A very interesting postscript to the Anthropic case comes courtesy of a survey carried out by the Authors Guild. You will recall that one of the key defining factors of the eligible class in the class action was that copyright was registered in a timely fashion with the US Copyright Office. We know this meant a lot of otherwise eligible indie authors were denied compensation as a result of this.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
There had been intimations that the authors affected went far beyond indie ranks and included those whose publishers should have registered on their behalf and failed to. The survey was an attempt to find out what the truth behind those intimations might be. The results make depressing reading. Five hundred authors gave information on a total of 1,400 books. In 54 percent of those cases, the publishing contract included copyright registration as a requirement. And in an eye-watering 93 percent of cases, the publisher had failed to comply, including 321 cases from 2019 onward. The information isn’t sufficient to prove contractual breach or that this was a sole factor in contributing to authors being ineligible for the class. But it’s alarming nonetheless.
Audiobook Company Tonies Reports Strong Growth
It’s been a while since we had some figures on the latest state of the growth (or, indeed, one day the stalling of said growth) of the audiobook industry, so I am pleased to end the week by rectifying that somewhat.
tonies (spelled with a lowercase “t” that is a nightmare to get my Google Doc to allow me to write) is an audio content company that specializes in works and products for children, who can listen to their favorite characters and stories on dedicated devices. The company has just announced 38 percent growth for the first half of the year, taking earnings to £207.8 million for the six-month period, with 48 percent growth in North America.
Spotify Names Its First Audiobook Ambassador
And on the subject of audiobooks, I found this on the Spotify blog. The company has announced the first in a program of ambassadors for, respectively, podcasts and audiobooks in its EQUAL campaign. The aim of EQUAL is to raise the profile of works by women creators. The first audiobook ambassador is romance novelist Grace Reilly.
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