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Author's Guild Says Kindle's Text-To-Speech Software Illegal
Mike writes "The Author's Guild claims that the new Kindle's text-to-speech software is illegal, stating that 'They don't have the right to read a book out loud,' said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. 'That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.' Forget for a moment that text-to-speech doesn't copy an existing work. And forget the odd notion that the artificial enunciation of plain text is equivalent to a person's nuanced and emotive reading. The Guild's claim is that even to read out loud is a production akin to an illegal copy, or a public performance."
Do you hear the sound of the words echo through your head as you read words, like me? Well, as the copyright owner of this comment, I forbid such usage- and deny you the ablity to read this comment out loud to your friends either.
Seriously though, despite this being a rediculous idea, what is the Authors' Guild actually trying to do here?
I mean, if anybody is really pushing to create more copyright holder rights, it's Amazon and the Kindle. Let's review...
-The right to not let my friends borrow my book when I'm finished reading it? Check.
-The right to not resell my book on the used books market when I'm done? Check.
-The right to having access to my books revoked on a whim if my provider goes out of business, or *gasp* decides it's not a profitable market (MSN Music, I'm looking at you)? Check.
With all these rights landgrabs that Amazon is making with their digital books on Amazon (and heck, digital media in general), I'd assumed they were colluding with the Author's Guild. I mean, if nobody can share your books, and nobody can help spread the buzz surrounding your great ideas or fiction... that means you'll make more sales... right?
To hell with all of them. I'll read quietly, or out loud when ever I please. And just for being assholes, I'm going to pirate the next book published by a guild author. And I'm going to listen to Microsoft Sam read it to me. And I'm going to pretend to like it.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Shes going to be pissed.
Sometimes I read a portion of a book out loud - to myself - in order to slow down my thought processes. It is akin, I think, to taking notes when being lectured. The act of reading out loud alters both the rate and the quality of my understanding of the text.
Which, according to Paul Aiken, means I'm a criminal.
Speaking as the owner of one of the oldest SF-specialized literary agencies in the country, and as someone who is quite interested in protecting author's rights for all the obvious reasons, I think Aiken has fallen off the cognitive cliff, and that he does no one - not authors, not consumers, not publishers - any favors by pushing this over-the-top interpretation of what an "audio performance" is.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Let's say I hire a nanny and ask her to read to my child. Is that nanny breaking the law?
I wonder if there's a distinction to be made in the idea that they aren't recording this text-to-speech stuff and then distributing the recording, but rather producing it on the fly.
I'm pretty sure the blind have been using this sort of software for years, in fact I'm sure of it. Are they also going to threaten Apple and all the other software vendors who supply this much-needed resource for the blind? Did they even *think* about the deeper implications of what they're saying before firing the opening volley in what is, at its heart, a blatantly pissy money grab?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...reading itself should be illegal, as it makes copies of the information contained in the text which, obviously, could be retransmitted in other forms including telepathic waves.
Give me a break.
All this revolves around are audio books sales. Forget the fact that right now synthesized text to speech is painful to listen vs a human voice, this is just another case of technology slowly making one industry obsolete.
They might as well sue teachers or those libraries that offer children's programs by reading a book out loud.
They say nothing makes more problems than solutions, and I feel the concept of intellectual property taking this to extreme.
Just wait until you see what the publishing industry tries to pull. "Vicious" is a pretty good word for their attempts at controlling people can do with books. If getting the music industry to abandon DRM was like wrestling food away from a rabid badger, getting the publishing industry to drop it will be like confronting a T-Rex that thinks you look mighty tasty.
Does this meant that my blind friends who use JAWS to read websites are breaking the law or infringing copyrights? Another excuse for a lawsuit or settlement...
-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
So waitaminute...by Aiken's logic, wouldn't screen readers and other accessibility tools fall under this category as well? That's a losing battle if ever I've seen one...urm, heard one.
Posterity, my posterior.
