Online Rights Marketplaces Announce Separate Alliances

Calvin Reid |

Oct 23, 2000

News
Online Rights Marketplaces Announce Separate Alliances Calvin Reid -- 10/23/00 *Rightsworld teams up with the National Writers Union; Rightscenter.com links with Vista International* In separate announcements, online rights marketplace Rightsworld.com heralded a potentially groundbreaking agreement with the National Writers Union and a new investment relationship; its competitor, Rightscenter.com, announced an alliance with publishing applications provider Vista International. In a deal that may be a preview of a new era of author-initiated publishing and subsidiary rights activity, Rightsworld.com signed an agreement with the NWU to provide discounted access to the Rightsworld.com marketplace for the NWU's 6,500 members. The new deal will give NWU members access to post and sell rights to their own works. Rightsworld.com president Nick Bogaty, who worked at print-on-demand publisher iUniverse.com before launching Rightsworld, told PW, "I could see there were all these authors with the rights to their books and no way to really market them. We're trying to create a rights marketplace for everyone. We're going to see a time when there will be much less difference between who is a publisher and who is an author." And while Rightsworld.com is open to all properties, published and unpublished, Bogaty told PW that he expected that the majority of properties offered would be "pre-published." NWU president Jonathan Tasini told PW that the new alliance is "a huge opportunity to exercise what I call strategic unionism, fighting to help improve writers' economic standing. We hope to be able to have other strategic alliances. " Tasini also credited the new alliance as a natural development in an industry transformed by technology. "It fits into the ways that print-on-demand technology has challenged the traditional publishing model," he said. "Publishers traditionally sit on the rights of out-of-print books, rights that are never exploited. Now writers can initiate things. Rightsworld.com has a different model, and anything that shakes up the centralization of publishing and gives writers more power, I'm for," he added. In another development at Rightsworld, the company announced that Austin, Tex.-based Jump.Net Ventures, the investment unit of Jump.Net, a Web hosting and broadband service provider, has taken a minority stake in Rightsworld.com. Although Bogaty declined to reveal the exact amount of the investment, he told PW the Jump.Net investment includes technical resources and support. "This is good for us. It lowers our overhead and allows us to develop products we couldn't have done otherwise, " said Bogaty. Rightscenter.com Rightscenter.com, which is also an online platform for selling rights, announced an alliance with Vista International to offer a new application for its publishing management software that will allow publishers to easily deliver and update rights information on titles posted on Rightscenter.com. According to Kip Parent, CEO of Rightscenter, the new application "reduces the costs and inefficiencies traditionally associated with rights trading." Using the system, publishers should be able to pass information on available rights and rights sales directly to Rightscenter. D. Luke Iorio, a spokesperson for Vista, told PW the application is "an extension of our Author2Reader framework system and allows us to integrate with third parties." The extension is still in development; Iorio said it would be ready for market by early 2001.

News

Online Rights Marketplaces Announce Separate Alliances
Calvin Reid -- 10/23/00
Rightsworld teams up with the National Writers Union; Rightscenter.com links with Vista International

In separate announcements, online rights marketplace Rightsworld.com heralded a potentially groundbreaking agreement with the National Writers Union and a new investment relationship; its competitor, Rightscenter.com, announced an alliance with publishing applications provider Vista International.

In a deal that may be a preview of a new era of author-initiated publishing and subsidiary rights activity, Rightsworld.com signed an agreement with the NWU to provide discounted access to the Rightsworld.com marketplace for the NWU's 6,500 members. The new deal will give NWU members access to post and sell rights to their own works.

Rightsworld.com president Nick Bogaty, who worked at print-on-demand publisher iUniverse.com before launching Rightsworld, told PW, "I could see there were all these authors with the rights to their books and no way to really market them. We're trying to create a rights marketplace for everyone. We're going to see a time when there will be much less difference between who is a publisher and who is an author." And while Rightsworld.com is open to all properties, published and unpublished, Bogaty told PW that he expected that the majority of properties offered would be "pre-published."

NWU president Jonathan Tasini told PW that the new alliance is "a huge opportunity to exercise what I call strategic unionism, fighting to help improve writers' economic standing. We hope to be able to have other strategic alliances. " Tasini also credited the new alliance as a natural development in an industry transformed by technology. "It fits into the ways that print-on-demand technology has challenged the traditional publishing model," he said. "Publishers traditionally sit on the rights of out-of-print books, rights that are never exploited. Now writers can initiate things. Rightsworld.com has a different model, and anything that shakes up the centralization of publishing and gives writers more power, I'm for," he added.

In another development at Rightsworld, the company announced that Austin, Tex.-based Jump.Net Ventures, the investment unit of Jump.Net, a Web hosting and broadband service provider, has taken a minority stake in Rightsworld.com. Although Bogaty declined to reveal the exact amount of the investment, he told PW the Jump.Net investment includes technical resources and support. "This is good for us. It lowers our overhead and allows us to develop products we couldn't have done otherwise, " said Bogaty.

Rightscenter.com
Rightscenter.com, which is also an online platform for selling rights, announced an alliance with Vista International to offer a new application for its publishing management software that will allow publishers to easily deliver and update rights information on titles posted on Rightscenter.com.

According to Kip Parent, CEO of Rightscenter, the new application "reduces the costs and inefficiencies traditionally associated with rights trading." Using the system, publishers should be able to pass information on available rights and rights sales directly to Rightscenter.

D. Luke Iorio, a spokesperson for Vista, told PW the application is "an extension of our Author2Reader framework system and allows us to integrate with third parties." The extension is still in development; Iorio said it would be ready for market by early 2001.

A version of this article appeared in the 10/23/2000 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: