Christy analysis of the audio book market also explains why companies can't just be judged on access issues on what they do with audio books alone. For example, the publishing divisions of Newscorp nearly universally do not allow their audio books on Overdrive to be burned onto a CD. Yet, the company's major film division, 20th Century Fox, has committed to releasing all of its movies with both audio descriptions and closed captions. This is a major commitment that only one other company, general electric, has done in pledging support for accessible content.
Kelly----- Original Message ----- From: "Christy Porter" <cporter001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 12:50 PMSubject: [bookport] Re: the realistic nature of piracy and the reasonableness of the NLS focus on copyright protections (little actual bookport content)
.> Itwould be interesting to learn if certain publishers were consistentlyabsentfrom the audible catalog of materials.Well, it's probably easier or more realistic to consider the issue on an author by author basis, since each work has audio rights that must be purchased from the author originally. Most major publishers have audiodivisions these days, or make use of existing producers like Recorded Books, Brilliance, or Books on Tape. Simon and Schuster has it's own division, as does Random House. Not sure about some of the others. But not every title they produce is made into an audio book, only the ones they think will make them money with the general public. And you'll notice that the majority of books available for general public consumption are still abridged. This is also a way of "protecting" copyright, or creative work, since you have to gobuy the hard copy to get the whole thing. It's also a factor of the expected audio attention span of the average user -- not very long! -- rather than of the attention span of people who rely on audio, like us. [smile] --Christy http://caution-blind-driver.blogspot.com/-----Original Message-----From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]OnBehalf Of albert griffith Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 4:06 AM To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bookport] Re: the realistic nature of piracy and thereasonableness ofthe NLS focus on copyright protections (little actual bookport content) Currently, sound Taxi, a fifteen dollar program will convert Audiblefiles.I originally purchased the program to convert files I received from my public library through a service, Net Library. Net Library, andOverdrive,are two audio book publishing concerns which distribute books to library lending sites. Both companies offer downloadable books and they haveallotto choose from. Sound Taxi allowed me to play the files on my Book Port.Ifelt cracking their scheme was appropriate civil disobedience since Iwasn'tdistributing them for profit. I'm the guy who stated, some publishersdidn't want to work with Audible. I only guessed the reason was security related but I remember reading there were some concerns in that area I'mgrateful I still have thousandsof title from which to choose through my local lending library because Idon't usually like carrying around a cassette player. I sold my book portin anticipation of receiving the new model. -----Original Message-----From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Christy Porter Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 2:24 AM To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxxSubject: [bookport] the realistic nature of piracy and the reasonablenessofthe NLS focus on copyright protections (little actual bookport content) Good point. If I remember correctly, at one point, each title had alittlecd with flames next to it to indicate that burning to cd was possible for the title. By the time audible.com redesigned all its webpages, I was no longer using the screen, but JAWS, so I don't know if they still indicatethis for each individual title.On the other hand, when I was still driving and even now for road trips, Iburn titles to CD to share over the car audio system since it's moreinteractive on a long trip, and we enjoy sharing some titles. I must have40 to 50 books burned to cd, all in their little paper covers, filed and stored [grin]. Yes, I'm such a geek. [laughing], but the cd's are abouttheonly organized thing in the house, so I'm content. So far, though, I've never run into a title that I could not burn to CD.I've not made use of Audible Manager for quite some time, however. Do youstill have to download the cd burning software as a separate add-on? Anyway, personally, I've always been extremely pleased with audibleoverall.And I have to agree with what others have said. If someone is reallyintenton breaking copyright, they'll find a way. It seems to me a matter of weighing the potential for making money from selling audiobooks in a reasonably protected format that is still somewhat flexible like theAudiblebooks vs. having copyright protection as a primary concern, above andbeyondall others.How much control do authors and publishers have over whether or not theirtitles are included in the NLS system? If they don't have "opt out"options, and since the service is not about making money selling the bookswith money going to the authors for their creative work, but about distributing the books for free in good faith, then I can understand why this issue is far more of a determining factor for the NLS books. Personally, I'll just stick with the cassettes until the library players come out or until I win the lotto. When a regular public library buys audiobooks on CD to distribute (orbooks, for that matter) , they pay an additional fee for the book based ontheir potential readership to help compensate for the income not beingmadeby forcing everyone to purchase copies. It doesn't cover the differencebyany means, of course, and there's no real allotment for the chance thatsomeone will photocopy the pages illegally or rip the CD's while the booksare checked out. But having the books on audio CD for the local librarytopurchase and lend is part of the advantage of having them on audio cd forsale at all, and the author or publisher gets to choose those risks andthepotential for income against those risks. There's no (or very little) potential benefit for the authors andpublishersto having their titles in the NLS audio library system. So, yeah, thosewhodidn't choose to take the risk of having their materials on audio cd wouldbe justified in their concern for copyright protection in the new NLSformats, particularly since those titles could be distributed widely with the click of a mouse once they were opened on a single personal computer.As for who would screw around making 10 to 20 CD's or more for a book and then rip them back into the computer in MP3 format? Well, few would do it for a single copy to be played on a more convenient player. But money hasalways made boredom more acceptable to many. Someone interested