Also, there will be a small royalty charge for moving your lips as you read. This has two benefits. There will be fewer people moving their lips as they read. And there will be fewer people reading.
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Before the days of IT technology producing sound from text required a performance.
Now sound from text is a programmed translation. No more different or complex than the rendering of the book PDF information on the screen.
Welcome to the information age. Data is data and rendering translations are done all over the place, ascii to display bits. HTML to display. GIF, JPEG to images, MPEG to sound, MPEG to video. ascii, pdf or html to sound is no more difficult or complex. Just a little newer.
Hey, they should go after that Kurzweil guy next! He's been stealing from authors for many, many years. Stealing them blind!
I'm sitting here thinking that no lawyer could possibly be dumb enough to advise their client with this legal theory. Even if we accept this concept at face value (which it does have some value related to public performances and derivitive works), fair use throws a huge monkey wrench into any potential lawsuits. Courts have repeatedly held up that once you are sold a copy of a product, you are entititled to privately do whatever you want with it. That includes space and time shifting. Text to speech is just another type of space shifting. i.e. Moving from one medium to another.
Then I realized that there's no way Mr. Aiken is serious about these threats. He's posturing in an attempt to force Amazon to rethink the text-to-speech in light of their audio book business. This becomes especially clear based on the response from an Amazon spokesperson:
So never fear! The world isn't quite upside down yet. This is just business as usual. Someone's trying to play a weak hand and hopes the other side folds. (Good luck with that.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Do people buy both? I've always thought people bought one or the other. Long haul truckers and blind people buy audio versions, and others buy the written versions. I don't think Kindle will change that.
I can see people taking advantage of this, like someone listening instead of reading while cleaning the house or something, but that person would probably never think to buy an audio version of the book. I can't see there being enough lost sales to care.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Dramatic drop in sales of "A Brief History of Time" audiobooks, read by author.
In the immortal words of Al Gore: Do they have a "controlling legal authority" for that interpretation of copyright law, or is this just a legal posture, that is not supported by law or precedent?
dave
It does. Copyright is for an embodiment of a work, so a sung edition is a different work to a printed edition of the work. And reading out a direct copy of a printed text is a derived work because it comes in a different package. And that's how copyright law works.
++ not a lawyer, not even pretending, and this isn't legal advice.
Can you imagine sitting next to someone using this feature on a train?
This is indeed the road to Tycho.
Sorry dudes. Copyright 101 (or 17 USC 106) says that these are the rights covered by copyright
1) Reproduction in copies or phonorecords
2) Preparation of derivative works
3) Distribution of copies or photorecords
4) Public performance
5) Public display
6) Public performance via digital audio transmission
Reading aloud does not create a copy or phonorecord, so 1) is out. If not done in public, 4,5, and 6 are out (and 6 only covers sound recordings anyway). There's no distribution, so 3) is out.
That leaves 2. However, according to copyright law, a "work" must be "fixed in any tangible medium". The audio played by a text-to-speech program is never fixed (unless the TTS program buffers a significant part of the sound, which is unlikely) by the operation of that program. Therefore there is no violation of copyright by private use of the text-to-speech program. Therefore there are significant noninfringing uses of the text-to-speech program, and therefore distribution of the program itself is not secondary copyright infringement. QED.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
What's the legalistic way to say, "Naw, fuck y'all?"
Seriously, I'm tired of trying to be outraged or logical about the weekly media rights crap. Let just ignore them and break the "laws" as we see fit, and just keep on keepin' on. Fuck 'em.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
Rumor has it that if they are successful, the Authors Guild will next file suit against God for providing a source of light outside in daytime.
Here is the DRM scheme I propose for books:
If two people are in a room and one wants to read a book out loud, he must first kill the other one.
Same authors guild who want a royalty on all used book sales?
Guys, do the world a favor, go play in traffic.
Wankers...
now, say that out loud...
Louder...
louder still
good, feels better doesn't it?
