Audible calculates Net Sales in A La Carte and Membership mode [1]. Is the membership mode closer to Pro-Rata mode like Spotify [2] or the User-Centric mode. Is the claim that Net Sales are shady with respect to either or both? Because pro-rata is hard to calculate and predict. Either way, this is a very complicated matter that affects the livelihoods of thousands of authors and producers but the lack of specific details makes it hard to understand what's really going on.
Audible has had to change policies based on author complaints [3] and rightly so. But the claim of "Net Sales" being correct or incorrect is hard to prove without Audible releasing the detailed data like the authors are asking for. Frankly this seems like a matter best decided by lawyers in arbitration instead of Twitter-threads but maybe online pressure is the best way the authors can get Audible to come to the table.
Either way, good luck to them. There are so many laws around sales, returns, commissions, royalties etc. that have evolved over the last century or two to protect all parties. But it's a wild west in the subscription world where Apple/Google control app markets, Netflix/Disney control TV/movie subs, Spotify/Apple/Amazon control music streams, YouTube/Tiktok/FB/Twitch control video streams. Each platform has their own rules, payment sharing, metric calculation etc. And while users can switch if the product sucks and platform owners can ban users or producers based on ToS violations, the producers barely have any power or say because there's almost no profitable alternative left.
If this was 1960s, users and producers would definitely fight for some basic standards and guarantees across all platforms (e.g. right to pause/cancel easily, allowing usage from multiple locations, right to review/audit records etc.) But in 2020s with trillion dollar market cap companies running the show, I'm not sure that users or producers get a say in how they are treated anymore. Best we can hope for is a new entrant that is better for a few years.
Audible has had to change policies based on author complaints [3] and rightly so. But the claim of "Net Sales" being correct or incorrect is hard to prove without Audible releasing the detailed data like the authors are asking for. Frankly this seems like a matter best decided by lawyers in arbitration instead of Twitter-threads but maybe online pressure is the best way the authors can get Audible to come to the table.
Either way, good luck to them. There are so many laws around sales, returns, commissions, royalties etc. that have evolved over the last century or two to protect all parties. But it's a wild west in the subscription world where Apple/Google control app markets, Netflix/Disney control TV/movie subs, Spotify/Apple/Amazon control music streams, YouTube/Tiktok/FB/Twitch control video streams. Each platform has their own rules, payment sharing, metric calculation etc. And while users can switch if the product sucks and platform owners can ban users or producers based on ToS violations, the producers barely have any power or say because there's almost no profitable alternative left.
If this was 1960s, users and producers would definitely fight for some basic standards and guarantees across all platforms (e.g. right to pause/cancel easily, allowing usage from multiple locations, right to review/audit records etc.) But in 2020s with trillion dollar market cap companies running the show, I'm not sure that users or producers get a say in how they are treated anymore. Best we can hope for is a new entrant that is better for a few years.
1. https://www.acx.com/help/HJSJJK8XP7HYURS
2. https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2021/11/how-spotify-royaltie...
3. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/26/audible-adjust...