Yeah, if only they hadn’t invented television and movies and football and cricket and music and all those other distractions that have suddenly become such a problem for publishers.
HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray was recently interview by Aishwarya Khosla for Indian Express, that was published earlier today, 15 February.
Head over to Indian Express for the full report.
What follow are a couple of summaries of key points regarding AI and audiobooks, where Murray is on firm ground overall. And then there’s Murray on attention spans, and it’s all downhill from there.
AI and Copyright Issues
Murray emphasises the importance of supporting the current copyright legal framework, which is based on human creativity. He acknowledges that courts in various countries will determine the line between machine and human creativity. While authors use AI tools to aid their creation process, it is crucial that the human remains the primary creator. Murray asserts that copyright is integral to the future of human creativity, incentivising authors to write and earn a living.
Murray also highlights the issue of large language models illegally using authors’ works. He believes that authors should have control over whether their materials are used in these models, and they should receive attribution and compensation. With over 30 lawsuits in different creative industries in the United States, a roadmap is being formed to address these concerns.
No mention was made of the publisher lawsuit against OpenAI in India.
Growth of the Audiobook Market
Murray sees potential for acceleration in the audiobook market, noting global players like Audible, Spotify, and Storytel are key to this growth. HarperCollins is working on building an audiobook catalogue, which AI will help expedite. The focus is on getting the right pricing, marketing, and consumer offer to make audiobooks more accessible in India.
No, The Attention Economy is Just Fine
Murray then reverted to form asserting the biggest challenge for book publishers is competition for time and attention from other forms of entertainment, which is the stock-in-trade response from publishers looking for easy excuses.
Yeah, if only they hadn’t invented television and movies and football and cricket and music and all those other distractions that have suddenly become such a problem for publishers.
Curious how those same publishers fight one another to publish ghostwritten books by sports stars, TV stars, film stars and music stars and seem to have no problem with TV distracting people when its book-adaptations being viewed and driving more sales to the publishers of those books.
This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsfeed.