Ladies and gentlemen! A full-contact legal battle for the ages!
In this corner, we have the Author's Guild, with the full weight of American copyright law behind them.
And in this corner, we've got the National Federation for the Blind, swinging a big stick: the Americans with Disabilities Act!
Gentlemen ... FIGHT!
are they going to go after Slashdot for providing articles "in audio form via an RSS feed, as read by our own robotic overlord."
tsk. tsk . .
And that's how copyright law works.
No, that's how copyright law is twisted, taken out of context, and used as a club to bully people with. My goodness, if I put a colored filter over a book and read it in a different light, I am now producing a derivative work. If I take a book and rip a page out, this is now a derivative work. If I write something in the margin, I have produced a derivative work. And heaven forbid I lend my book to a friend, learn from it and try to use my skills or (shudder) donate a book to a public library - those are violations of the "new" spin on copyright law that could land me in jail!
Enjoy your death by legislation. Me I will continue to live in a sane country.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I understand where they guy is coming from, even though his argument doesn't hold water. I am pretty sure that one of the "rights" sold by publishers covers a book's audio recording. In other words, not just anybody can take a book, record herself reading it, and sell the recording. You have to purchase the rights to do so. So he's complaining about the imminent evaporation of one of their revenue streams.
That said, too bad so sad. It's like a horse owner saying that an engine manufacturer is infringing on his right to pull wagons. If what you have to sell is no longer worth anything because of some new technology, you had better look for something else to sell.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
The statements made by Paul Aiken as quoted are factual. The statements made in the remainder of the summary are unsupported assertions and demonstrably false and/or irrelevant.
Audio rights and other derivations are clearly defined under copyright law. Enunciation is irrelevant. Reading something out loud is pretty much the definition of performance, and if done for an unspecified number greater than 1, is public in aggregate (multiple single readings) if not immediate fact (multiple person audience). A performance is a copy, albeit one with no long term existence. The definition of copy does not specify duration of existence.
The fact that various situations exist which seem to contradict Aiken's assertions do not invalidate his assertions, they merely are manifestations of present day technology colliding (yet again) with yesterday's definitions which couldn't presage the technology. Resolving such issues are a function of the same law. If already built into the definitions, ie. "public", "performance" "derivative" etc., the law stands. When the law doesn't cover, the courts serve to redefine. In this case the law at least nearly, if not completely, serves as it stands.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Back in the good, really old days, one's own work being read out loud was considered an honor.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
How well informed is Paul Aiken? did he come to the WSJ to make the complaint, or did a journalist giver an inaccurate explanation of what is did that suggested that it was an audiobook? Was he aware that what he said was going to be taken as on the record?
Slashdot comments are not legal advice. Run them past your attorney if you have questions.
By their reasoning, all of my elementary school teachers are criminals.
Not exactly. The performance of a work as part of face-to-face teaching takes advantage of several limitations of copyright's scope, both implicit in fair use (17 USC 107) and explicit (17 USC 110(1)). Besides, 17 USC 110(4) would appear to make this whole article not apply.
A while ago I was looking into creating a phone and web based TTS service for wikipedia.
Not knowing the legality of it I emailed the FSF. Eventually (after about 2 months) they replied and said that the GFDL does not grant the right for audio reproductions and I should contact the copyright holder for permission outside the GFDL.
So basically the writers guild and FSF both agree...
Screw the blind!
I think the author's guild loses this one.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I know this is irrelevant and thus I assume im going to get some offtopic or ... whatever I need to get this off my chest...
Im that close | | to wish that humanity get whiped out on all count of extreme greed.. on all count of usage of intelligence to regress.. on all count of head in the butt...
Please change your ways people, isn't humanity over this ?? I mean can't we trive on the goal of being better and enlightened. Greed ultimately will result in you being buried with more wealth..
Those boring fart(s)!
