No shock.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/19/2...lishers-rights
Quote:
Earlier this week, Audible revealed that it was working on a new feature for its audiobook app: Audible Captions, which will use machine learning to transcribe an audio recording for listeners, allowing them to read along with the narrator. While the Amazon-owned company claims it is designed as an educational feature, a number of publishers are demanding that their books be excluded, saying these captions are “unauthorized and brazen infringements of the rights of authors and publishers.”
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Quote:
Audible tells The Verge that the captions are “small amounts of machine-generated text are displayed progressively a few lines at a time while audio is playing, and listeners cannot read at their own pace or flip through pages as in a print book or eBook.” Audible wouldn’t say which books would get the feature, only that “titles that can be transcribed at a sufficiently high confidence rate” will be included. It’s planning to release the feature in early September “to roll out with the 2019 school year.”
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The Authors Guild is also screamingbut that is only to be expected.
Now, that's one way to sell the pricier audiobooks to the hard of hearing who don't buy them now. And since audibleformat is proprietary, they may have the right to present the data any way they want. The lawyers will have their turn.
(Also, since Audible is tying captions to the school year they might only be deploying it on PD titles. Which would render the whining meaningless.)
Of course, there's also the Americans with Disabilities Act.
And this:
https://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/11/t...ent/index.html
A new battlefront!
Things were getting boring anyway...
More at the source including demo video.