I fear one of the significant reasons behind so many titles having abridged versions when released in audiobook form is a protection against open distribution, but is there an alternative that not only circumvents the need to understand online downloads and file formats, but protects redistribution in exactly the same way as the printed version?
Companies such as Audible, through their alliances with iTunes, are able to control audiobook distribution via DRM (Digital Rights Management), a legacy of the protection work done by the music industry to combat online piracy and encourage responsible online purchase of music. Ebook distribution has similar schemes in place to lock-down the title to the original purchaser - something even the printed copy is unable to achieve.
Given the sometimes apparent obsession by all arms of the publishing industry to protect distribution - because it is far more about distribution than it is about rights, despite their cries to the contrary - audiobooks are primarily distributed on CD, which can be very easily copied onto electronic formats, such as mp3, and distributed. Or even simply duplicated to other CDs. CD audio protection is available, but in nearly all cases can be circumvented with a little research and effort.
What we need for audio is a method of distribution identical to that of the printed book version, at which time the audio distribution becomes a direct purchase option for the material.
Cheap mp3 players
Mp3 players are flooding out of manufacturing countries such as China. Low in capabilities compared to the models costing multiple hundreds, they are, nevertheless, quite capable of delivering CD quality sound from the stored audio files. They are also frighteningly cheap to produce, as is suggested by the number of giveaways and dirt-cheap units available in supermarkets.
Produce an audiobook, burn it into the memory of a cheap mp3 player, remove the ability to that player to do anything other than play the pre-installed audio, and you have a printed book-like distribution device with the only option to replicate and redistribute being connecting the audio output to an audio recording device (no different to the equivalent passing of a printed book through a scanner or photocopier).
I am convinced this is a model that will both appease the publishers while providing a viable, stand-alone means of acquiring audiobooks for the consumer.
It’s all over the publishing pres - Amazon last week announced it would cough-up a not insignificant $300 million for commercial audiobook publisher Audible.
Not a particularly surprising move as Amazon have been clearly inching into the audio download market since adding mp3 downloads to its online operations. I wonder why it took them so long to get their hands on Audible as it is a much better match than the significantly more competitive music mp3 space.
Amazon’s odd little e-book reader the Kindle, will benefit from greater access to audio books, though at this time adding audio to the kindle requires a download via PC then upload again to the Kindle. I suspect we will see audiobook availability directly to the Kindle just as one can directly download e-books to the device right now. Audible also gives Amazon a direct relationship with Apple iTunes as Audible drives the content behind iTunes’ commercial audiobook store.
Audible has a nice, comfortable, traditional publishing underpinning the way it does business, which enables it to reflect the international and regional structure of the global publishing business. There are boundaries and controlled releasing of products across the world, with specific audible stores dedicated to particular countries. This fits perfectly with Amazon, of course, and provides an appropriate and familiar form of controlled distribution for the publishers.
Audible has been a great success in marketing, largely down to strategic associations such as the supply of content for iTunes. Much of Audible’s content is very poorly produced and from a producer’s viewpoint, excessive fees of up to 80% of the price point in royalties popping straight in to Audible’s pocket, could make this form of publishing a tough decision to make.
Will the new wave of new media driven independent audiobook producers be able to break the back of companies such as Audible? Perhaps not break the back, but certainly irritate their preconceptions of how the market wants to consume a product and become an increasing thorn in their side with authors discovering the online world provides them the direct power to maintain complete control and ownership of their product and still reach a global audience.
