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One of the things that worried people like me, who were against approval of the Google Book Settlement, was what would happen to Michael Healy, the director designate of Google’s Books Rights Registry.  Anyone who knows Michael, who is one of the nicest people you will ever meet, had to be concerned about this.  Now comes the good news.  Publishers Weekly reports that Michael is moving to the CCC:

Tracey Armstrong, Copyright Clearance Center CEO, told PW she was “absolutely thrilled” that CCC had landed Healy, and that Healy would help CCC with a range of new products and solutions. “Michael will not only help us expand our market presence,” Armstrong said, “but also our business models to accommodate things like backlist rights, the lack of clarity in e-book rights, and multiple rightsholder and derivative rights problems. These are really challenging issues.”

Healy told PW his work with the Google Settlement parties had essentially been an open-ended consultancy with no explicit end date. But after recent developments effectively killed the chances of a revised settlement broad enough to sustain the kind of registry initially envisioned, Healy said he was delighted to join CCC. “During our initial conversations I was impressed by the range of innovative services CCC has planned for the immediate future,” Healy noted. “Being part of an organization so focused on innovation was really attractive.” Healy said he would begin his CCC duties around October 10, and that he would join the CCC team at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He will be based in New York.

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