Rights Management & Royalties

In a long-awaited first move toward U.S. copyright reform, two leaders of the House Judiciary Committee this week backed the creation of an autonomous Copyright Office.

Ask media executives about readers’ global migration to smartphones, and you can expect a chorus of groans. It’s the same lament across the newspaper, magazine and book businesses. The rise of tiny screens upends readers’ traditional habits — and clobbers ad revenue. David Risher sees things differently. He’s the president and cofounder of Worldreader, a…

Canadian national organisation Access Copyright is warning creators and publishers that 2017 royalties could fall by as much as 55% due to a reduction in revenue from the educational sector. Access Copyright represents tens of thousands of Canadian writers, visual artists and publishers and their works, to license the copying of content to educational institutions, businesses and governments, among others.

New Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden made her first big move last week, ousting Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante. In an October 21 memo, Hayden abruptly removed Pallante from the Copyright Office, which falls under Hayden’s purview, and reassigned her to a senior advisor position at the Library of Congress. Pallante, however, declined the new…

In her first major move, Librarian of Congress last week Carla Hayden removed Maria Pallante as Register of Copyrights.

According to panelists on the Publishing Perspectives Stage Thursday, possible outcomes of the UK’s vote to leave the EU include a collapse in funding for research; a drain of talented people from the European Union; and isolation from European discussions on copyright. Andy Robinson, senior vice president and managing director of Wiley’s Society Services, said…

In 2004, I struck out on my own as a consultant. I set up a website and email account that used my name in both. I set up a Google News alert so that I would get notifications when my company was mentioned on the web. And I started getting mail -- email and physical…

The days of buying software, movies, and music albums on nifty plastic discs are about over. Soon media will be obsolete. Content—streaming and on-demand delivery of entertainment and software—will reign supreme. When consumers access one of these, they will do it over the internet, and when they buy a copy, it will increasingly be stored…

When you purchase a book from a bookstore your rights to that particular stack of paper are pretty intuitive. It becomes your personal property, not much different from a t-shirt, a diamond ring, or anything else you might carry around. You can sell your book, lend it to a friend, or toss it in the…

To Beijing, a place usually associated with smog and mystery. But after a suffocating European summer, this year’s Beijing International Book Fair provided a breath of fresh air. For after the Brexit vote and the ruthless turmoil that accompanied it came an opportunity to get back to what we do best, namely sell rights, strike…