This could be a bit of a blessing in disguise if they decide to try and force this issue. Why, I hear you all cry. Simply because it's completely and utterly insane. I can see why they think this might be justified after the way the music industry has played fast and loose with copyright law but the average person can see this is just wrong on every level. That means there is a chance that copyright law in general will be reviewed which should put an end to the current fiasco where people are paying good money for things they will never own in any real sense of the world.
I'm ignoring the fact that text-to-speech still sounds like Stephen Hawking with a bad cold and probably will do for the foreseeable future - why anyone would want to listen to a current generation machine voice read a book is beyond me (unless of course they can't see to read the book but, even the, surly Braille is better).
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Nail these fuckers to a wall.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
and that sentiment is:
FUCK OFF, YOU GREEDY STUPID ASSHOLES!
have a nice day.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
How do they respond to the ADA and various regulations that mandate things like designing websites so that they can be read by screen readers? How's this any different from that? Just think--millions and millions of parents are now copyright infringers for reading "Goodnight Moon" or "The Cat in the Hat" to their kids!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Shes going to be pissed.
I have to warn you: young girls like to read aloud. You'd best educate her about copyright law before that happens.
So reading a book you own aloud to yourself is copyright infringement? I think not, and I think any judge would agree with me.
"Once upon a time, Natalie Portman had a big bowl of hot grits..."
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
So, what are they saying?
Reading books to my son when he was little was dislegal?
Blind people aren't allowed to enjoy books unless they pay extra?
The title is my opinion of the Author's Guild, and you can read it out loud, with full expression.
...at bedtime. Well, my 5-year-old will (she can't read yet). Even my 9-year-old likes it when I read stories to them at bedtime. Little did I know that it was a criminal act...
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Breathing is hereby declared illegal, the amount of CO2 you produce with be the end of the planet, put a bad over you head immediately and tie it off tight !
He is right it is not a copy of the work. Now, if you recorded the audio the kindle produces and created another file (audio) then that would be a "copy" and would fall under the "audio" provisions of the copyright law. However, with our screwed up legal system...who knows.
since the Author's Guild is being such a prick i am going to dust off my Hallicraftors and use text to speech and broadcast as many books on the shortwave band the next few weekends for anyone to listen to on the 40 meter shortwave band, free to anyone that can listen, and home brewing an AM broadcast band transmitter for the same purpose...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Unless the voice is recorded, how could it be infringing? Its potential, normal uses are entirely the same use cases that one would get with a book owner choosing to read the public out loud. Some of those are infringing (reading out loud to a public audience), some of them are not (reading at home to your kids). There is no functional difference here between the two unless the Kindle also records the audio for posterity and sharing.
I would, but won't they sue me for copyright infringement of using their address?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
These actors guild and authors guilds need to go away and die. What they are doing is prohibition. Trying to stop any artist from doing anything. unless it is them so they need to die like Scientology.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The creepy guy sitting behind you on the train reading your book over your shoulder is breaking federal copyright law? Or is that your fault for enjoying your book in a public place where it could be considered a public performance?
Only if the text reader sounds like Morgan Freeman
The RIAA today filed a cease-and-desist order against the Authors' Guild of America, claiming the AGA has violated its patent related to expressing dumbass legal theories in public. He noted that the patent clearly covers situations in which the dumbass in question asserts that everyone in America is somehow a criminal, for performing a common action.
"This is a clear violation of our IP, and I'm disappointed that a professional guild would behave this way," said Cary Sherman, President of the RIAA. "Only we are allowed to call all of our customers criminals," he went on to say.
am glad that the Author's Guild is trying to assert this ridiculous notion publicly. Why? Because it forces more people to comprehend what is being done to their rights. Whether this is just posturing or whether it is an honest attempt to do something evil, it will be seen as evil by anyone who encounters this idiot's ideas.
If anything, this will force more people to come to terms with the fact that media distributors are trying to take their rights away. Maybe that will then encourage more people to stand up and tell them to go to hell.
