A new report from CISAC, the global umbrella group for authors’ societies, has a sobering prediction: 24% of music creators’ revenue could be taken by generative AI by 2028. The news is almost as bad for creators in the audiovisual industry (TV, film, video, etc.). By 2028, they face a loss of 21% of the income they would have made if generative AI didn’t exist.
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Amazon announces new slate of AI models
How AI is accelerating—and devaluing—book publishing
AI has the power to pump out words in record speed. And already, that’s substantially inflating the book publishing market. Lovers of LLMs are pushing into the traditional publishing system, building their own book-publishing entities. They’re jump-starting their own publishing imprints, and self-publishing books (often slop) on digital marketplaces.
Source: How AI is accelerating—and devaluing—book publishing
Warning of imminent, ‘irreparable’ fracture of news landscape without action
The UK’s news landscape could fracture “irreparably” in the next five to ten years with “grim” implications, a new Parliamentary report has warned. The report made recommendations for action that could help stave off some of the challenges, ranging from firmer action on AI copyright theft to the creation of news “accelerators” and tax breaks for local journalism.
Source: Warning of imminent, ‘irreparable’ fracture of news landscape without action
Spotify is Now Adding Video Content to Audiobooks
Amid Spotify’s effort to improve its video offerings, the company is enhancing the audiobook experience for its premium users with video clips, as well as author pages, and the ability to add visuals that appear while listening. The latter gives authors or publishers the option to submit a video of up to 30 seconds for their audiobooks.
Spines aims to ‘disrupt’ industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone
A new publisher has claimed it aims to “disrupt” the books industry by publishing 8,000 books in 2025 alone using artificial intelligence (AI). Spines, founded in 2021 but which published its first titles this year, is a startup technology business which—for a fee—is offering the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish and distribute books.
Source: New publisher Spines aims to ‘disrupt’ industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone
Monetising digital audiences: A call for alignment across strategy, teams, and tech
Many publishers struggle to fully capitalise on the revenue potential of their digital audiences despite having various monetisation opportunities at their disposal. This shortfall stems from the internal disruption caused by digital transformation to their legacy product strategy, organisational structure, and technology infrastructure. It’s not the lack of opportunity that is holding publishers back.
Source: Monetising digital audiences: A call for alignment across strategy, teams, and tech
More music released today (in a single day) than in all of calendar year 1989
With the ease at which musicians can not only create and mix, but distribute and self-release their tracks, it’s unsurprising that the quantity of music now being put out into the world is significantly higher than it was a few decades ago. But, when compiling a recent deep-dive feature, we were quite surprised to discover just how big that margin has become
Scholarly publishing world slow to embrace generative AI
As the technology’s reach into the information sector expands, a recent report from Ithaka S+R shows that academe is still grappling with how best to integrate it into the scholarly publishing process. “Generative AI has injected a lot of variables into the equation of scholarly publishing. And there’s not yet a shared framework for understanding what those implications are,” said Dylan Ruediger, co-author of the report and a senior program manager of the research enterprise division at Ithaka S+R.
Source: Scholarly publishing world slow to embrace generative AI
Amazon Music Now Has Audible’s Audiobook Catalog; NMPA Is ‘Optimistic’ About It
Amazon Music Unlimited is adding Audible audiobooks under its individual subscription plan — though unlike Spotify, it’s working with publishers. Spotify angered songwriters and publishers by arguing it didn’t need to pay the full mechanical royalty rate since it offered multiple royalty-earning services in one, it appears that Amazon Music will work with publishers to determine new rates privately.
Source: Amazon Music Now Has Audible’s Audiobook Catalog — And the NMPA Is ‘Optimistic’ About It