Instaread is an iOS app (Android releases to come) that uses in-house writers to produce summaries of nonfiction books to help busy people absorb the content of those books in a few minutes. Insights and takeaways are offered in easy-to-digest written summaries of about 3,500 words; there also are short audio editions. Instaread appeared on our radar recently when they announced adding more than 50,000 audio editions, many featuring books from leading publishers, including Penguin Random House.
Users can purchase an Instaread subscription (unlimited access to Instaread’s short-form content) for $8.99/month or $89.99/year. Instaread, which was co-founded by Rahul Simha Chitrapu and Vishnu Chapalamadugu, has attracted three rounds of venture funding totaling $1.7 million since 2014.
We were curious how much of Instaread’s subscription rate goes back to authors. When we asked Instaread what rights licensing arrangements it has with authors or publishers to create short-form editions, we were told by Chitrapu that no licensing agreements were needed because Instaread’s content falls under fair-use provisions of copyright law. Key to this interpretation, Chitrapu told us, is that the Instaread editions are not only short but also based in review more than abridgement.
We shared Instaread’s business model with some literary agents and with Copyright Clearance Center personnel for their informal opinions, and found concern similar to our own: Instaread users pay for these short treatments of the content without any revenue going to rights holders.
At our request, Chitrapu offered us this statement, which we run in full: “An Instaread is a standard, stand-alone book review that focuses on a book’s eight to 12 key insights. Like any book review, an Instaread references the text of the book under review, but expands on and integrates those text references with wholly original analysis, commentary, and sourcing for both the book’s subject matter and the author’s style and perspective. For more than 100 years, this use of a book’s text for review purposes has been recognized as fair use under US copyright law, and Instaread conducts regular internal and external audits to ensure that its reviews always stay within long-accepted fair-use guidelines.”
Bottom line: In early Instaread editions on iTunes, Instaread’s product is described as a summary, rather than a review. Here’s one for Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: “With Instaread Summaries, you can get the summary of a book in 30 minutes or less. We read every chapter, summarize and analyze it for your convenience.” (One customer review says “Excellent summary.”) So Instaread is certainly playing in a gray area. The latest Instaread editions state “Key Takeaways, Analysis & Review” or “Notes & Insights” on the cover (rather than being billed as summaries) and the app description includes the text “experts read and extract key points from books for your convenience.” A New York–based publishing expert told us, “While the limits of fair use aren’t strictly set in copyright law, … the use that Instaread has in mind can be licensed from publishers for, in most cases, pretty reasonable cost. Hardly anybody has been licensing such rights since the days of Reader’s Digest. Most authors and publishers would be thrilled to have this extra avenue of revenue and exposure.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
