Amazon Caves to Author's Guild; Muzzles Reading Robots
"Gather 'round children, it's time for story time with RoboGrandma - just make sure my batteries are charged!" This kind of blatant intellectual property violation will no longer be committed by the Amazon Kindle. The company today announced that it has given in to demands by the Author's Guild and will let publishers choose whether or not to enable the Kindle's speech to text audio functions for individual texts. Remember, folks, when reading by robots is outlawed, only outlaw robots will read aloud.
The Author's Guild argued that Kindle had only licensed display rights for content on the kindle, not audio or performance rights. The feature will now be neutered and put under the control of publishers on a title by title basis.
The New York Times has published Amazon's full statement on the deal but it can be summarized as "blah, blah, blah...we cry Uncle."
Last week our own Frederic Lardinois wrote a post titled "Don't Be Silly; the Kindle 2 is no Threat to Audiobooks." He argued that the speech to text was more likely to persuade customers to purchase professionally (human) read audio books than it was to whisk them into a pirate world of cuddling up with annoying robot voices for extended listening sessions.
It is pretty interesting that the book publishing world remains able to flex its muscles and make the mighty Amazon budge though - is it not? I bet they are pretty pleased with themselves about that.
Image from CNet UK.
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The publishing industry isn't dead enough, so publishing industry professionals feel a need to destroy their own future just that much more thoroughly? Have they learned nothing from the music industry?
What if a teacher reads a book out-loud to his or her class is she in violation of these intellectual property rights?
I am so fed up with these idiotic schemes that seem to always ruin technology advancements. I can have software on my computer that reads any text based material. Is that in violation?
It is so pathetic - tell me how the hell this is going to cannibalize sales of their sacred book to Kindle owners? Do they assume that people get together for special Kindle parties and have a book read out-loud to them? Totally ridiculous if you ask me.
I'm glad people recognize Lusddites when they see them at least. These kinds of things will be fun to watch, especially in heavily unionized fields, like with robotic firefighters.
Don't be fooled, this is much less a copyright issue than a get-what-we-can-by-screaming issue. There will be plenty more.
How stupid of the guild...its like music labels fighting against the technology of digital downloads, only much more stupid.
I dont see any problem with text to speech being used like this. Some people cant read, Its really good for them.
I agree with the article and the previous commenters, that the publishers are being foolish here. But given that by all accounts (I haven't heard it myself) the electronic voice of the Kindle isn't good enough to listen to for long periods, and so doesn't pose much of a threat to human-read audio books, then the automatic text-to-voice doesn't sound like much of a useful feature anyway, and so not a great loss if it's not available.
Bundling professionally-read audio versions of the book with the written version on Kindle would however be useful and probably most people would pay a small premium for that.
I pity those fools.
Instead of seeing an opportunity to cater for visually impaired users they see a threat that simply does not exist. So silly!
The law of the survival of the fittest will take care of them.
Kudos Amazon! You have put a small power back into the hands of the hard-working creative body.
The grimy, pawing hands of the robber horde must fumble elsewhere.
Perhaps someone should sue the book publishers under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In my view, Amazon was just trying to accommodate visually impaired customers.
I am a Kindle owner and vow not to purchase the books in which the publishers have banned this feature. Instead I will use my public library to read these books.
At a time when the economy is in such shambles, I would think that they would be a little more considerate of the customers.
I urge other Kindle owners not to purchase these books.
If i have a kindle, I wish it could read for me...
Idiots.
Amazon should have said "Okay, IF you have an audiobook we will disable it but if you don't offer it as an audiobook we will enable it." and then let publishers get bad press from the blind community.
I wish I had ordered one from amazon, I'd ask for a refund since it doesn't do hat was promised...
I could see this turning into an accessibility issue; people with a sight disability need the voice function to read their books.
I work with the government, and all electronic documents we create must be section 508 compliant. I've been told that 10% of the population has some sort of disability that requires the assistance of a screen reader.
If I were Amazon, I would argue that book sales would actually improve with the Kindle's text-to-speech function, since you're opening the book market to another 10% of the population. And that would be more money for the author's guild.
On a somewhat related note, books on tape usually skip over parts of the text found in the book. You're getting a different product when you purchase an audio-book.
Finally, what is the book on tape market worth? And can someone prove how much this industry really stands to lose? Is this just another industry that is about to become obsolete and is suing everything in hopes of slowing its inevitable demise (like the recording industry)?
Here are some thoughts from the author Neil Gaiman
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/02/end-of-audiobook-argument.html
He's talked about it before too.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/02/quick-argument-summary.html
Bundling professionally-read audio versions of the book with the written version on Kindle would however be useful and probably most people would pay a small premium for that.
You gotta think that the Internet is killing the book business. Publishers and authors will most likely need to embrass this to become profitable.
I see this featured getting hacked. I already have a e reader on my PDA and laptop that can read pdf's and lit's. That would make it pretty easy to get books off of sites like free book spot or just a google search, but I don't swing that way. I liked the kindle, but with this option gone.... I dunno.
Hello Everyone,
My friend, who is blind, loves audio books very much. He has very little feeling in his hands, so he can not read braille. If some books do not create audio books for sale, does this mean that we are wrong for creating text to speech mp3's for him for lit and pdf files that he buys? Am I a pirate for enabling my friend to enjoy the latest books before an audio version has been created? I guess publishers no longer care for blind people!!!