Publishers Weekly - 02.09.2019

News

Audible Agrees to Temporarily

Exclude Some Works from Captions

I

n a stipulation filed in federal court on August 28, Audi-

ble has agreed to exclude works from a group of major

publishers from its Captions program until permission

and licensing issues raised in a recent lawsuit are resolved.

“Audible will not enable its ‘Captions’ feature for all

audiobooks for which Publishers own, or are the exclusive

licensee of, the text or audiobook rights (including without

limitation Publishers’ Works as defined in Paragraph 36 of

Lee said that “artists have adapted to Webtoon’s vertical

scroll format” in the five years the company has been in the

U.S. He oversees the adaptation series coming in fall. To

secure the rights, Webtoon approached publishers, or

sometimes the writers directly, to pitch adaptations. And

Lee dipped into the pool of Webtoon creators to find artists

to do the adaptations.

Negotiations to adapt the novels, he said, “were tricky.

These aren’t really like comic books or manga. Webtoon

digital adaptations of prose are kind of an unusual subright.”

But, he said, the deals represent “new revenue for the authors,

agents, and publishers.”

Though Webtoon does not offer print releases “right now,”

Lee said that Webtoon supports authors who want to

take their print rights elsewhere. Webtoon creators, he said,

have also used Kickstarter to fund print editions of their

Webtoon comics. “Some artists offer print as kind of a col-

lectible that helps build their audience. Creators like to

have a print volume they can hold in their hands.”

—Calvin Reid

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