The Book Rights Registry is an entity to be founded as part of a settlement of the lawsuit between the Authors Guild and Google over the Google Books scanning project. The Registry will be initially funded by $34.5 million from Google but it will be an independent, not-for-profit organization that collects and disburses revenue from third party users of content (e.g. Google Book Search) to authors, publishers and other rightsholders. According to the Settlement Agreement, the Registry will own and maintain a rights information database for all books (and parts of books) covered by the Agreement and their authors and publishers. It will also resolve disputes between rightsholders.
Michael Healy, the current head (as of September 2009) of the Book Industry Study Group, is slated to become the new head of the Registry.
Authors Guild president Roy Blount, Jr. described it as "the writers' equivalent of ASCAP."
Read more about Book Rights Registry: Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words book and/or rights:
“To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.... A message from the gods should be delivered at once. It is damnably blasphemous to talk about the autumn season and so on. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honourable to which a man can be called?”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)