Top U.S. publishers sue Amazon’s Audible for copyright infringement

By Reuters On Aug 23, 2019

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Amazon is seen at the company logistics centre in Boves, France, January 19, 2019. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc’s (O:AMZN) Audible was sued by some of the top U.S. publishers for copyright infringement on Friday, aiming to block a planned rollout of a feature called ‘Audible Captions’ that shows the text on screen as a book is narrated.

The lawsuit was filed by seven members of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), including HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan Publishers.

“Essentially Audible wants to provide the text as well as the sound of books without the authorization of copyright holders, despite only having the right to sell audiobooks,” AAP said in a statement.

The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern (NYSE:SO) District of New York.

Audible did not immediately respond to a request for comment.