inseriouspiracy could do it and make cash, or 20 people who wanted to pay a dollareach for a single Audible membership and then distribute copies amongst themselves might find it less tedious than I would. All you can do ishopesuch people don't screw it up for the rest of us! But it's hardly such afarfetched idea as your comments seem to imply. As an example, consider a book like The Historian or one of the othertitlesI have that are 48 or 50 cd's long and cost about $80 a pop in the bookstore? The Historian was originally two audio audible credits orabout24 bucks through audible, and now it's only one credit or about 12 bucks.Amazon.com has used unabridged copies listed at $119.00; I don't recallseeing this available unabridged on CD in the bookstores, though. Hard tocome by. Audible's "regular" price for the unabridged version is listedas$68 with the member cash price set at about $48.00 bucks for a 26-27 hourlong title. The cheapest way to purchase the title, is, of course, through the subscription service at 12 bucks for one credit. With a fast processor, your talking about several hours of work to break the copyright throughthecd to mp3 long route. Then, even if a schmuck only charged $40 or 50bucksfor the book, the schmuck would make a significant amount of money per pirated copy for all those who want "just this one title" without payingthepremium market worth of the title or undertaking the liabilities of a subscription. The creepy pirate would have plenty of takers in a bigcity.Should Creep have a fast burner and processor and be required to spendsignificant amounts of time at the computer anyway or should creep want away to pay for his World of Warcraft time that he can do while playingWorldof Warcraft, the time spent to make this title accessible or pirate-ablewould be nothing. Extrapolate now as to the value, ease, and dirty moneytobe made doing all this over the internet with something instantly distributable via download once the protection code was cracked? Creep could pay for college, buy even more computers for criminal activity, lessons on how to hide his I p address by hacking into and through other servers, and STILL spend all day and night playing World of Warcraft.Withthe money to be made for something that hits pop culture fame, like The DaVinci Code or Tolkien's novels, and the fact that my scenario requiresCreepto have little to no skills for coming up with a way to work around theprotective software, I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often.If the authors and publishers can't opt out of being in the NLS, and we're talking about an instantly downloadable book acquired completely for freeasthe NLS books are, I can understand why they want more than just the irritation and time factors to keep people from burning to CD as a workaround. Also, given the vast number of titles eventually available through NLS, the far reaching nature of potential piracy and the impactsuchpiracy could have on the authors' incomes and returns for creative workovertime, yeah, I'd be worried, particularly since the depth of the library would make a crack program far more worth developing than it would for audible.com's current, though admittedly growing, list of titles? Theeasyand perpetual access to the books also becomes a significant factor in weighing the concerns of potential piracy. For many authors, NLS hasentirebodies of work available, not just a single, more recent title, or aseriesas does audible or recorded books, or Audiobookstand. Perhaps the only reason piracy hasn't yet happened on a larger scale inaudiobooks is that the percentage of the population who can actually enjoyafull length audio book is still relatively small when compared to thepercentage who can read print or who can listen to pirated music. As the popularity of audiobooks continues to grow, though, I'm sure the criminalelement will follow. As it is, we who rely on audiobooks are stillspendinglarge amounts of time scrambling to find all the titles we want in spokenaudio format, so perhaps the potential and feasibility for criminalactivityover the next five years is not so easy to recognize as our ownfrustration.[smile] An I agree with you, I'm surprised they're going to allow theIconto play the books, too. But I'd never day they are paranoid.Me, I'll stick to my bookport; it is just dandy for me, and I don't havethe nerves for that type of thing. When I grow up, retire, or win thatlotto, I'd love to make my living writing historical trash novels. [grin] So I'm interested in maintaining a certain level of copyright protection. And, for an individual, as you say, why bother? Audible is quite generouswith the number of devices you can have activated, so whenever someone'swanted to borrow a title, I put it onto my old "Audible Otis" and let themborrow the whole thing just like borrowing a paperback. MUCH more efficient! I've been using Audible since 2002, so I've plenty of titlesthatcan still go on such an "ancient" gadget. Though I've noticed fewer and fewer titles still have the level one or level two formats available. Again, as the copyright protections get more sophisticated, so must the gadgets, which is exactly where we are with the bookport and NLS. Nice loop, yes? Well, maybe more irritating than nice, but there you've gotme.Oh, and thanks to Pam and APH for being straight with us. You've earnedmyloyalty yet again! And honestly, by the time you have the chance todevelopthe bookport 2 at the high quality we've gotten used to, I won't be quite so disgruntled over having just gotten mine two years ago and being facedwith the need to upgrade! [grin] --Christy http://caution-blind-driver.blogspot.com/ > -----Original Message----- > From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of Kitty Litter > Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 7:02 PM > To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: [bookport] Re: Audible vs. NLS > > This is not quite true. The ability to burn certain audible books to > CD is built-in to the audible software. If they wanted too, they could > remove that > component from audible manager. Publishers know this and I believe > audible can turn this off on a per book basis. Who in their right mind > would screw around making ten CD's or whatever and then ripping them > to mp3? Most people > wouldn't bother. And I'm curious whether the guy who said publishers > wouldn't allow audible to sell their books because of the lack of > security can site the source for that statement? > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.13.33/1036 - Release Date: 9/28/2007 3:40 > PM > No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.13.33/1036 - Release Date:9/28/20073:40 PM No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.13.33/1037 - Release Date:9/29/2007 1:32PMNo virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition.Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.13.33/1037 - Release Date: 9/29/20071:32 PM