Looking to license audio based courses (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

Looking to license audio based courses
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Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes

10 messages over 2 pages: 1 2 Next >>

Normunds
Pentaglot
Groupie
Switzerland
Joined 5965 days ago
86 posts - 112 votes

Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German
Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian

Message 1 of 10

11 September 2014 at 4:14pm | IP Logged

The background: I am a developer creating my own language learning software and I'm pretty happy with the result, particularly with the current Android version. I intend to commercialise it, probably along the popular freeware/pro version paradigm.

However it is just a software. What I am looking for is the content. Existing relatively modern courses that heavily rely on pure audio - not in a pimleurised or podcast formats.

What it does: the endless stop, pause, rewind for you; plus have a number of good-to-have features. In essence it is meant to make the audio based courses much more usable. Either by completely re-packaging or by providing a useful addition to the existing paper book/ebook.

I have a workflow that includes a couple of tools that allows me reasonably quickly re-package existing courses. In fact the project has grown from a self-written software to "improve" the Assimil courses that I have been using over the years.

I am looking for beginner to intermediate level courses in languages that I have been learning, so I should be able to handle the material relatively easily: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Indonesian, Japanese and Latvian (my native language). I have studied Arab (MSA), Thai and Finnish as well, but I think they might give me some trouble right now :-)

These could be big commercial courses such as Assimil or relatively small privately owned - such as course produced internally by universities, companies or government agencies.

What is in this for the content owner?
1) What I would prefer is some kind pay-as-you-go arrangement to pay N-monies for every copy sold.
2) In addition it might boost the visibility of original course especially if it has much more than text+audio, so that my programme could put in your pocket just one aspect and refer potential clients to the "real course"
3) Another option could be some kind of barter where I provide the original target population (say university students) with copies of program and in return have right to sell my software bundled with the particular material.
4) finally it could simply be some big course provider that would like to take advantage of the enormous Android market (and iOS version is more than doable as well)

I'm also interested to hear opinions why one language or other, or particular niche/level might not be useful for commercial distribution. Or just the opposite - are hot as crazy :-)

Also there might be good courses along these lines that are out of copyright. What happens with Linguaphone courses for example? They had really good recordings, thorough supporting material. Their copyright might be expiring.
1 person has voted this message useful

Doitsujin
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5321 days ago
1256 posts - 2363 votes

Speaks: German*, English

Message 2 of 10

11 September 2014 at 6:27pm | IP Logged

Normunds wrote:

Also there might be good courses along these lines that are out of copyright. What happens with Linguaphone courses for example? They had really good recordings, thorough supporting material. Their copyright might be expiring.

In most countries the copyright is life+70 years. I.e., you'd have to license the courses from Linguaphone.
As for the recordings, check out Librivox volunteers for major languages. Some of them also do commercial work.
There are also lots of affordable outsourcing websites such as Elance and Amazon Mechanical Turk
AFAIK, Sprachprofi has designed several language courses and might be able to put you in contact with suitable speakers.

Edited by Doitsujin on 11 September 2014 at 6:40pm
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Michel1020
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5018 days ago
365 posts - 559 votes

Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch

Message 3 of 10

11 September 2014 at 7:26pm | IP Logged

Normunds wrote:

...
What it does: the endless stop, pause, rewind for you; ...

So your target market is people with no fingers ?

1 person has voted this message useful

Normunds
Pentaglot
Groupie
Switzerland
Joined 5965 days ago
86 posts - 112 votes

Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German
Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian

Message 4 of 10

11 September 2014 at 11:27pm | IP Logged

Doitsujin wrote:

As for the recordings, check out Librivox volunteers for major languages. Some of them also do commercial work.
There are also lots of affordable outsourcing websites such as Elance and Amazon Mechanical Turk
AFAIK, Sprachprofi has designed several language courses and might be able to put you in contact with suitable speakers.

Thanks Doitsujin, I do not really intend to "build" a course. I was looking for a course already done. Making course from scratch is possible, but it's a real trouble.

As for copyrights, it might be really be tricky, and country dependent, so anything global should take into account the worst case. So yes, might just ask Linguaphone or find whoever holds these rights today. But the big whales of commercial sector are more or less visible (not always evident who holds the rights, but that must be relatively regular thing to find out), here I rather wanted to see if there is path to reach less evident course owners.

Michel1020 wrote:

So your target market is people with no fingers ?

Not sure how you mean this. Saying "thank you, I still got my fingers working"? Attempt at a joke, right?
1 person has voted this message useful

Michel1020
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5018 days ago
365 posts - 559 votes

Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch

Message 5 of 10

12 September 2014 at 12:01pm | IP Logged

Empty joke for an empty thread. At least mine are short.

