translation rights

Last week, we started our look at contract negotiation with a review of “primary rights,” meaning print, ebook and serial rights. This week, we look at the other primary rights: territorial rights and translation rights. (Note: some people consider territory and translation secondary rights, and that’s fine too.) Negotiating Territorial Rights In publishing contracts, “territorial rights” refers to the right (usually, but not always, exclusive) to publish a work within a given territory. Territorial rights vary widely within contracts, and publishers willingness to negotiate them varies also. The most common territorial rights request is “all territories throughout the world” (the old language