Victory for publishers as Audible Captions settlement reached

Audible will not be allowed to use major publishers' works in its Captions programme without their permission, according to newly revealed details of the firm's settlement.

Seven US publishers launched a lawsuit in August 2019 against Audible's Captions programme, arguing the feature, which enables US customers to read along to their audiobooks, violates copyright law. The group also sought a preliminary injunction to stop their works from being used in the feature, which the audiobook company had planned to roll out in September 2019.

Last month, Audible reached a settlement with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) on behalf of Chronicle Books, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishing Group, Penguin Random House, Scholastic and Simon & Schuster.

In a victory for publishers, newly released details of the settlement reveal Audible is "restrained" from using the publishers' copyrighted content in the Captions programme without permission. The injunction filed with Judge Valerie Caproni states Audible is prohibited from "creating, generating, reproducing, modifying, distributing, publishing, or displaying… written text derived from the audiobook versions of publishers’ works for any product or service created or offered by Audible… without express authorisation from the owners or exclusive licensees of the United States digital text rights."

The ban does not apply to any text in the public domain. The injunction now requires the court's approval before it can be enforced.

AAP president and c.e.o. Maria A Pallante welcomed the resolution and suggested a more detailed settlement is in the works, that covers not just the seven publishers in the lawsuit but all 150 AAP members.

She said: "AAP, the Plaintiffs, and Audible have resolved their pending litigation. Audible has agreed that it will obtain permission from any AAP Members that are in good standing with AAP before moving forward with Audible Captions for their works.

"We will be advising our members as to the application of the resolution. Separately, the parties have presented a consent permanent injunction to the court, which would resolve and dismiss the underlying litigation between the publishers and Audible."

The Bookseller has contacted Audible for comment.