Is Audible Encroaching on Copyright?

The Big 5 Publishers Sue Audible

• Book Publishers Sue Audible
• Is it Encroachment?
• Are the Big 5 Tech Too Big?
• Big 5 Tech Destroying Tech Ecosystem?

The Big 5 publishing houses are suing Amazon’s Audible citing that it’s an encroachment on text and copyright. I personally, don’t see eye to eye with the Big 5 and for obvious reasons don’t agree with the “encroachment” statement in the least bit. What I see is 5 big companies not thinking (again) about the little people, the ones that feed their machine of profit – the consumer. The ones who are blind, who want to hear their favorite books because well, they can’t see the words. It’s the closed caption lawsuit between Harvard, MIT, and the deaf community argument all over again.

Then again, I think it’s because they want to cash in off the backs of that profit machine aka the consumer. I mean it is a dying breed in the publishing industry – limiting themselves with print runs, trying to drive the prices up and none of the consumers are having it. Book sales declines happened not because of big tech, libraries, or Audibles – they happened because the good ol’ boys thought they could get away with controlling the industry forever and a day and do it their way which hasn’t changed in a donkeys age. It’s like that old dude standing in hover boots on his lawn screaming “get off my lawn ya whippersnapper” while their flying bikes and skateboards aren’t even touching the lawn at all. It’s time for the good ol’ boys club to call a spade a spade and realize that digital is going nowhere and Audible is the next Closed Captioning.