Audio books, conclusion: Rock stars, the dark side, back to the light, slow reading
- Audio books: The prices are insane!
- Audio books, part II: iPod content for libraries from local writers
- Audio books, part III: The library and computer experience
- Audio books, conclusion: Rock stars, the dark side, back to the light, slow reading
Welcome back for this fourth and final installment of this series on audio books. I can tell this subject could go on for many more posts. The third post on the library and computer experience generated some great dialog over at librarian.net. Jessamyn West has also previously posted on the subject. If the dialog continues, I’ll join along in comments. But here are my four final thoughts for this series …
Rock stars
Walt Crawford brings out an issue I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately.
in a state with universal borrowing, Overdrive would sell exactly one copy of an audiobook. I’m not sure that’s a workable economic model (and the anti-copyright bands should just earn their livings by touring and selling tchotchkes concept really doesn’t work for audiobook readers and producers or for writers, for that matter, since most of us really don’t have rock star potential).
While I wholeheartedly support an artist’s rights for his or her work, I still think copyright has to change, and that it can be economically viable. (Some of what follows are ideas I’ve heard from others.) Perhaps artists and producers won’t earn their livings making audio books (or music or whatever); maybe they will just earn a fraction of their living from those pursuits. Consider that the rock/writing star is really only a marketing device, a findability mechanism, an easy way to locate acceptable content. And just as traditional copyright is getting harder to maintain, the findability of good small-time artists is increasing. I find great photos at Flickr, and great writing in blogs. Sometimes I buy their stuff. Doctorow just posted this study by the Canadian government finding that heavy P2P users buy more music. Especially when it comes to books, I think there is a hard-line between the convenience of finding them on-line, and the desire to read them as print. This view predicts that someone who listens to an audio-book obtained on-line is more likely to purchase a print book of that author than someone who has not listened to that’s author’s audio-book. In the end, more artists will make some money. I think it makes for a richer diversity of the arts than the existing model.
The dark side?
While the policies and economics of copyright are debated, many users simply go about using the new technologies to circumvent protection mechanisms. It appears that this is also a simple matter with audio books. A quick Google search lists a number of sites showing how to convert WMA and MP3 files to iPod format. The audio book I downloaded from my library came with rights to burn it to a CD. Once the book is in CD format, it can easily be imported to an iPod using iTunes. I get a queasy feeling at the fringes of the dark side, but is this act illegal? According to one site, copying borrowed audio books from CD to your iPod is fair use as long as you only use it yourself and delete it afterwards. I really must get better educated on copyright law.
Back to the light
There are a ton of perfectly legal ways to get great audio content for your player, iPod or otherwise. LibriVox provides free audiobooks from the public domain, which means copyright has expired, and you can do pretty much anything you like with them. Many other free audio book sites exist, e.g., AudioBooksForFree.com. The title selection might be a bit thin, but if you are willing to sign up for a temporary membership, you might get better pickings, still for free. Personally, I am thrilled to find this year’s Massey lectures by Alberto Manguel available as a podcast.
Also check out AudioBook DJ, a great audio book resource by Susan Dunman, a librarian with the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. The site shares audio book information and reviews.
A slow reader’s take on audio books
Some slow readers prefer audio books as a way accelerate their reading speed. One book club resource states: “If you are a bit of a slow reader, but good at paying attention to spoken words, you may find that audio books go by much more quickly than your regular reading.” They also suggest that “Audio books are excellent because you can listen to them while engaged in other tasks.” This is not my idea of a good read. One of the distinctive traits of slow reading is that you can attenuate your pace of reading, perhaps going quickly over some portions, then choosing to slow down for the good stuff. Audio books run at a constant speed. You can back up, though that is not the same thing, and many players can only back up a track, usually a chapter, and not just a few lines (better players can do that too). Generally, I would rather not double-up reading with other activities; it divides my attention for both tasks. There are some contexts in which I think audio books make great sense, such as commuting. However, in general I personally prefer print over audio. Please feel invited to share your own experience.
So you were able to convert it that easily? Very cool. That will be on my to-do list for this week.
Maybe I said that badly. The theory of the anti-copyright folks is that popular musicians can make out just fine with live appearances and ancillary merchandise: If they get zero revenue from what used to be recordings, so what?
That’s the model that just doesn’t work for most authors, for the narrators that make audiobooks worth listening to (“just throwing up” an audiobook version of a book isn’t all that easy, unless the robotic text-to-speech version is acceptable), for the producers that make it all work.
Cory Doctorow and Baen Books have generally found that giving it away works. I’m guessing that in niche markets that just might not be true–and in any case, I don’t feel that people should be compelled to give it away. Speaking personally, it’s not whether I can make all of my living (clearly not) as opposed to part of it from published writing–it’s whether I can get enough return on my investment in time to make it worthwhile. For truly creative works, maybe the creation is reward enough; for a lot of worthwhile nonfiction, that’s just not the case.
Hi Walt. I suppose even the “anti-copyright” folks still want to get at least recognition for their art, right? So they’re not really against copyright, just want to see it opened up, at least in some cases, for their own benefit. I support that view. I suppose we’re just talking about Creative Commons licensing here.
As you say, no writer should feel compelled to give away their work, and I don’t think any publisher would want to feel forced either. As I see it, it’s a marketing strategy to promote sales. It won’t work for all kinds of books. I will read a short piece on-line any day before dishing out a penny for it. It’s only the more substantial works that would benefit from this approach.
I would never have read “Balanced Libraries” on a screen, just in print. Would I have bought it if I could have heard it for free in audio? Hmmm, depends the narrator I suppose.
I was unaware of Baen Free Library. Thanks for mentioning it. For anyone else who is interested, check out: http://www.baen.com/library/.
John, when I say anti-copyright folks, I mean anti-copyright folks, those who don’t believe creators or distributors should have any special rights once something has appeared. It’s not a huge group, but it’s vocal.
Creative Commons is a set of balances–offering creators to explicitly yield some rights while retaining others. I think CC is a great thing, and nearly all of my online content carries CC licenses (albeit not quite up to date).
Funny thing about audio. I’d probably be a pretty decent narrator–I have an announcer’s voice–but since I’m no good at *listening* to podcasts and the like, it would never occur to me to *create* an audiobook (or a podcast). Doesn’t mean I don’t think they make sense–they just don’t work for me.
Thanks for your patience and clarifications on copyright. I have more to say on the subject, but I need time to mull on it.
I’ve been trying to listen to the first of the Massey lectures by Alberto Manguel on this iPod I was given. I’ve had to re-start a few times after missing bits. It’s not really doing the trick for me either. “City of Words”, the print version, is going on my Christmas list.
I did listen to a short podcast required for work; short recordings seem acceptable. It occurred to me that this is the same phenomenon as on-line print — as long as it is a short snippet, for practical purposes, digital representation is acceptable. For anything else, print is preferable. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but this seems like further evidence that as long as a work is sufficiently rich or complex, the full length digital versions can only serve to increase sales.
Hmmm…
Somewhere in behind what you and Walt are talking about – private ownership of created content – is an interesting conversation on what libraries are for – or will be for as new mediums emerge.
Anyway, I’m guessing it’s still a minor issue. My perception is that having books on tape or CD (two other easily copied mediums) hasn’t hurt either book sales or the circulation numbers for hard-copy texts.
Wendell, your perception would make for an easy and interesting study — simply record circulation numbers before and after a title is introduced as an audiobook. On a larger scale, the same study could be done with publisher sales. Both would indicate if digital counterparts increase or decrease the desire for print copies.
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