ABSTRACT
For many years, these rights were included under the overall heading of ‘mechanical and reproduction rights’. Technology has been moving so fast that this catch-all heading is no longer an appropriate definition for the range of rights which can now be exploited. This chapter therefore deals only with audiobook recording rights and video recording rights; direct forms of reproduction of print content such as photocopying, scanning and electronic copying and delivery are covered in Chapters 23 and 24, with electronic publishing and multimedia rights covered in Chapter 25. Since the last edition of this book appeared, audiobook sales in various
formats have continued to rise and a wider range of titles is available; in the United States the number of available titles had doubled between 2007 and 2010. In 2013 the UK market for audiobooks was valued at £126 million, with the US market reaching $1.2 billion. There has been a significant shift towards the downloading of audiobooks to computers and a variety of portable devices and this development is covered later in this chapter (see Download services for audiobooks). In the United States, in particular, audiobook sales can be substantial –
the audio version of Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, read by the author, was the first non-fiction audiobook to sell more than a million copies and has now far exceeded that number. Audiobooks of J.K. Rowling’s seven Harry Potter books have all sold well over one million copies, with separate unabridged versions, read by Stephen Fry for the UK market and Jim Dale for the US market. Financial terms for audio licences have risen accordingly and there are rumours that a $1 million advance was paid for at least one major bestselling title; high advances are likely to be loss leaders to attract major names to an audio list. In the United Kingdom, the profile of audiobooks was raised by an annual trade initiative to promote the Top Forty Audiobooks of the Year, launched in 2008. In August 2009, a personal endorsement of the joys of listening to audiobooks by Stephen Fry (who also regularly appears as a reader on audiobook recordings) on the BBC Top Gear programme led to a surge of £220,000 in audiobook sales over the following four weeks. The American Audio Publishers Association
bestows its annual Audie awards for various categories of audiobooks around the time of BookExpo America, in late May/early June; the 2013 overall winner was Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, read by Colin Firth. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, there has been an
increasing demand for unabridged over abridged versions; traditionally, the former were more popular in libraries, with abridged versions more popular for individual purchase through retail outlets. In the United States, unabridged recordings now represent about 85 per cent of the market; they hold a 50 per cent share in the United Kingdom. This reflects the move to audiobook downloads, where the length is unconstrained by a physical format. The last ten years saw a clear shift in physical format from cassette to CD,
despite the smaller capacity of discs – this reflected the general availability of CD players both in homes and as standard equipment in new cars. The rise in popularity of CDs also reflected a move away from the perception that the audio market is dominated by older buyers or is aimed at the visually impaired, and this is reinforced by the fact that audio products are now sold in discount stores, supermarkets and service stations as well as book and music outlets. In 2006, there were predictions that audiobooks in CD format would be completely superseded by digital downloads within three years. This has not yet happened, but the continuing move towards downloads also indicates a market amongst a younger audience on the move – the multitasking ‘iPod generation’, who have never used cassettes or discs in devices such as a Walkman or a portable CD player. In September 2001, Simon & Schuster Audio launched the first audiobook in MP3 CD format in addition to the more traditional cassette and CD formats – The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. MP3 CDs hold 12 hours of recorded material, provide navigation and bookmarking facilities and can take up as little as one disc by comparison with multiple cassettes or CDs (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was originally available on 12 cassettes or 17 CDs). At the time of writing, digital downloads account for approximately 61 per cent of the total audiobook market in the United States and 48 per cent in the United Kingdom, but these shares are gradually increasing. One reason for the survival of the CD format may be that the audio quality is generally higher than that of a download.
