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Rights Committee

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About the Rights Committee

The Rights Committee helps BISG develop, maintain, and advocate for industry-wide best practices designed to support a standardized electronic transmission of a defined set of rights information between trading partners. Accurately communicating rights information between parties can grow revenue, reduce transaction costs, and avoid costly errors.

How to Get Involved

Participation in BISG's committees are an exclusive benefit of BISG membership. Any BISG member whose work is related to rights is welcome to participate.

  1. To join the Rights Committee, e-mail info@bisg.org to express your interest and get on the mailing list for meeting invites, agendas, and other key communications.
  2. Attend committee meetings, held every month except August in 2026. View the full schedule of Rights Committee meetings here. 
  3. Engage in discussions, resource development, and programming based on your expertise and capacity.

By joining, your organization will have a direct impact on rights in the book industry.

    
Headshot of Kris Kliemann, Rights committee chair
Committee Chair:

Kris Kliemann, Kliemann & Company

2026 Committee Charter         Find A Rightsholder         Doing Rights Right 2025        Resources for Rights Professionals
   

Committee Objectives

  • Identify the most important problems facing the publishing industry in rights
  • Identify areas of consensus where standards would be valuable
  • Pilot a rights taxonomy across multiple parts of the book publishing industry
  • Make rights information more accessible for both internal and external audiences to improve publishers’ ability to financially benefit from their intellectual property

What We Do

Without rights there are no revenue streams. We help to develop the infrastructure required to obtain revenue from existing contracted deals, clarify “who owns what” to reduce instances in which rights transactions are considered too difficult to monetize, and recommend the investment in systems to track agreements and monetize rights investments to build and keep up with transaction volume.

Headshot of Claire Hodder, BISG Member and Rights Committee Member“The rights committee comprises agents, vendors, academics, and specialist consultants, as well as publishers, all coming together to find sustainable, practical solutions that will work across the ecosystem. We don't just talk about the daily problems we encounter as rights professionals, but we take steps to try to fix them. Knowing that you can really have an impact, not just on making your job better and more fulfilling, but the jobs of your peers in the rights community, as well as playing a part in moving the publishing industry itself forwards, is very rewarding.”

Clare Hodder
RightsZone

When We Meet

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In 2026, the Rights Committee will meet every month except August via Zoom. Meetings are held 11 AM–12 PM ET. Committee members can register for meetings listed on our events page. 

What We Produce

From a white paper on publishing rights and a vendor grid to a taxonomy for managing rights, royalties, and permissions across the supply chain, we aim to make rights information more accessible across all audiences.

Click here to browse a complete list of Rights Committee work.


Committee Working Groups

Working groups are typically made up of a subgroup of committee members who work on a specific initiative related to this committee. Past working groups have, under direction of the Rights Committee, produced the Translation Rights Royalty Statement Standard and the Find A Rightsholder imprint directory. There are no active Rights Committee working groups at this time. 

Rights FAQ: The Basics

The processes used to acquire and manage rights to works, including whole works or permission to use part of a work, are collectively referred to as "rights in."

The processes used to sell, license, or manage rights to works, including whole works or permission to use part of a work, are collectively referred to as "rights out."

The types and nature of rights are constantly evolving. The list of potential rights, which is not intended to be exhaustive, includes:

  • Audio
  • Large print
  • Book club
  • Co-edition, co-publishing
  • Digital adaptations
  • Dramatic TV Film
  • Commercial/ Merchandising/Brand
  • Adaptations for comic books/graphic novels
  • E-book (static or enhanced)
  • Education school/ classroom use (coursepack)
  • Paperback and hardcover reprint (in the publisher’s own territory)
  • English language not US
  • Translation rights
  • Electronic database

Have other questions about rights and royalties? A full Rights FAQ is available here.

Explore BISG's Other Committees

Metadata Committee          Subject Codes Committee       Supply Chain Committee          Workflow Committee

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