I can't read silently, so I either breach the copyright or stop reading ;)
From my very personal POV this device is just some sort of computing device and the speech output is just a 508 requirement. Do they want to vote against US governmental accessibility requirements ?
Spend the $.41 or whateverit'satthesedays for a stamp and scribble down a short note telling them to get Aiken to STFU.
Add a disclaimer at the bottom indicating that Aiken must read the letter himself (it can't be read by his secretary to him) and that he must not move his lips while doing so. Anything else would require that he pays audio royalties to the author of the letter. He can't have it both ways.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Reading something out loud is pretty much the definition of performance, and if done for an unspecified number greater than 1, is public in aggregate (multiple single readings)
True, it's performance. But from the definition of "publicly" in 17 USC 101, I don't see how individual private performances of a single copy constitute performances done "publicly" when repeated in front of separate audiences. Otherwise, owning a tape deck would infringe copyright law because I can play a tape multiple times to different people. Can you cite other statutes or case law supporting your interpretation?
if not immediate fact (multiple person audience).
Don't plug the headphone jack into a public address system, and it's not public. Even some public performances would appear to meet a statutory limitation of the exclusive right under U.S. law as long as nobody charges admission: 17 USC 110(4).
The fact that various situations exist which seem to contradict Aiken's assertions do not invalidate his assertions
Yes it does. Per Sony v. Universal, a device feature does not infringe copyright if it has substantial non-infringing use.
This is not a HOW TO - http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
If the copyright claim is based on a public performance, then the person who must be sued in the lawsuit is the performer, because they are the ones infringing on the copyright. In this case, the performer is the kindle itself.
If the kindle is the performer, as an entity without legal status, then the responsible party would be the owner of the entity, in this case, the customer. NOT Amazon.
Be sure to remind him that he isn't authorized to read your letter aloud to the other members in the Guild.
How are we expected to take organizations like this seriously when they make claims like this? I mean, really?! So blind people who use text-to-speech software in order to "read" books have been breaking the law?
I guess that I should remove that text to speech app that I have so they do not try and sue me for listen to my books that I have bought....
I suppose that they have problems with software designed to assist people with disabilities with their computers as well. I know several people who are legally blind who use software such as described above to assist them with using a computer and to read books, etc.
I think this is over the top and hopefully someone will put a stop to it.
Regardless of how this particular argument has been made for this example, there is actually an under riding issue to this.
Authors sign contracts for the use of their works by a publisher. these contracts usually spell out exact restrictions for use of the content. The author's compensation for their work in creating the book is in various ways tied to the rights of use that they sign away with the contract. A publisher who takes a hit novel and wants to produce an audio book version of that book must have the rights to do so. If they do not, then they must strike a new contract with the author to attain these rights.
This is the basic foundation of how authors make money for their work.
The Kindle 2, by making text to speech a foundation part of how the book is sold, while perhaps an interesting idea for some users, may in fact be problematic from a contract standpoint.
While the Kindle 2 today may offer a monotone rendering only marginally better than watching Wargames, but that is a temporary condition. Technology advances and soon these readers might add more flavor to the reading. At what point does the Kindle interfere with the Books on Tape market? These issues must be resolved in order to proceed in an acceptable fashion.
The user of various readers for the visually impaired is an existing reality that has it's own arrangements in place with various publishers, distributors, etc.
To take a special needs argument and apply it as a defense of a device designed for the broad market, is a conceptual fallacy.
It's easy to point at the Author's Guild and make the leap to painting them with the same brush as the MPAA and RIAA but the publishing industry has some significant variations from those industries and to assume that the same motive drive them is foolish.
As an eaxmple. My wife is a new author. She went through nearly 4 months of contract discussions and negotiations during her initial sale of her first trilogy. The rights for the books are spelled out in explicit detail, using portions of the boilerplate contracts from both her agent and her publisher. One aspect of author's contracts is what published language(s) the contract covers and if it covers audiobooks. One cannot reasonably expect authors to give up their contract negotiations for their personal compensation for audio rights to their books simply because the Kindle 2 gives text to speech features, and what advanced form those audio features may have in the future.
