Findaway voices, owned by Spotify, forces authors to sign a digital agreement signing away their rights and licenses to their audiobooks so that Spotify can in turn sell those rights to Apple Books for their exclusive use of the files for machine learning.
If you would like to revoke this right from Spotify, here is a sample email that you can send to support@findawayvoices.com:
To Whom it May Concern:
It has come to my attention that part of the Findaway Voices Digital Distribution Agreement contains the following paragraph:
“Machine Learning
Rights Holder grants Apple a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right and license to use Audiobooks files for machine learning training and models, provided that in no event shall any Rights Holder Audiobooks or portion thereof be provided to any third party or end-user in contravention of this Digital Distribution Agreement (e.g. making Rights Holder content available for free to end-users without express written consent). Rights Holder may revoke this right and license by sending Notice to Findaway as outlined in Section 11.”
Per Section 11 of the Agreement, I request the revocation of that right and license forever for all of my current and future audiobooks. This email serves as notice that I DO NOT authorize ANY party whatsoever right nor license to use my/my narrator's voice in any way not explicitly granted to me, the rights holder, as outlined in my discrete agreement with any narrator.
Furthermore, this email serves as a formal request for an exhaustive list of any and all materials provided to any and all parties for ‘machine learning training and models’, INCLUDING Findaway World, LLC.
Please respond to this email with the requested information within a reasonable time frame, and please note that I expressly forbid the use of my/my narrator's voice for any purpose whatsoever other than the express use as a single discrete use per project.
Thank you.
...
From Karen Commins NarratorsRoadmap.com
Click Here for the full article:
Taking steps to remove the human voice and replace it with a synthesized one destroys the art form.
I certainly do not want or intend to participate in any attempt to create artificial voices meant to replace human narrators.
However, I unknowingly may have done that very thing by choosing to distribute audiobooks through FindawayVoices.com. Today, I took action to revoke Findaway’s license to Apple to use my audiobooks for machine learning.Findaway Voices, which is now owned by Spotify, has some fine print in author's audiobook distribution contracts that is giving away your IP (and my voice) to apple books in order to use it to train their AI and machine learning.
For those of you who were unaware of this clause in Findaway Voice's Distribution Agreement and want to opt out, contact FV at support@findawayvoices.com to revoke your permission for Apple to use your audiobooks for machine learning training and models (Al).
In recent days, people on Facebook have shared this clause in Schedule D of the rights holder’s Distribution Agreement from FindawayVoices.com:
Machine Learning
Rights Holder grants Apple a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right and license to use Digital Audio Products files for machine learning training and models, provided that in no event shall any Rights Holder Digital Audio Products or portion thereof be provided to any third party or end-user in contravention of this Digital Distribution Agreement (e.g. making Rights Holder content available for free to end-users without express written consent). Rights Holder may revoke this right and license by sending Notice to Findaway as outlined in Section 11.
Section 11 states:
11. NOTICES All notices required under this Agreement shall be sent by email to support@findawayvoices.com.
I’m a rights holder on Findaway. I sent the email below to FindawayVoices as my Notice. Feel free to use it as a template, though in retrospect, I’d change the subject to be Revoke license for Apple machine learning. I also should have added that my revocation applies to any future similar license with another company. Not surprisingly, the auto-reply message stated they are “experiencing higher than average email volume.”