Sunday, December 21, 2008

Review of our 2008 Predictions - 3. Rights

At the end of 2007 we made 10 predictions for 2008. Many predictions made have now been conveniently forgotten but we stand by our thinking at the time and believe it appropriate we openly review these individually and see what we think happened and assess them appropriately. Today we review the core of publishing and media – rights.

3. Rights – permissions and licensing will grow in importance and will someone step up to provide that elusive clearing house once promised prematurely by the likes of Rightscenter.com. Yankee Book Pedler and Subrights.com?

Who would have guessed the answer? Who would have envisaged Google putting down the money to make tit happen. Who would have envisaged the Great Book Bank Robbery? It took someone from outside to put the money to build what the industry so sorely needed a rights database. It was a pity that the industry will pay such a heavy price for its inability to do itself.

The other major focus areas were creative commons licence which is often as clear as mud to many but starts to address usage and permissions in a logical way. What it will mean to permissions, fair use and some publisher models will be interesting to watch.

Finally we had Orphan Acts and a potential land-grab of these in copyright but out of print lost titles. But here Google has been given one rule whilst the rest have to adhere to another.

A safe 10 out of 10 do you agree?

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