In his first public interview, Michael Healy—the man expected to become the executive director of the Book Rights Registry (BRR)—sat down with Copyright Clearance Center to discuss the potential benefits of the proposed Google Book settlement.

Healy, a former librarian, is currently the executive director of the non-profit Book Industry Study Group and has been working with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers on the establishment of the BRR. Development of the BRR was included as part of the proposed settlement agreement.

In his interview with CCC, Healy highlighted that book consumers have shifted their expectations about content delivery from traditional print forms to cell phones and e-book readers. He suggested publishers’ future success will depend on their ability to adapt to that changing landscape.

Healy also offered this perspective on how the proposed settlement will ultimately help copyright holders:

“The Book Rights Registry introduces into the environment an unprecedented degree of control to authors, publishers and other rightsholders on how their copyrights are exploited and distributed in this new digital world.”

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In a speech before the participants of the World Copyright Summit June 9^th, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch called copyright piracy “the very antithesis of creativity—crippling growth and stifling innovation in its wake.”

A senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and co-chair of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus, Hatch is actively involved in legislative efforts to protect intellectual property. In his recent speech, Hatch emphasized the need for legislation to address performance rights and orphan works issues, and called a Swedish court’s conviction of the operators of the peer-to-peer file-sharing site Pirate Bay a “moral victory.”

Hatch also encouraged Internet Service Providers and copyright holders to work together to prevent Internet users from distributing unlicensed copyrighted content.

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Copyright Clearance Center CEO Tracey Armstrong and Outsell Inc. Lead Analyst Ned May kicked off the recent “Big Ideas” Conference for BookExpo America 2009 in New York with a focus on the future of content licensing.

Armstrong described digital content licensing as a “hot space to be in right now.” She and May discussed some of the challenges facing content providers, and covered such topics as: the similarities between CCC’s licensing model and the planned Book Rights Registry, which is part of the proposed Google Book Search settlement; challenges created by new technology, including Amazon’s Kindle and eBooks; and, licensing options for today’s copyright holders. See video of this event.

In addition to Book Expo, Armstrong was featured in a recent article about CCC in Publisher’s Weekly.

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