As writers, we might be tempted to submit our books to Spotify for them to convert into audiobooks. Hold your horses! It’s just come to my attention that Story Fair are reporting that Spotify has changed the terms and conditions of its content and intellectual property rights to something that content creators like us are concerned about.
A recent, significant change in Spotify’s terms for audiobook publishers and rightsholders allows Spotify to
https://storyfair.net/spotify-modifies-terms-for-audiobook-rightsholders/reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, [and] create derivative works fromaudiobooks.
I can’t vouch for the fact that Spotify has recently changed its terms and conditions, but I can show you what they say as of today:
Licenses that you grant us
User Content
You retain ownership of your User Content when you post it to the Service. However, in order for us to make your User Content available on the Spotify Service, we do need a limited license from you to that User Content. Accordingly, you hereby grant to Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, and otherwise use any such User Content through any medium, whether alone or in combination with other Content or materials, in any manner and by any means, method or technology, whether now known or hereafter created, in connection with the Spotify Service. Where applicable and to the extent permitted under applicable law, you also agree to waive, and not to enforce, any “moral rights” or equivalent rights, such as your right to be identified as the author of any User Content, including Feedback, and your right to object to derogatory treatment of such User Content. [Emphasis added]
https://www.spotify.com/uk/legal/end-user-agreement/#licenses-that-you-grant-us
Audiobook narrator Laura Horowitz explains why she’s upset about this:
Please excuse the language!
Is she right to be so worried? It strikes me that Spotify are allowing themselves to do whatever they want to your work, and they are forbidding you, the author who spent a long time working hard to create that book, to do anything about it, even if the result is a ‘derogatory treatment’.
This isn’t the first time Spotify have upset its content creators; taking effect this quarter, Spotify are demonetising songs that have less than 1,000 plays per year. This means that the creators of these songs will receive no royalties for their work.
What do you think? Is Spotify being fair to its content creators? Would you trust them with your book?
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