Adapting creative commons books into podiobooks
As you know, most (if not all) of the audio files you download for free on Podiobooks.com are covered by a Creative Commons license. For most of those, that means you are free to download the audio files and share them with your friends. But you can’t make derivative works and you most certainly can’t sell them for a profit. There are exceptions to this, but those are the general guidelines.
There are whole host of books with text versions released under a similar model. BoingBoing today featured Blood, Sweat & Tea, a book that offers real-life stories from the London Ambulance Service. The authors of this book have not made stipulations about derivative works, meaning someone could make a podiobook out of it. Of course, we’d have to suspend the donations feature (should be doable) or maybe we could get away with donating any proceeds to the LAS? But it could be done.
The Creative Commons site has a host of other CC-licensed books available. While “I am not a lawyer”, it seems to me that we could host some of the works covered here. The good folks at Librivox are building out quite a collection of public-domain audio books (look for some or all of those to be posted here on PB.com in the near future). I’m open to having us host audio recordings of CC-licensed books. Let me know if you are interested. Let’s make sure we’re following the license requirements. We should be…
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:08 pm
Sounds like a great idea to me. After seeing a few Librivox books hosted here, I had been wondering what role public domain readings might play over time. I wonder, will very many people donate money to support such an effort?
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:39 pm
People’s opinions vary as to what constitutes commercial use. In the end the only interpretation that matters is that of the copyright owner of the work in question. Someone could take the position that because you are a for-profit company and you take donations somewhere on the site, your use is commercial. If they send you a takedown notice, you’ll take it down because you have better things to do with your resources than fight with copyright owners, and such a fight is the antithesis of the relationship you want with authors.
If someone’s interested in making a podiobook of Blood, Sweat & Tea; or any other NC-licensed book, there’s nothing to loose in contacting the publisher, explaining how podiobooks.com works, and opening a dialog. Once they see what podiobooks have done for the print sales of authors like Scott Sigler, they should be more than willing to work with you– Donations and all.
I nominate A. F. Harrold for the recording on Blood, Sweat & Tea
August 24th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Thanks for pointing this out. I went to the site and will be reading for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
August 28th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
I’m posting this on behalf of Wes, who had difficulty with getting his post to stick. But is shows tremendous insight, and needs to be here.
I read with interest about adaptive created common books. I also wondered if readers will donate money for public domain podiobooks. But to *not* donate may mean the end or at least a drastic slowdown of public domain podiobooks. That would be a shame..
Several commercial audiobook producers have sold or rentel “classic’ public domain material. Brillance Audio comes readily to mind. I firmly believe podiobook producers should be able to adapt/ transcribe public domain texts to the podcast medium. This could be done with enough production value to entice readers to donate and hopefully listen to future audio productions of that podiocaster of what is essentially public domain material. A fair amount of creative effort will make all the difference.
In addition to the original textual material the podiobook producer may wish to consider a preface, introducing the story, describe the history of the story and its impact in the times when it was published. Other info such as the author’s biography, how the story affected other writings, and any bits of trivia would enhance the reading of the original material . In terms of audio production things such as music, multi-voiced charactors, voice effects, sound ques or sounds effects may add to the book, making a public domain book into an audio production. Reading becomes a performance. Listening becomes an experience.
There is a lot of public domain material out there that deserves to be made into podiobooks. There are many large libraries throughout the internet of public domain e-books and e-texts. My favorite place of PD mateiral is www.blackmask.com. There are hundreds of genre books and stories there beggings to be made into audio by a human, not a computer voice. I would love to see someone put together a series of podiobooks of pulp fiction anthologies with introductory material thrown in. It looks like Doc Savage, The Shadow, and even some Robert E. Howard storeis are in the public domain. Readers’ loyality in donating will ensure that many of these volumes could eventually be made into audio format. Not only mobile iPod users would benefit, but visually impaird readers, and seniors who fondly remember the pulps.
To many people public domain e-text are free and, therefore of little value. But with some addional introductory or afterword material and some audio elements a podiobook producer can turn a PD book into an audiobook experience. These books and storeis could live for a new generation.
- Wes
August 28th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
I have a book that I will be podcasting written by another author and was released under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license. I got explicit permission from the publishers to podcast it, their only stipulation is that it could not be used commercially in any way. I will be putting it on a feed of my own, but would ideally like to put it up on podiobooks if possible. The disabling of donating would be great for this, but I am more worried about potential advertising / promo stuff being slipped into the podiobook. I remember a while back the Argosy U stuff appeared out of nowhere and as podiobooks has evolved there have been longer/more promo’s done by mr. McLean at the end and start of the podiobooks.
I think the podiobook promo’s would be ok with the publisher, but the advertising would definitely not be. I think the books by this author are perfect horror novels and need to be podcast, which is hy I am doing it, but I just am worried about going the podiobooks route because of the licensing differences and the inserted audio.
Let me know what you think,
-Oberonix
September 6th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
A few comments to Oberonix’s post:
* Authors have the option to decline any ads in their books, and all authors were made aware of the Argosy opportunity.
* Donations and small amounts of money when ads are dropped in may not constitute a “commercial” use. Lots of discussion about that going on right now in the podosphere.
* The “branding” of Podiobooks.com at the front and back of the book aren’t optional if we’re hosting the files. If that’s a problem, then host the files yourself. We do that with a few books right now. Not an issue, but if we’re providing hosting and bandwidth, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we brand ourselves up front and remind folks to donate at the end.
E.