So, while you read and debate this topic, avoid painting the topic as specific to one speaker and apply it as an argument on behalf of the authors who produce these works.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
At last, I can get revenge on all those Grade School teachers that were ILLEGALLY reading me those stories in class!
I might even hope to have my parents arrested for those bedtime stories, too!
"Do you hear the sound of the words echo through your head as you read words, like me?"
Mine comes complete with reverb and other sound effects.
"-The right to not let my friends borrow my book when I'm finished reading it? Check."
Except Kindle allows book sharing amongst several Kindles.
"-The right to not resell my book on the used books market when I'm done? Check."
The price of convenience.
"-The right to having access to my books revoked on a whim if my provider goes out of business, or *gasp* decides it's not a profitable market (MSN Music, I'm looking at you)? Check. "
Not a check until it actually happens.
They should go after all those horrible, illegal grade school teachers who read books out loud to their classes! Don't they know that's an unlicensed derivative work! Just goes to show how crime-ridden our schools are these days.
Basic suggestion: get 50 people. Go to the "Author's Guild" offices, stage a sit-in, and everyone start reading some book aloud.
To make it REALLY funny, make it a freely-available Creative Commons book. Maybe Free Culture by Lessig.
This is another example of patents and copyrights getting in the way of promising technology and limiting what choice consumers have.
This is just another way to squeeze companies that produce new things and another way to squeeze consumers that want to buy them.
Please read Against Intellectual Monopoly for free here:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm
It's news like these that make glad to be a pirate! ARGGH!
I'd hate myself were I to give a dime to these cretins.
To qualify as a public performance, there needs to be a performer and a public audience. The book itself doesn't count as a performer, and the operator of the book probably wouldn't count as a public audience.
the American blind association should kick there ass and good luck finding a jury to take the Authors Guild side.
The key words here are "sell" and "Amazon." The article doesn't say, and the Author's Guild certainly wouldn't say, that you don't have a right to read a book out loud. They are arguing that Amazon doesn't have that right to sell one without contracting with the owner first. Does anybody here think they have a right to sell an audio performance of a book for which they don't own the copyright without the copy-holder's permission?
Amazon is clearly touting Kindles ability to turn a text book into an audio book. They obviously think they will be paid more money for that ability. Add to that the fact that Amazon already contracts with many of these authors to sell audio performances of their works. You have an established business practice between two parties to sell a valuable commodity and now one of the parties is finding a way to violate the agreement.
Remember the author is the one that owns the copyright, not Amazon, and is the own with the right to profit by their work. If Amazon finds a new way to make more money from those works they are obligated to negotiate for permission first.
Which is a problem for the parties to the contract. Not to third parties such as Amazon, or Amazon's customers. If Eric Flint sells the novel _1840_ to Baen, and someone pissed in his cheerios that morning so he decided to be a bastard about it and specify that while Baen does have the right to publish the work electronically, they don't have the right to run text-to-speech on it, that binds Baen only. It could only bind Baen's customers if those customers contracted with Baen that they wouldn't run text-to-speech on it. And it can't bind makers of text-to-speech programs at all. Only the operation of copyright law could bind third parties, and copyright law doesn't do so. (IMO, IANAL)
An Amazon spokesman noted the text-reading feature depends on text-to-speech technology, and that listeners won't confuse it with the audiobook experience. Amazon owns Audible, a leading audiobook provider.
How many people go out and buy a book, and then buy the audio book? I own a pile of books, and a few audio books, but there isn't any overlap. So, assuming I'm only going to buy one or the other anyways, even if the eBook could be used as an audio book and was indistinguishable from a human read audio book, why not let the book serve as an audio book as well?
Also, you can expect organizations that promote accessibility to get up in arms about this. Text-to-speech is a very nice way for people with visual disabilities to get access to content that isn't available as audio books.
