Tell us (in 10 words or less) why metadata matters.

Good metadata helps book buyers find the content they want.

Christopher Kenneally

Christopher Kenneally is Director, Business Development, for the non-profit Copyright Clearance Center (copyright.com). He is also host and producer for CCC's podcast series, "Beyond the Book." Before joining CCC in 2001, Kenneally reported for The New York Times and WGBH-TV among many other publications and broadcast media. He is the author of Massachusetts 101.
How would you (briefly) describe your role in the industry?

Copyright Clearance Center, marking its 35th anniversary in 2013, has as its mission the creation of innovative licensing solutions for the seamless sharing of knowledge. We recognize that copyright is a complicated legal area, but we fundamentally believe that enabling copyright-based solutions should be—and can be—easy.

What big issues do you see publishers thinking and talking about these days?

These are hectic times indeed for everyone in publishing. What you worry about depends, of course, on your role and your sector. In STM, "open access" is shifting the publishing paradigm away from subscriptions and toward author services; this is creating need for a wide range of web-based processes that deliver efficiencies and scale. The newspaper business continues to confront the challenges of monetization, and is looking more closely than ever before to licensing for growth opportunities. As for books, the passage from print to digital has meant a proliferation of new forms and a hunger for new content; moving forward, publishers expect to create value in the innovative application of re-use and republication.

In this Internet age of cut and paste, is copyright under siege?

Copyright suffers most, perhaps, from a lack of understanding. The public, especially young people, are confused: Technology makes it almost too easy to copy any type of file—text, video, music, photography. Education about the important role of copyright in our "creative economy" and the impact of infringement on art, science and industry can help clear up any confusion, and help address viability for creators and publishers in the future.