global Turnkey Systems Inc.
Solution: Unison
Features: Unison is an integrated publishing system that may be complemented with the Unison Royalty Processing module, which enables users to combine titles on royalty statements; select and print by royalty frequency; define minimum check amounts; and display all royalty information on-the-fly. The module can also automatically transfer data to the accounts payable system.
Publishing Customers Include: Tyndale House Publishers, Orbis Books, Aircraft Technical Publishers
Price: Not available for publication.
Phone: (800) 524-2132
URL: www.GTSystems.com
iCopyright.com
Solution: iCopyright.com
Features: iCopyright is designed to help publishers sell reprints, license content and attract new readers. The service also provides Web analytics and daily reports on who is using the content and where it is sold.
Publishing Customers Include: Associated Press, Cygnus Business Media
Price: Not available for publication.
Phone: (206) 484-8561
URL: www.iCopyright.com
IPRO Business Systems
Solution: iPUB
Features: iPUB is an integrated solution that manages transactions and processes for publishers, including inventory, back-order, warehouse, vendor returns, accounts receivables and royalties management, among other functions.
Publishing Customers Include: Regent Book Co., Vanwell Publishing
Price: Two pricing models are available: Volume pricing at $65/month plus $.06 per book sold, and fixed-rate pricing at $7,500 plus maintenance.
Phone: (866) 897-4782
URL: www.iPubTech.com
JDC Software
Solution: That’s Rights! 2.5
Features: That’s Rights! for rights sellers is designed to enable publishers to maintain contacts and customer information. It provides a repository for title information and bibliographic data, as well as a tool for managing information about quotes, negotiations, license agreements, advances and fees, and royalty statements.
Publishing Customers Include: Ten Speed Press, Highlights for Children, Workman Publishing Company
Price: $750 to $9,100 (single-user, two-or-more-user and unlimited site licenses available).
Phone: 44 207-681-2014
URL: www.ThatsRights.com
Klopotek North America
Solution: Contracts, Rights & Royalties (CR&R)
Features: Klopotek’s CR&R is designed to be integrated with any enterprise resource planning (ERP)-type system, and can be implemented independent of other Klopotek applications, or as part of an overall end-to-end solution for managing production and distribution processes.
Publishing Customers Include: Pearson, HarperCollins, Wolters Kluwer
Price: Not available for publication.
Phone: (212) 782-1182
URL: www.Klopotek.com
MetaComet Systems, LLC
Solution: Royalty Tracker
Features: The Royalty Tracker System is an enterprise-class, Sarbanes-Oxley-compliant contract, rights and royalties system designed for rapid implementation and integration with all major accounting and title-management systems. It is designed to process complex contracts and generate automated reports to assist management, ensure compliance and balance ledgers.
Publishing Customers Include: Rowman & Littlefield, Taylor & Francis
Price: $100,000 to $1 million (dependent upon implementation variables)
Phone: (413) 536-5989
URL: www.MetaComet.com
The Media Services Group Ltd.
Solutions: The Cat’s Pajamas, Élan Rights & Royalties, BookWorks (now Élan Book) and CISPub
Features: The Cat’s Pajamas is designed to help small- to medium-size publishers automate the application of different rates to different types of sales (foreign, domestic, high discount, book club, etc.), base rates on multiple-unit escalators, and calculate rates based on list or net price, a flat dollar-per-unit sold, or an adjusted net amount.
Élan Rights & Royalties combines the features of all MSGL’s rights and royalties products (BookWorks, CISPub and The Cat’s Pajamas) with enhancements for managing rights sales, royalties for fractional content sales (e.g., chapters or pieces of digital content), advanced contract templating, reserve for returns, multicurrency, cash and accrual accounting, unlimited escalation rules, sales-channel definitions, tracking of rights options through contracts, and receipts.
BookWorks/Élan Book is designed to manage rights and royalties contracts, with multi-contributor, complex escalation rules and multicontract management.
CISPub is designed for complete royalties management with integrated sales and accounting.
Publishing Customers Include: McFarland, Chelsea Green, Presbyterian Publishing House, Carus Publishing
Price: From $9,000 for The Cat’s Pajamas; from $25,000 (or $900/month to license the software) for Élan Rights and Royalties, and BookWorks/Élan Book; and from $25,000 for CISPub.
Phone: For The Cat’s Pajamas: (800) 827-2287. For other solutions: (877) 870-5800, ext. 102.
URL: www.TCPJ.com, www.MSGL.com, www.CISPub.com
Quality Solutions Inc.
Solution: QSI Contract Management Module
Features: The QSI Contract Management Module manages contract information, author information, territories, key dates, advance terms, royalty rates and sub-rights information. Contract information may be merged into legal documents, cash-flow reports, sub-rights deal sheets and more.
Publishing Customers Include: Not available.
Price: Not available for publication.
Phone: (800) 779-7345; (978) 465-7755
URL: www.QSolution.com
Real Software Systems
Solution: Alliant
Features: Rights management and royalties accounting support for the media, entertainment and sciences industries. Features include: User-defined fields to track customer-specific information categories, user-defined royalty rules and terms, contract-management workflow, data-integration tools for integration to multiple upstream and downstream systems, and management information for content aggregators.
Publishing Customers Include: Houghton Mifflin, Thomson Corporation, Reader’s Digest Association
Price: Price points available for small and large enterprises.
Phone: (818) 313-8000
URL: www.RealSoftwareSystems.com
Trilogy Group, Ltd.
Solution: Title Manager
Features: Title Manager is designed to enable full control of the contract process, including the set-up of rights details, as well as permissions, options, bids, author contracts and royalties arrangements.
Publishing Customers Include: Not available.
Price: Not available for publication.
Phone: 44 1242-222-132
URL: www.TrilogyGroup.com
Vista International (a division of Publishing Technology)
Solution: Vista Rights & Royalties
Features: The Rights & Royalties solution is designed to help publishers manage complex royalties calculations, including multiple-payee, multiple-author and multiple-title contracts—each with varying terms. It also provides product rights summaries, accruals and sales processing, and contract amortization. An expanded Rights Module also is available.
Publishing Customers Include: Kaplan, Sterling Publishing
Price: It can be provided either as a hosted (managed by Vista) or locally installed system. For hosted solutions, Vista provides all hardware, software, training and support services for a monthly fee that can be as low as $2,000. The final cost for the installed solution (hosted by the customer) is determined by several factors, including number of users, volume, complexity of contracts, and the amount of data conversion and interface customization required.
Phone: (732) 563-9292
URL: www.VistaComp.com
Gretchen A. Peck is a freelance author who writes about the international printing and publishing industries.
- Companies:
- Bradbury Phillips Intl. Ltd.
- CompuServe
- Copyright Clearance Center
- CyberWolf Inc.
- Datasystem Solutions Inc.
- Elsevier Health Sciences
- Global Turnkey Systems
- HarperCollins
- IPRO Business Systems/iPub
- IPub
- Kaplan
- Klopotek
- Klopotek North America Inc.
- Metacomet
- Pearson Company
- Presbyterian Publishing
- Quality Solutions
- Ten Speed Press
- The Associated Press
- The Media Services Group Ltd.
- Time Inc.
- Trilogy Group Ltd.
- Tyndale House
- Vista International
- Wolters Kluwer
- Workman
- Places:
- New York
- North America