Silent reading is a very new concept, and I'd much rather see people encouraging public reading than silent reading.
That said, it looks like Kindle may need headphones to do TTS. Boo!
Let's go straight to discrimination. If you can't "see" my book, then you have no right to read it. Should be fun for the Author's Guild to defend that. Union vs. Civil Rights, what a battle royal.
Someone should sit the Author's Guild in front of a showing of Now and Again episode "There Are No Words", especially the climax where Dr. Theodore Morris is reading aloud to large crowd, turns the page, and the rest of the pages are blank.
Failing that, the movie Fahrenheit 451.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
In my case one format that can't be used is written text, electronic or not. I simply don't have the time to sit down with a book but spend several hours a day commuting to/from work, business, medical care of family members, etc. If I could listen to any ebook I could get my hands on I might actually buy one. Right now audio books are the only game in town, and quite frankly I have already bought every one of any value to me. I have spent a personal fortune, and there just are no more to buy from my standpoint. I was just seriously contemplating on whether I would buy this ebook reader and have it read other materials to me during my commute, but they just now lost a bunch of money just because that is NOT going to happen now. Authors Guild, take notice! I vote with my wallet.
And I plan to sue slashdot's own Robot Overlord immediately over the many years of unauthorized reading of my copyrighted posts. See that at the bottom of the page? It says right there that "Comments are owned by the Poster". So where's my money? You'll be hearing from my solicitor, Mr. Overlord.
And don't you go trying to read my solicitor's letter aloud.
In contracts such as these, I would expect the boilerplate equivalent of "all other rights reserved" to be in the contract.
Amazon must still obtain the source text of the book from the publisher and negotiate some sort of compensation structure with the publisher. I would not expect them to be free to simply scan in existing works and start selling them on the Kindle without a new agreement with the publishers outlining the sales of electronic copies.
So while the author has no contract with Amazon, there is a chain of legal rights for the book itself and additional rights could not typically be inserted without some type of negotiation with someone in that chain.
Like yourself, I am not a lawyer, nor am I an insider of the publishing industry, simply knowing what we have learned by having been through the process ourselves.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
Are they going to start going after parents reading to their kids?
The article only covers a public comment by the head of the Authors Guild.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
So while the author has no contract with Amazon, there is a chain of legal rights for the book itself and additional rights could not typically be inserted without some type of negotiation with someone in that chain.
I would go further and say Amazon does have a contract with the author, just one sold to them through another agent. Amazon can be conveyed no more rights than the publisher had to sell.
Don't make them prove the pen is mightier than the sword. League of Extraordinary Barristers to the rescue!
If you must keep groaning, please try to do it in a rhythm I can dance to
Right to Read
How can an enthousiast for literature - like Paul Aiken - not readout books to their kids?
I guess Paul Aiken knows the history of stories. There was a time most people were illiterate. People retold stories to eachother. They used rhime and metric to make the stories more easy to remember. Most Arthur stories were told that way.
And how is that for the bible. Should God have a reason to sue priest for reading aloud from the bible? Should teachers be sued for it?
I guess I will not be reading/listening to any books by authors of the Author's Guild.
I think that a good argument might be able to be put forward by Amazon that the text-to-speech is an accessibility feature, and protected by the American's With Disabilities act. Not sure though - I'm definitely not a lawyer.
Other than that, maybe there is a fair use argument? I mean, if this legal theory stands, what is to prevent the Author's Guild from suing parents, school teachers or librarians who read a book, or an excerpt from a book, aloud to the kids? Presumably, most authors and publishers wouldn't do that, just to avoid negative publicity (because that would be very negative publicity), but it seems like the law would protect that sort of use explicitly?
No I paid extra to have Stephen Hawking read the book.
I think the point here is that what current text to voice converters are ghastly, this will not always be the case. In the future you will be able to have Marylin Monroe or John F. Kennedy read your book outloud and it will sound exactly right.
