Rights

A broad coalition of entertainment companies, including Sony Pictures, Disney, Paramount, MovieLabs, CableLabs, Warner Brothers, Comcast and Rovi Corporation, announced yesterday the launch of the Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR). A global cataloging system which will assign unique IDs and metadata for movies, television and other media content, EIDR is intended to help streamline digital...
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A Revenue Watch Index released on Wednesday, which measures disclosure about oil industry payments in 41 countries, may soon have access to a vast amount of data about what publicly traded companies are paying for production rights. According to a provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the Securities and Exchange Commission will issue...
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Booksellers at the New England Independent Bookseller Association fall conference, held last week in Rhode Island, were given some long-awaited hints about Google Editions, including hints on how competition in rights and royalties management may become even more important. Google Editions, the much-delayed online e-book store store which the search giant has been trying...
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At the Publishing Business Conference’s “Rethinking Author Contracts for the Digital World” panel last month, a major dilemma regarding e-book rights management and author contracts was revisited: Despite the prevalence of non-compete clauses in author contracts, many authors are venturing into e-book or multimedia agreements, risking lawsuits from their print publishers. The benchmark 2001...
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Last week Publisher’s Weekly kicked off it’s Fall discussion series with a panel called “Know Your E-book Rights.” The panel featured four panelists: Neil de Young, Executive Director, Hachette Digital; Paul Aiken, Executive Director, Authors Guild; Lloyd Jassin, attorney; and Scott Waxman, Waxman Literary Agency.  Discussion focused mainly on the financial issues related to...
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The Frankfurt Book Fair is hosting three days of events focusing on the future of the book in the digital age, beginning on October 6th.  Among other topics, the talks will include expert opinion on “E-rights and roles,” from Robert Gottlieb, Chairman of Trident Media Group, LLC. A full list of speakers is below;...
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Publishers Weekly’s fall discussion series begins on September 28 at Random House’s headquarters in New York City with a discussion on the current state, and the future of, e-book rights ownership. The event will feature four panelists — Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken, agent Scott Waxman, attorney Lloyd Jassin and Neil de Young,...
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The Summer’s biggest news story in e-book rights, and probably in book rights in general, was the feud and subsequent settlement between Random House and powerful agent Andrew Wylie.  Robert Scott Lawrence revisited the case in a blog entry over the weekend, with the added context of a 2001 case in which Random House...
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Generally speaking, primary rights include only those rights the publisher specifically intends to use, normally including the book publication rights for the original hard or soft cover edition and paperback reprint rights. On the other hand, subsidiary rights – those rights that are subsidiary to the right of publishing the literary work in book...
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As reported by copyright lawyer Lloyd J. Jassin: In a decision with implications for royalty accounting, and the publishing industry in general, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that rapper Eminem’s production company was entitled to 50% of his record label’s revenue from digital sales. The issue in F.B.T. Productions v. Aftermath...
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