The business of alien thoughts

Anyone who is on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook or TikTok often comes across offers that sound tempting: from weight loss powder to lucrative investments. In our series, reporter Judith Henke takes a look at these products. What is behind it, how serious are you?

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A young blond woman speaks into the camera, holding a coffee cup in her right hand. She explains why she's never been in a committed relationship. Despite several dates, the right person was not there – and love is so much more than a stable relationship. "For example, trust and intimacy - and you can build that with friends, family or other people you're not with."

An important topic that Diana zur Löwen - the name of the young woman - addresses on the short video platform TikTok. Certainly courageous to open up like this on social media.

It is all the more surprising that the video turns into advertising in the next moment: "If you want to find out more about it, just listen to the ten free blinks on the topic of love on Blinkist," the influencer recommends to her viewers.

Blinkist is a start-up founded in 2012. According to its own statements, it offers around 23 million users access to summaries of popular non-fiction books for just under 80 euros a year - so-called blinks, as the company calls the short versions themselves. This means that subscribers can either read the core statements of non-fiction books that Blinkist summarizes within 15 to 25 minutes or listen to them as an audio file.

Sounds efficient - I too have been tormented by a book by a well-known economist for more than half a year now, who has exciting thoughts but terrible writing. A summary would have helped me a lot.

And the concept of "Blinkist" fits perfectly into our time: self-optimization, but please as efficient as possible. The business model now seems to be going down well with customers: the start-up was profitable for the first time in 2020.

No wonder that influencers like Diana zur Löwen, who have acquired a sustainable and cosmopolitan image, like to advertise Blinkist. Gesina Demes, who campaigns for more self-love on her Instagram and TikTok account "Gesinadem", or the lifestyle blogger Marie Luise Ritter are also promoting the start-up.

Similar to Löwen, Ritter placed the advertising as unobtrusively as possible in a social context: the federal election. "Blinkist is a source of information that can help form opinions," she writes next to her promotional post.

At first glance, Blinkist is a product that's not just being promoted by the usual fitness and makeup influencers - then there's surely nothing wrong with it, right?

However, a longer post that non-fiction author Nora Imlau uploaded to Instagram suggests the opposite. As an author, she lives on royalties, she writes. You receive a share of the proceeds from every book, e-book or audio book sold by the publisher.

Blinkist summarizes successful non-fiction books - including yours. "What a lot of people don't know: We authors don't get a share of the proceeds from the short summaries of our books. Not a penny,” she writes.

Blinkist is not obliged to involve authors and argues that it does not use the intellectual property of others, but creates its own works. "And get away with it."

That surprises me: Doesn't Blinkist violate copyright law by simply summarizing non-fiction books by other authors and making money from them?

On its website, the start-up argues: "Although the content of our blinks is based on non-fiction, the language used in our blinks is unique and the blink is a coherent, self-contained text." This means that the blinks are about trade original works. So no copyright infringement – ​​but do lawyers see it the same way?

I ask Linda Kuschel, professor of civil law and intellectual property at Bucerius Law School. She describes Blinkist's business model as "a tightrope walk, but probably permissible."

The reason: The content of non-fiction books, even if they are more of a popular literary nature, is not protected by copyright. In the case of fictional works, copyright is stricter, which should not simply be retold and sold.

Lawyer and copyright expert Stefan Haupt also explains: "In the case of scientific works, there is no copyright protection for the findings, only for the language."

That also makes sense: "Scientific work would otherwise hardly be possible." Because researchers would very often take up content and develop it further. However: "Contents may only be quoted if they serve as evidence of a statement."

Legally, Blinkist seems to be on the safe side when it comes to retelling content from non-fiction books without acquiring rights from the authors. But Blinkist could get into legal trouble for something else.

Because the author Nora Imlau also writes in her Instagram post that some blinks are "distorting bad". "So I've gotten a few angry letters from the editor about statements that I've never actually made - but which are in blinks of my books."

I ask Imlau what she means by that. She tells me on the phone that she uploaded the critical post at the time because she had to spend more and more time explaining to readers that she neither wrote the summaries on Blinkist nor endorsed them in any way. The author, who primarily writes books on family and parenting issues, gives me a particularly annoying example.

In her book "My Family Compass" she devotes a chapter to the subject of "protective violence." This means cases in which the child is potentially in danger - for example if it does not want to sit in the child seat in the car or does not want to don't want to buckle up.

“I consider in detail how parents should solve this situation – on the one hand they would put the child in the car seat against their will, on the other hand they don’t want to hurt them or violate their dignity.” Imlau suggested a mind game as a possible solution decided: “Parents should imagine that they themselves are over 90 years old and frail. How do you want someone to deal with you in this situation?”

According to Imlau, Blinkist radically shortened this sensitive passage. "Then it just said: If you have to assert yourself against your child, imagine that you are old and then implement your plan." Many readers then sent her horrified letters.

This is not only very annoying for the author. It could also put Blinkist in legal trouble, I'm finding out.

"If statements are incorrectly reproduced, this can be a violation of personal rights," says law professor Kuschel. The author of the summary must at least make it clear that his own understanding of the work is at stake.

The Blinkist FAQ says, "We chose to have our Blinks written by real authors. And of course humans aren't absolutely infallible, and neither are our Blinks.” But in the introductions to the abstracts, I don't find any clear indication that this is about an interpretation of the work.

