Walt Mossberg of the WSJ today sang the praises of the new Amazon Kindle. But he cited the warning that the Authors Guild has publicly released: Kindle 2 can read books aloud. And Kindle 2 is not paying anyone for audio rights. True, you can already get software that will read aloud whatever is on your computer. But Kindle 2 is being sold specifically as a new, improved, multimedia version of books–every title is an e-book and an audio book rolled into one. And whereas e-books have yet to win mainstream enthusiasm, audio books are a billion-dollar market, and growing. Audio rights are not generally packaged with e-book rights. They are more valuable than e-book rights. Income from audio books helps not inconsiderably to keep authors, and publishers, afloat….You may be thinking that no automated read-aloud function can compete with the dulcet resonance of Jim Dale reading ‘Harry Potter’ or of authors, ahem, reading themselves. But the voices of Kindle 2 are quite listenable….And that sort of technology is improving all the time….no part of my voice is competing with my own audio books yet. But people who want to keep on doing creative things for a living must be duly vigilant about any new means of transmitting their work.
I wonder if we will have to go through the same legal disclaimers as we do to get into Bookshare? Peter Jonathan Mosen List Founder Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... http://www.pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org
