Selling Rights

Now in its ninth edition, Selling Rights has firmly established itself as the leading guide to all aspects of rights sales and co-publications throughout the world.

Covering the full range of potential rights, from English-language territorial rights through to serial rights, permissions, rights for the reading-impaired, translation rights, dramatization and documentary rights, electronic and multimedia rights, this book constitutes a comprehensive introduction and companion to the topic. Besides individual types of rights, topics covered also include book fairs, Open Access, the ongoing impact of new electronic hardware, and the rights implications of acquisitions, mergers, and disposals.

This fully updated edition includes:

• New IP legislation and proposed legislation in the UK and the USA, including changes regarding TDM and the post-Brexit implications of EU directives and exhaustion of rights.

• The implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for author contracts and licensing contracts.

• The impact of the pandemic and its aftermath on the promotion and sale of rights.

• Coverage of censorship in countries around the world, especially in relation to LGBTQI+ content, as well as political situations which have impacted on rights trading.

• The impact of streaming services on opportunities for licensing television and film rights.

• Major revisions to the chapters on audio and video recording rights, the internet and publishing, and electronic publishing and digital licensing.

Selling Rights is an essential reference tool and an accessible and illuminating guide to current and future issues for rights professionals and students of publishing.

Author Biography

Lynette Owen OBE is a freelance specialist in copyright, rights and licensing issues and a consultant on the promotion and sale of rights in print and digital environments. She is the general editor of, and a contributor to, Clark’s Publishing Agreements: A Book of Precedents (11th edition, 2022). She was previously Copyright Director of Pearson Education and has also worked for Cambridge University Press, Pitman Publishing and Marshall Cavendish. She has chaired the Publishers Association Rights Group and is also a member of a number of industry committees.