Facilitating small licence deals for German books

The VLB – Books in Print Catalogue will in future include CCC's automated and standardised rights trade system for small licence deals for the German-language sector. This is thanks to a cooperation between MVB Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels GmbH and the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), which provides copyright licensing solutions.

As part of this cooperation, the software and technology from “Rightslink” will be integrated into the VLB. Publishing companies will be able to include details of the licence-available rights to use of their titles and the licence fees incurred on MVB RightsLink. This information will be linked to the VLB. On request, publishing companies can also include a link to their own homepages. Those interested in obtaining licences can search for rights via buchhandel.de or on the publishing company's website and can submit standardised requests to the publishing companies, together with details of planned use.

'The processing of smaller licence requests often takes up a great deal of time within publishing companies. The combination of the VLB and MVB RightsLink will standardise licence activity in this area. This leaves a great deal more time for their actual main work,' said Christian Sprang, legal adviser to the Börsenverein and co-initiator of the cooperation venture.