Who owns the transcript of an audio production which has been distributed by the content owner?

[AnRoinnUltra]

Just wondering what folk think. Quick background -Apple are launching a phone dohickey that provides the transcript of podcasts to their customers. My podcasts are mostly narrated/ acted chapters of my books. It'd really stick in my craw if someone could flog the work as a book by copy/ pasting the transcripts (unlikely I know, but just in theory).
I always figured they were two different mediums, so while audio goes out to the ether the story and any theoretical revenue from it belongs to the author -I've been wrong before though

 

[Toby Frost]

Is there a contract available somewhere? I would expect Apple to try to rig it in their favour as much as possible.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

There is, but it's hidden behind some sort of login and I don't have the time to go through the form filling shenanigans to access ...am full sure the gobbeldygook will say they are entitled. Will try dig it out at the weekend. The software is auto creating the transcripts from audio so it's not like I've given them a copy of the book or anything (don't rate the AI's chances of making sense of my imaginary words and accent, it's just it all seems a bit sly and underhand -like something folk should have to opt into first).

 

[Robert Zwilling]

I doubt that anyone getting a printed copy of a podcast would get the rights to the material to do what they please. There is one problem, if the speech to text was not completely accurate, it would not be the same words. Apple would probably have a disclaimer that you can't use the printed version unless it is the author, the listener pays for it, or it belongs to apple and no one can do anything with it.

More than likely this is just another grab by the digital world to get their hands on more free AI training material. It would be a goldmine for speech recognition training because the goal to get it perfect. Unlimited examples of the same word pronounced many different ways under many different circumstances. You can probably only get so much variety from people asking questions to AI chatboxes. Working with long text products that involve conversations, descriptions, all kinds of verbal interactions including arguments. That's a dead parrot you got there.

It might also give the AI community a free source of voice material where they can make their own voice without using one persons voice. The same thing that happened to the art world.

People hired to read podcasts might change their contracts to not allow their voices to be used for any purpose other than delivering an audio podcast as an audio product.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

Good point, training AI seems to be the point. I was just thinking it was a bit cheeky of them. I'm fairly sure the speech to text will not be accurate enough for paid content anyway.
A disclaimer would be fine -must have a dig to see if there is one; am not precious about the stories but writing is hard work and if there's money to be made, it should be the people doing the work (prob sent a few published authors sniggering with that

 

[Jo Zebedee]

There is, but it's hidden behind some sort of login and I don't have the time to go through the form filling shenanigans to access ...am full sure the gobbeldygook will say they are entitled. Will try dig it out at the weekend. The software is auto creating the transcripts from audio so it's not like I've given them a copy of the book or anything (don't rate the AI's chances of making sense of my imaginary words and accent, it's just it all seems a bit sly and underhand -like something folk should have to opt into first).

I'll be amazed if they can deal with the accent. It's our secret weapon in the AI wars.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

if they can deal with the accent

That's for sure. A friend of mine got one of those voice activated internet things for his house and had to get rid of it. About two days in he heard his son yelling at the top of his voice 'gamin, gamin, ga-min, I don't want this stuff, I said gamin' and went into the living to find an angry ten year old and a telly showing porn.