We’ve just made our first changes to the standard rightsholder agreement on paperight.com, based on feedback from publishers and legal advisors. We’ve added some wording to clarify important points.
We answer the question: Who’s granting what licences exactly? We’ve made it clear that rightsholders authorise Paperight to enable a very limited licence between the rightsholder and the outlet. Then we’ve added more detail on what an outlet’s customer is likely to pay in total for a book, compared to buying a publisher’s edition in a bookstore. And in the “Term and termination” section of the rightsholder agreement, we’ve clarified that during a termination notice period, documents may still be available for outlets to print.
Here are the exact additions:
- In the Q&A info section, we’ve added: “What about my copyright? You retain full copyright in your content. You’re only allowing Paperight outlets to acquire a very specific licence. Each time a registered outlet requests rights for a book or document that you are offering through Paperight, the outlet is granted a very limited licence to print the number of copies of the document requested. If an outlet does not comply with the licence terms, its account with Paperight will be suspended.
- In the agreement, we’ve added this to “Term and termination”: “Watermarked documents may still be available to print through the Paperight system during the notice period.”
- And we’ve added a “Licences” section, stating: “When a registered outlet requests a copyright work (e.g. a book or document) on paperight.com, they are automatically granted a license by the Rightsholder to reproduce and distribute the requested copyright works which the Rightsholder has made available through Paperight. The Rightsholder authorises Paperight to exercise any of the exclusive rights granted by law to the Rightsholder in order to enable Paperight to make the copyright works available to registered outlets in terms of this agreement, including but not limited to reproduction, distribution and transmission of the works.”
All in all, no changes to the way things work – just important clarifications. As always, we love feedback.