Here is a small piece available everywhere regarding Amazon's response to the whole audio reading capability of their e-book. Things happen fast these days don't they!?! I think we in the blindness & audio community should take advantage of this and make persons in charge of such policy aware of our "situation." How often does our audio needs come up in the public domain? Cheers, Peter
Rather than argue with the Authors Guild over the text-to-speech feature of its new Kindle 2 e-book reader, Amazon is modifying the device’s software to make it optional. Authors and publishers will now be able to decide if they want the function enabled or not on titles for which they own the rights. Amazon (AMZN) announced the move in a statement released late Friday afternoon, in which it also said it believes the Kindle’s text-to-speech function to be legal: Kindle 2’s experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given. Furthermore, we ourselves are a major participant in the professionally narrated audiobooks business through our subsidiaries Audible and Brilliance. We believe text-to-speech will introduce new customers to the convenience of listening to books and thereby grow the professionally narrated audiobooks business. Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver’s seat. Therefore, we are modifying our systems so that rightsholders can decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech enabled or disabled for any particular title. We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is. The move comes on the heels of a meandering New York Times editorial in which Roy Blount Jr., president of the Authors Guild, argued that the Kindle’s roboticized nondramatic book readings are a threat to the audio book market On 2/26/09, Adrian Spratt <adr...@adrianspratt.com> wrote: > Peter, > > Actually, you're quoting an excerpt from Roy Blount Jr.s' op/ed piece in > yesterday's New York Times. As President, he speaks for the Authors Guild. > The Guild's position is much more nuanced. Here's what Blount goes on to say > in that column concerning the Kindle and our concerns as visually impaired > readers: > > On the National Federation of the Blind’s Web site , the guild is accused of > arguing that it is illegal for blind people to use “readers, either human or > machine, to access books that are not available in alternative formats like > Braille or audio.” > > In fact, publishers, authors and American copyright laws have long provided > for free audio availability to the blind and the guild is all for > technologies that expand that availability. (The federation, though, points > out that blind readers can’t independently use the Kindle 2’s visual, > on-screen controls.) But that doesn’t mean Amazon should be able, without > copyright-holders’ participation, to pass that service on to everyone. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Peter Alan Smith: psmit...@post.harvard.edu" > <psmith.harv...@gmail.com> > To: "PC Audio Discussion List" <pc-audio@pc-audio.org> > Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 9:38 AM > Subject: restricting audio rights to synthesized voices ... > > 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 > To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org
