Copyright Clearance Center

Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) is a U.S. company based in Danvers, Massachusetts, (although it is incorporated in New York State), that provides collective copyright licensing services for corporate and academic users of copyrighted materials. CCC procures agreements with rightsholders, primarily academic publishers, and then acts as their agent in arranging collective licensing for institutions and one-time licensing for document delivery services, coursepacks, and other access and uses of texts.

Although CCC was founded in 1978 as a not-for-profit organization in response to negotiations preceding the Copyright Act of 1976, the I.R.S. revoked CCC's tax-exempt status in 1982 and the United States Tax Court affirmed that holding, finding that whatever public benefits CCC's activities might produce, its primary purpose was to "further[] the economic interest of publishers and copyright owners" and its founders (a group of publishers) had no "interests of any substance beyond the creation of a device to protect their copyright ownership and collect license fees." CCC still maintains a state-level not-for-profit status in the State of New York, but for federal purposes is a for-profit company.

The CCC is a broker of licenses, earning a 15% commission on the fees it collects. The company passes more than 70% of its revenues to publishers in the form of Royalty Payments to Rightholders, and another 30% is kept by the company as a fee for its services.

CCC is a primarily US-based rights broker for materials, including millions of in- and out-of-print books, journals, newspapers, magazines, movies, television shows, images, blogs and e-books. CCC licenses copyright-protected content to businesses and academic institutions, and compensates publishers and content creators for the use of their works. Amsterdam-based RightsDirect, the wholly owned European subsidiary of Copyright Clearance Center established in 2010, provides copyright licensing services for European-based companies for print and digital content in books, journals, newspapers, magazines and images.

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