Rights Management and a general update

I've come to the realization that grad school is a lot like monkey in the middle. In this scenario, I'm the monkey, and my MA is the ball. It is exhausting.

Next week is "Working in Publishing Week", which is basically their way of telling us we had damn well better not leave town during reading week. Tuesday morning we're apparently going to have some talks from alumni and publishers, then in the afternoon we have something unique to Brookes: publisher speed dating. We've been allowed to sign up for five slots (with the potential for more if there are any still available on Friday) where we'll have 15 minutes to sit down with an employer and a fellow student and chat/interview. This is an absolutely amazing opportunity. I've signed up to meet with HarperCollins, Macmillan, Faber and Faber, David Fickling Books, and the Oxford Literary and Rights Agency. They have a HUGE selection of publishers (academic, trade, charitable, travel), there's an agent, there's the rights agency I mentioned, just loads of stuff.

NPD is going well, and I've been very pleased to discover that both of my optional modules (Rights and International) are helping me out with my role in our division. We had two emergency meetings last week (in addition to our regular Monday meeting) due to some panic, but we got things sorted out and are back on track now. We have to hand in a sort of mini-proposal on Friday, which details our top three choices, and why we're going with the one we are. It's not marked, but it is important as we'll get feedback as to whether or not we're being absolutely stupid with our idea. I think we've got all the bits and pieces of ours, we just need to stick it together and proofread. I (in my capacity as Deputy MD) will be meeting up with our Managing Director tomorrow to start going over things. This is a bummer as Wednesday is my day off, but oh well.

Any way: Rights! What is Rights? There is far more money to be made in publishing than just what you get from print and e-books: the valuable bit is the content, not the product. The role of a person in the rights department is to buy and sell permissions. This can include selling or buying the rights to reproduce a quote or poem, getting permissions to use photos, selling movie rights, or audiobook rights, or translation rights, or performance rights, and the list goes on. The rights person tries to maximize the potential of a given work. Their job can be made more or less difficult depending on whether or not the author has an agent (agents like to keep rights to themselves, which is great for the author and agent, but means less profit for the publisher, plus you have to keep careful track of what rights you do and do not own).

This module has so far been a whole lot of reading. We were assigned about 200 pages to read between weeks 3 and 4. I did not finish this, but I've done all the rest of the absurd amounts of reading we've been assigned. Most of this comes from Publishing Law, which is actually not as bad as it sounds. Yes it's a law book, and yes it goes on at great length about copyright and libel law, but the authors have at least a vague sense of humour. In the section about ghost writing, they referred to a case where someone challeneged the ownership of a copyright, as the copyright holder was a medium, and the arguement was that the medium didn't actually write the book, (s)he just copied down what the ghost had to say... go actual ghost writing.

Any way, copyright law really is oddly fascinating. It's complex and strange and funny and touching. Peter Pan, for example, is a unique case. When J.M. Barrie died, he passed the copyright on to Great Ormond Street Hospital. When it was coming time for Peter Pan to leave copyright, Parliament realized that Great Ormond Street would be losing a great deal of badly-needed income, so they passed a special law (bill? whatever) giving Peter Pan perpetual copyright. See? Touching.

We had a lawyer specializing in intellectual property (particularly in relation to publishing) come speak with us in week 2, and as much as we were all dreading it (lawyer? Copyright law? BORING!) it was actually fascinating. Class lasted about three hours, and I don't think there would have been much arguement if it would have gone much longer. At one point he showed us a packet of crisps and pointed out everything on it that was IP and I was speechless. EVERYTHING was protected. And you get protections within protections, so like the copyright of a portrait belongs to the photographer, but the photographer can't use it without the permission of the person as they have a right to privacy.

We have a test in Rights this week (Thursday), which we're all a bit nervous about. Beverley has told us though that it's multiple choice (3 possible answers), and that last year's class had an average of 70% (which is a Distinction/A), so it should be fine.


Tune in next time for "International Publishing Management: or: Why the hell did I pick the two most intensive optional modules?"