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Captions is exactly what's being offered though. Amazon is not providing an ebook, they're providing captions in-sync with the audiobook.

The difference between an audiobook and a video is pretty small in a significant portion of YouTube content.

The difference is that audio-books is a separate product category with its own pricing. Embedding text in a video is quite different IMHO...

If Amazon added an animation to the existing audiobook content - making it a video - and then added captions would that be OK?

As the GP said, there's quite a few youtube videos with a completely static background where the content is the speaker's words.

>If Amazon added an animation to the existing audiobook content - making it a video - and then added captions would that be OK?

AFAIK, they would have to obtain prior permission from the copyright owner before re-distributing a modified version of the copyrighted work.