DEEP CUTS Episode 58: Audible’s Anti-Trust Case

Scott Sigler Slices: SLAY

Empty Set Entertainment

Books, Fiction, Arts, Science Fiction

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is Audible creating a healthy marketplace or a monopoly where indie authors struggle to make a living? CD Reiss, an independent author, sued Audible last year, saying it violated antitrust law by charging higher distribution fees for independent and self-published writers who do not choose Audible-exclusive distribution. Last month, a federal judge ruled that the suit would move forward and awarded it class status. Scott & A discuss the class action, the current state of things, and what this lawsuit might mean. Deep Cuts is created by Scott Sigler and A B Kovacs Produced by Steve Riekeberg Production Assistance by Allie Press Copyright 2025 by Empty Set Entertainment I love audiobooks, and I wish folks could want enough instead of it all. I know 99 percent off of the 1st year of my three-year domain, so I can scream it from the rooftops! And to get there, I’ll snag GoDaddy Promo Code CJCFOSSIG so all my audiobook dreams come true. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Has Audible used its market dominance and exclusivity deals to unfairly restrict competition and impose inflated fees on authors?
0:08.5	Are they a monopoly?
0:10.5	And should they be brought to justice?
0:14.2	We discuss the antitrust case against Audible coming up right after this short break.
0:24.5	Al-Farlene. August Audible, coming up right after this short break. Alice Isn't Dead is a road trip mystery podcast by New York Times best-selling author and
0:30.6	creator of Welcome to Nightvale, Joseph Fink. A truck driver searches across America for the
0:35.7	wife she had long assumed was dead, but Alice isn't dead.
0:40.5	It has been called one of the best horror stories by the New York Times and the gold standard of story podcasting by the Irish Independent.
0:48.1	Find Alice isn't dead wherever you get your podcasts.
1:01.8	Welcome to Deep Cuts, the bonus episode of the Scott Sigler Slices fiction podcast feed where a sci-fi author and an audiobook narrator
1:05.7	discuss things and stuff in the world of fiction and pop culture.
1:09.3	I am Scott Sigler, sci-fi horror author known
1:12.5	far and wide as the future Dark Overlord. And I am A.B. Sigler, audiobook narrator and publisher
1:17.7	at Empty Set Entertainment. And this week, on this deep cuts, we're discussing the antitrust
1:22.6	lawsuit Audible is currently facing. Reminder, this is a bonus episode in the Scott Sigler Slices feed.
1:29.7	Not part of any particular story.
1:31.0	You don't have to listen to this to know what's going on in our current tale,
1:33.6	but we think you'll like this peak behind the storyteller curtain.
1:36.4	Or in this case, in this case,
1:39.8	the peak behind the evil overlords, that it's audiblecom.com, com, com, com, com.
1:47.8	Problisher. I didn't say publisher. And you're not wrong, Steve. Okay, let's get into it,
1:54.1	Ben. All right. So what's happening is an independent author sued Audible because Audible was rate limiting the amount that,
	...

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