Whilst much of the traditional book market remains relatively familiar, with each day another publisher or producer will be looking for new opportunities to earn money and establish new “routes-to-market”. These efforts to “grow the pie” can be laudable in many respects, it is of course crucial that authors – without whom the publisher’s business would not exist – receive fair remuneration for the use of their work.
This principle is reflected in our longstanding CREATOR campaign, currently in its 10th year, which calls for fair contract terms and for legislation to ensure, amongst other things, “equitable and unwaivable remuneration for each use/ exploitation of the work”.
As we in the Contracts & Advisory team scrutinize your contracts to ensure that royalty provisions are not only included but marry up to the rights granted in the work, with a safeguard that any use not covered is subject to a royalty to be agreed – we work to stay abreast of industry changes and developments. Where we sense a disconnect, an awareness that things do not add up, we are prompted to interrogate the issues, working collaboratively with our Policy & Public Affairs colleagues.
Which is why, when we heard that the audio-streamer Spotify, known for its music catalogue, a la carte audiobook sales and vast 650 million monthly engagements, was to expand into audiobooks, questions were raised. The change would allow premium subscribers access to 15 hours of audiobook listening as part of their monthly fee.
The streamer had apparently entered into new limited streaming deals with publishers however, by our understanding, authors and agents hadn’t been consulted. And so we called on publishers, amongst other demands (a full list can be read here), to urgently inform their authors and agents of the deals and “negotiate an appropriate share of the receipts on a clear and equitable payment model, which should equate to no less than the amount that would be received from a sale of the same audiobook”.
Again, this reflects the CREATOR campaign’s principles, which calls for “fair, understandable and detailed accounting clauses in all contracts to cover royalty payments and other sources of remuneration”.
The rise of subscription models for the streaming of audiobooks online more recently has led us to again question the equity of the models used. In particular, and taken to the extreme, the availability of relatively cheap subscription options on an “all you can eat model” does beg questions as to whether these models are really fair for authors, and whether what we are seeing is a devaluation of cultural content at the mercy of corporate profit. Taken in an international context, these are important questions to address, as we see examples of countries where audio streaming is dominant, cannibalizing physical sales and impacting authors’ income.
The equity and fairness of these models, as well as the Spotify campaign, was the topic for this week’s episode from the Society of Authors’ Advisory Clinic podcast, which can be listened to on our website here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In the episode, we surveyed the industry, looking into the various options available for consumers, and investigated the various mechanisms for subscription revenues to flow back to creators. Very often, the devil is in the detail, and even where the calculation is hidden away in the small print, it can be ambiguous or allow for too much discretion for how those sums are calculated. Many authors will understandably only recognize the issue when they view their statements and rightly question the unexpectedly low fees.
And so we will continue to empower you to consider these issues when we advise on your contracts, always with the CREATOR principles in mind. For existing agreements, authors must, in any eventuality, be consulted for new and unforeseen uses.