Do other non-fiction authors share the opinion of Nora Imlau? Have you also experienced that your content was not summarized in a meaningful way?

Didactics professor Daniela Elsner, whose book “Gebalanced” can be found on Blinkist, finds it “not particularly tragic” not to be paid for having her content retold. "Only very few non-fiction books throw off so much that it would somehow be interesting to write a book about it." It's more about being perceived as an expert - so she was more happy about a little advertising by Blinkist.

"However, I would like Blinkist to make it clear that the summary of the book's key messages are entirely subjective." Everyone interprets someone else's statements differently. Blinkist authors are placed between the original text and the reader, "so they act like a kind of filter."

Just like Daniela Elsner, some nonfiction authors are bothered by the way their content has been condensed. So does the neurologist Volker Busch, whose book “Head free!: How to gain clarity, concentration and creativity” can be found on Blinkist. In his opinion, the summaries would appear as if they were written in a schoolboy style. "Even my book is only partially recorded."

Christian Röhl, co-author of the financial book Stay Cool and Collect Dividends, writes to me that while he cannot claim that Blinkist misrepresented the contents of the book.

But: "Anyone who only reads the excerpt will not get anything of my 'thinking'." The narrative flow, the language, the anecdotes - "such a book is a total work of art and Blinkist reduces it to the bare facts."

Reducing non-fiction books to the pure facts is a disrespect for the author. "Roughly like this, so you clap an eight-course meal into the blender and then serve it as lukewarm porridge." With this you can devour in ten minutes what you would otherwise eat for four to six hours, I saved time and still get all the nutrients. "Insanely efficient and functional - but still a betrayal of the chef and the cultural technique of cooking."

However, he has to concede to Blinkist that there is a demand for the service as many people are striving for efficiency - perhaps a little too much.

But not all authors are rather reserved towards Blinkist. Pamela Obermaier, for example, whose books “Winners don’t brood” and “Alles Reine Kopfsache!” is on Blinkist: “I have respect for this brilliant business idea.” Blinkist closes the gap between lack of time and the will to continue your education. "I know it myself: I have a pile of books on my dessert table, but I often only really get to read on vacation."

She herself uses Blinkist to assess whether a book is interesting enough to make her want to buy it. "That's why I see it as a kind of advertisement that two of my books can be found on Blinkist."

And Nina Deißler, whose book “Relationship Status: Complicated” is on Blinkist, writes to me that she was happy that Blinkist included one of her books in the program. “Blinkist makes people want books.” She uses the service herself and has already bought a few books because Blinkist drew her attention to them.

Opinions are therefore divided among the non-fiction authors whose works have been summarized. But my little survey shows that not every author is happy when content that has often taken months or years to develop is briefly summarized. But what about the remuneration of the authors?

To find out, I wrote to several publishers and wanted to know: Do the authors really not give a dime for their books to be retold?

"For the use of the cover, but also, if necessary, individual text excerpts or direct quotations from the works, we receive a flat rate from Blinkist for each work," S. Fischer-Verlag writes to me. The authors would also benefit from these license payments. Campus-Verlag and Goldegg Verlag handle it in a similar way.

Users can tell that Blinkist has signed a license agreement with a publisher by the fact that the original book covers are displayed on the website. Nora Imlau, who was the first to publicly criticize Blinkist, also knows this Blink hasn't seen a penny yet."

Not every publisher seems to handle author participation in the same way. And: Blinkist has not made license agreements with every publisher. For example, the Penguin Random House publishing group wrote to me: For some time now, they have only allowed Blinkist to use original covers in exceptional cases and at the express request of their authors.

"We as a publisher do not receive any remuneration for summaries that are published without our consent." They view this approach with increasing skepticism, since these short versions are marketed as independent products and they lack the legal power to influence or prevent the summaries .

After all: Nora Imlau was able to achieve with her public criticism that her books can no longer be found on Blinkist. "Blinkist said it was a gesture of goodwill that my books were removed. I had no right to that. But other authors could also get in touch with you.”

When asked, Blinkist also replied that authors could turn to them with criticism. Then "we will do our utmost to resolve the issue and of course we will remove Blinks from the platform if requested."

It is also not the goal of Blinkist to summarize a book completely. "We just want to convey a few of the core ideas in an appealing way and give our users an aha moment, something to think about." Ideally, they would then buy the book. Authors would regularly contact Blink and ask them to include their book in the program.

By the way, more than 65 percent of the German titles on Blinkist are licensed – that means there is a contract between Blinkist and the publisher. The start-up aims to involve publishers and authors.

The publishers would receive a distribution that would depend on the use of the respective blinks and that would come from a pot of money into which ten percent of all subscription fees would flow.

And what do the influencers who have publicly spoken out in favor of Blinkist say? At least the artist agency representing Diana zur Löwen reports. Zur Löwen cannot say much about the background of Blinkist.

"It was only the access to faster education and the wealth of knowledge that led us to the decision at the time to advertise this and thus win over a broader audience." However, they would also see it critically if authors were not remunerated for their works.

It doesn't matter whether it's lucrative investments, dental splints or coaching offers: anyone who uses social media is overwhelmed with product recommendations. What's behind it? How serious are you? You can find out in our podcast "Die Netz-Checkerin". Subscribe to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Amazon Music or directly via RSS feed.