I will be giving a webinar on Wednesday July 7 on the subject of rights information management.  That’s the name I give to the task that media companies have of internally organizing the rights they have to their content, the obligations they have to other rights holders when they distribute the content, and the rights they can provide to third parties, such as other content owners.

This is the part of the iceberg of rights management that sits below the water line.  Think about a company like MTV, which uses material from record companies and musical artists that it doesn’t originate or own.  Or a textbook publisher, which may use photos, illustrations, tables, quotations from other sources, including other publishers, freelancers, and stock agencies.

Historically, media companies have treated these tasks as clerical overhead.  Yet there are opportunities to use rights information management strategically as a source of revenue and brand extension while also making the processes more efficient.  I’ve worked with various clients on this, and it’s what I’m going to talk about on the webinar.

The webinar is presented by Earley and Associates, a consulting firm whose primary expertise is in areas such as taxonomy and search, and with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working on various projects. It’s part of their monthly Community of Practice series, which covers a wide range of related topics.

The webinar has a nominal fee for attending, but if you email me, I’ll send you a discount code that gets you in for free.