Does it put me at D1 to understand there is nothing to be understood in your words ?
1 person has voted this message useful

Normunds
Pentaglot
Groupie
Switzerland
Joined 5965 days ago
86 posts - 112 votes

Speaks: Latvian*, French, English, Russian, German
Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian

Message 6 of 10

12 September 2014 at 1:24pm | IP Logged

Michel1020 wrote:

Empty joke for an empty thread. At least mine are short.

Does it put me at D1 to understand there is nothing to be understood in your words ?

eh, ok. joke... You sound to be pretty passionate about something. How asking about a course is "nothing"? Or you might say that my software is "nothing" (then looks like you have divination methods available to judge about it), so no need for a course?

I have used my tools for many years and never regret taking time to develop them. So it's quite possible that some other people will find them useful.

I know there are many people in this forum very passionate about some particular methods, but with time they should learn to live and let others live.

BTW with D1 you mean "divinator level 1" or "dumb level 1"?

1 person has voted this message useful

emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5533 days ago
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Speaks: English*, French^B2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

Message 7 of 10

12 September 2014 at 3:01pm | IP Logged

Michel1020 wrote:

So your target market is people with no fingers ?

Michel1020 wrote:

Does it put me at D1 to understand there is nothing to be understood in your words ?

Normunds wrote:

BTW with D1 you mean "divinator level 1" or "dumb level 1"?

This kind of sarcasm and personal insult adds nothing to the conversation. And it's against the house rules. If Normunds wishes to politely inquire about licensing audio courses, he's welcome do so. If somebody else thinks that the conversation has crossed the line into commercial spam, they're welcome to use the "Report" button, and a moderator will take a look.

In general, long-standing HTLAL members are allowed to link to their sites, or start a thread about their book/software/website/etc. Brand-new members are encouraged to actually participate in the forum first, because it decreases the risk the moderators will mistake them for a spammer.
5 persons have voted this message useful

Michel1020
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5018 days ago
365 posts - 559 votes

Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch

Message 8 of 10

12 September 2014 at 5:57pm | IP Logged

Normunds wrote:

It starts very well.
I am sure I don't know what he means by "freeware/pro version paradigm" but I am sure other readers will understand better than I do.

Normunds wrote:

However it is just a software. What I am looking for is the content. Existing relatively modern courses that heavily rely on pure audio - not in a pimleurised or podcast formats.

Here it starts turning "strange". I would be the first person to side with an individu facing a big brand but ...
Could he tell us what are a pimleurised format, a podcast format and a pure audio course ? And more importantly what would be a pure audio thing that is not podcast-formated ?

Normunds wrote:

What it does: the endless stop, pause, rewind for you;

That is the only feature of his software that I understand. Something that we can do easily and for free with Audacity (to mention only one way to do it)

Normunds wrote:

plus have a number of good-to-have features. In essence it is meant to make the audio based courses much more usable. Either by completely re-packaging or by providing a useful addition to the existing paper book/ebook.

Wonderfully empty.
If you see more than emptyness in these 3 lines - please show me.

Normunds wrote:

I have a workflow that includes a couple of tools that allows me reasonably quickly re-package existing courses. In fact the project has grown from a self-written software to "improve" the Assimil courses that I have been using over the years.

Maybe a demo would be more usefull.

Normunds wrote:

I am looking for beginner to intermediate level courses in languages that I have been learning, so I should be able to handle the material relatively easily: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Indonesian, Japanese and Latvian (my native language). I have studied Arab (MSA), Thai and Finnish as well, but I think they might give me some trouble right now :-)

Ahaha is this your hidden agenda ? Do you want to receive all these courses for free - paying the editors with your so called re-packaged version in stead of with money ?

Normunds wrote:

These could be big commercial courses such as Assimil or relatively small privately owned - such as course produced internally by universities, companies or government agencies.

What is in this for the content owner?
1) What I would prefer is some kind pay-as-you-go arrangement to pay N-monies for every copy sold.
2) In addition it might boost the visibility of original course especially if it has much more than text+audio, so that my programme could put in your pocket just one aspect and refer potential clients to the "real course"
3) Another option could be some kind of barter where I provide the original target population (say university students) with copies of program and in return have right to sell my software bundled with the particular material.
4) finally it could simply be some big course provider that would like to take advantage of the enormous Android market (and iOS version is more than doable as well)

I'm also interested to hear opinions why one language or other, or particular niche/level might not be useful for commercial distribution. Or just the opposite - are hot as crazy :-)

Also there might be good courses along these lines that are out of copyright. What happens with Linguaphone courses for example? They had really good recordings, thorough supporting material. Their copyright might be expiring.

I am a bite tired to make more comments on the end of your initial message but I think it is more fair if I quote this message entirely.

1 person has voted this message useful

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