Rights and Royalties

In the digital age, new rights opportunities surface all the time, and the mechanisms for taking advantage of those opportunities—from both the buy and sell sides—are constantly evolving. Agents and publishers today are faced with legacy contracts, outmoded technology and processes, overburdened rights staffs, and often the perception of the rights department as a cost center rather than a revenue generator.

The Rights & Royalties program is for agents and publishing rights, permissions, and legal staff looking to free up staff time, improve workflow, and realize new revenue opportunities for their companies and clients.

Rights and Royalties Speed-Dating
The Rights and Royalties Management sector also features a round robin “ask the experts” session in which attendees will break into smaller groups for specific question-and-answer sessions with leading vendors and select industry leaders. Participants rotate through “speed-dating” sessions of their choice. During the 15-minute date, the vendors will provide a summary of their services, answer questions, and collect contact information for future follow up. “Experts” will answer whatever questions attendees raise at their sessions.

September 26th

Rights and Royalties

2:50 pm - 3:05 pm: What Makes a Good Permissions Operation

Ken Brooks, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain Management, McGraw-Hill

Permissions is a core activity for all publishers: getting them to put photos or citations in a book and granting them for free or for fees to others who would use material from their books. It is also an activity with two persistent characteristics that make it require new attention: permissions work  is highly resistant to automation and the number of permissions decisions required -- inbound and outbound -- is growing relentlessly.

Ken Brooks, now overseeing the global supply chain as a Vice-President at McGraw-Hill and previously an executive with Cengage, Barnes & Noble, Simon & Schuster, and Bantam Doubleday Dell, as well as the founder of a digital solutions provider called Publishing Dimensions, offers a new view of this knotty and unavoidable function. Ken will review the reasons permissions activity has become more painful and propose a range of new solutions that range from policy changes to automation assistance to selective outsourcing.  For every publisher that has seen its cost of permissions management rise while simultaneously seeing its undone permissions work pile ever higher, this will be a session with very high value.

3:05 pm - 3:45 pm: Developing a Rights Department for the Digital Age

Ashley Mabbitt, Assistant Director, Global Rights, John Wiley and Sons
Becky Hemperly, VP, Contracts, Rights & Royalties, Candlewick Press
Julie Trelstad, Director, Digital Rights, Writers House
John Rodzvilla, Senior-Electronic-Publisher in Residence, Emerson College
Bill Smith, Director, Domestic Rights/Director, Digital Partner Development, The Perseus Book Group/Constellation Digital Services

This panel of publishers and an agent are building rights databases, improving their metadata practices, systematically tagging content, making their contracts and terms more consistent, and making use of automated rights-licensing services. They are finding ways to raise revenues and cut costs in this growing area of their business, and they will share their experiences and lessons learned for publishers just getting started.

3:45 pm - 5:00 pm - Rights & Royalties Management Speed-Dating

James Hill, VP Sales and Marketing, Firstsource Solutions, Inc.

In this series of 15-minute meetings, small groups of attendees will be able to get their questions answered by leading service providers and industry experts. Rights and permissions staff, agents, and other key operators can better understand and evaluate the full range of supports available, as well as how this variety of solutions maps against their particular needs.

Rodney Elder, Vice President of Commercial Operations, Virtusales

In this series of 15-minute meetings, small groups of attendees will be able to get their questions answered by leading service providers and industry experts. Rights and permissions staff, agents, and other key operators can better understand and evaluate the full range of supports available, as well as how this variety of solutions maps against their particular needs.

Ashley Mabbitt, Assistant Director, Global Rights, John Wiley and Sons
Ken Brooks, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain Management, McGraw-Hill
Bill Smith, Director, Domestic Rights/Director, Digital Partner Development, The Perseus Book Group/Constellation Digital Services
John Rodzvilla, Senior-Electronic-Publisher in Residence, Emerson College
Becky Hemperly, VP, Contracts, Rights & Royalties, Candlewick Press
Julie Trelstad, Director, Digital Rights, Writers House
Leslie Norris Hendrickson, Account Manager, Copyright Clearance Center

Register now!