Working to support the international rights business throughout the year, the Frankfurt Rights platform assists with rights discovery, contacts and licensing activity year-round, and even automates smaller transactions.

By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox

The global publishing industry is based on rights – buying, selling, licensing, optioning, and more. Today, the international rights market changes rapidly with new market opportunities, new licensing possibilities, and more. For rights directors and agents, keeping up with the changes while still maintaining their current relationships can be taxing.

No one knows the importance of rights better than the team at Frankfurter Buchmesse, which is why they are looking to provide some support for global rights professionals with the Frankfurt Rights platform.

Publishers who use Frankfurt Rights have said of the platform “the intuitive and constantly evolving interface makes the process much easier for both sides,” and it “saves us time and reduces a lot of routine admin.”

Publishing Perspectives sat down with Jenny Kuehne, Director of Rights & Licensing Solutions at Frankfurter Buchmesse to talk about the platform, highlight Instant Permissions which has been growing in popularity for children’s publishers, and identify a few key challenges the rights business has been responding to with regard to copyright.

Publishing Perspectives: Can you briefly tell us about the Frankfurt Rights platform for anyone who isn’t familiar – who uses it, how do they use it, why do they use it? 

Jenny Kuehne: Frankfurt Rights is an online platform that supports the rights community—rights sellers and buyers alike—in all aspects of their work, from discovering content and making contacts to processing permissions and licenses efficiently. 

Sellers can present their companies, catalogues and titles internationally, make rights information and preview material available, and manage enquiries more efficiently. Buyers can search for content, discover new publishers and rights holders, and submit requests in a structured way. 

(Half-)Automation is an important part of this. Our Instant Permissions functionality helps move straightforward, smaller requests along more quickly. Where a rights holder has defined conditions in advance, a buyer may be able to obtain a permission within a few clicks. If a request is more complex or, for example, the author needs to be involved, it is passed on to the rights holder for individual review and negotiation through the platform, which will then handle the admin – invoicing, producing a licensing agreement (using the rights holders template), dunning and distribution of funds. This is also true for the Instant Rights functionality, which basically works in the same way but is aimed at translation rights deals. 

So, the platform supports the whole process: helping buyers find the right content, helping sellers reach potential partners, and above all making routine permissions and licensing work more efficient for both sides. The aim is not to automate every rights deal – I mean, we at Frankfurter Buchmesse know just how important the face-to-face meetings really are! – but to remove unnecessary administration and help with the ROI of smaller deals. The rest happens in Frankfurt.  

What benefits do publishers who use the platform report? 

Well, that depends, because everybody uses different parts of Frankfurt Rights and values different things.  Of course, those who use automation appreciate the efficiency it brings to their permissions and rights processes and the time they save. Others value the additional visibility and international reach or simply having a permanent online space to present their publishing lists and rights information alongside other international publishers. 

We are not always able to see what happens after an initial contact moves off the platform, so we cannot fully measure all the business that develops through it. But we do know that these connections are happening – last fair, for example, one of our clients brought another publisher along to a meeting and just casually said “this is my Czech publisher, we have made three books together already, and he found me on Frankfurt Rights”.  

What types of books work best on the platform—children’s, fiction, nonfiction or educational materials? 

Frankfurt Rights itself does not have a fixed genre focus. What is presented on the platform is up to the individual publishers and rights holders. 

Instant Permissions, however, was developed particularly with trade and children’s books in mind, offering a lot of specific re-use types for those genres, like reading, storybook cinema or calendar, to name just a few rather unusual ones. There really is a plethora of settings available, which allows us to cater to many different needs and allows rights holders to define very precisely how their material may be used. 

Does the platform handle all kinds of rights and permissions, or are the deals limited to translation rights for print and ebooks? 

Yes and no. Like I said, there are a lot of options for permissions requests and rights holders can handle and automate almost all requests if they want to.  

Full rights deals are a bit trickier, of course. In principle, all kinds of rights – translation, audio, film – can be requested and negotiated through the platform but automation is only available for translation rights deals for print & ebook. And there is always a review step where a rights seller needs to approve a request before it goes through.  

With AI licensing being the next stage of permissions and licensing, how does the platform factor into those deals? 

An AI-related request can absolutely be submitted through Frankfurt Rights. What happens next, however, still needs to be handled individually. We’re not a collective licensing agency, and individual AI deals are still way too complex and varied for a standardized workflow. The details can differ considerably—from the intended use and scope of the license to remuneration, reporting and liability. The actual deal therefore still needs to be negotiated between the rights holder and the potential licensee. 

At the same time, we have seen a substantial uptake in attacks on our website, presumably from AI bots looking for content. We have had security measures in place and have reinforced them immediately and are keeping a close eye on this. To me, this goes to show just how important it is for the industry to protect copyright — and it also reinforces the need to make the legitimate permissions process as straightforward as possible for normal users, so that it is not seen as a hindrance but as the clear necessity it is.  

How does Frankfurt Rights fit into the larger Frankfurter Buchmesse ecosystem? 

Frankfurter Buchmesse wants to support the international rights community throughout the year. We see our different offerings as a kind of rights toolbox. Frankfurt Rights supports rights discovery, contacts and licensing activity year-round. Instant Permissions is a dedicated tool within the platform for simplifying and streamlining smaller permissions transactions. The Frankfurt Rights Meeting provides a space for the community to exchange knowledge and discuss the issues shaping the business. Our fellowships and international activities make sure to create sustainable networks and an audience in Frankfurt while our Book-to-Screen activities extend that network into related industries and create opportunities for publishers, agents and producers to meet.   

The foundation of all of this, to us, is Frankfurter Buchmesse. Our tool and offerings just add support around the everyday work and helps manage the increasing operational complexity of an international rights business. 

For more information about Frankfurt Rights or to schedule a meeting with the team at Frankfurter Buchmesse, please email frankfurtrights@buchmesse.de.