Rights Management Resources

Overview

In January 2026, BISG’s Rights Committee released the final update to the Translation

Rights Royalty Statement Standard. The completed standard is ready for industry adoption and is available in both PDF and Excel formats on BISG’s Knowledge Center, with the Excel version provided to support easier comparison to current publisher statements. It specifies a set of forty-four data fields which, when included in every royalty statement exchanged

between licensees and licensors of translation rights, will alleviate the often confusing—and always time-consuming—process of properly allocating earnings and sales information to titles and authors. BISG is now promoting industry adoption of this standard.

Why the Standard Matters

Royalty statements are a critical piece of publishing communication. Based on committee members’ experience, years of anecdotal evidence, and a survey conducted by BISG, the time spent chasing missing details in order to understand, analyze, and match payments on

royalty reporting is a common pain point in the rights and accounting departments of

publishers and literary agencies alike. Over the past several years, a BISG Rights Committee working group has researched and defined best practices for royalty reporting. This Translation Rights Royalty Statement Standard is the outcome of this work, providing a recommended and consistent set of data points for licensors and licensees to use when reporting the results of translation rights transactions.