They are selling the book in a DRM form precisely so they can split the reading rights from the voice rights. Ideally they can make more profit that way. You are free to buy it in both forms. You might not like that but if there is competition in the market one can presume an efficient market can deliver each at a lower cost as a result of the extra profit to be made. So in theory it could benefit the consumer. And indeed the DRM versions are cheaper than than the print version in many cases.
You might object to that because it seems like you lost some traditional right of ownership. But until people invented text -to voice converters you never missed this did you? it's only when this became possible that you noticed that they did not want you to do it. so it's not a traditional right. Moreover, if you read the book out loud yourself then sold the recornding you would have been sued.
SO they do have a point.
The place where it goes off the rails is if you use this to listen to the book with no intention of reselling the voice conversion. What's wrong with that? DOn't you "own" it.
I think the answer is that, it's not you that committed the infringement, it's Amazon for making it possible. Afterall amazon sells both forms written and audio. Now they are selling both for the price of the DRM written version. You can see why the booksellers are mad.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Reading using reading glasses may constitute making a derivative work, since the light reflected from the pages is altered on it's way to the eye. Hell, even the eye's normal focusing might be illegal since the eye's lens alters the text before it shines on the retina. Not to mention the thoughts the words might insprire. In the same vein, mirrors that might reflect the light from the page should be banned.
...
Here is yet another group of 19th-century bozos
You are overestimating them. These are 15th Century BOZOs.
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
I don't think that you're in a sane coountry if that could land you in jail! You've bought the book, so the copyright owner has exhausted their rights in controlling what you subsequently do with it (or you have a first-sale thing going on). They you are entriely free to use coloured filters, annotate, lend, learn and give away what you've paid for. The Author's Guild hasn't a leg to stand on about this use of the Kindle. But the submitter got his facts wrong about copyright.
The UK seems to be a testbed to see what sort of bullshit the elite neofeudalists can come up with and see if they can force it on the people. They want to see how far they can push things on a smaller scale before they try it elsewhere. Loss of the human universal right to self defense, being stopped and hit up for your papers at random, having big bro cameras all over the place, dumb shit like you can't protect your legit copy of a cd by making a cheap backup like you state or to run it on a portable media player, random dna databases, tracking you electronically, purposely blowing out the economy and putting you into perpetual debt to "them", making you "compete" for jobs with places that pay two currency units a day. yada yada. On all fronts, it appears people will put up with most anything and not rebel/revolt as long as they are "allowed" unlimited binge drinking and professional team sports and the "right to vote" for corrupt politician and party, a,b or c. Apply it to all the old empire english speaking nations, with the USA being last after they tweak the repressive action adequately.
sucks but there ya go...
This should be amusing. The book publishers may have stepped into a huge pile here. Picking on the visually impaired is never a good business or political strategy.
It's the obvious objection to this ridiculous case (speaking as a member of the author's guild). Blind people use the text to speech function quite often for books that don't have an audio-book option. It's the easy argument to win this case for the consumer.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Indeed. When you control the right to copy a digital work, you control the right to use a digital work. This gives copyright holders far, far too much power over the rest of us.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That's the worst car analogy in the history of slashdot!
Sorry pals, but this is ridiculous. This kind of attitude is precisely why several years ago I started my own copyright war. I have not cared about copyrights and feel free to do whatever I want with the information I get. It started when I realized that I could not use my laptop to watch DVD's I rented while traveling in Europe (the matSHITa drive had extra layers of protection that AnyDVD could not break). Continued with the realization that DVD's bought there could not then be played (without hacking my devices) in my US system. Where is MY right to use my devices to see my bought/rented dvds? I paid for the devices and DVDs, but some screwed up "rights" system does not allow me to use them without going through some hoops: hack the system and then get them back. You know what? Now that I have a hacked system I may as well go all the way and disregard the producer's rights as they disregarded mine.
You are unlawfully decrypting the character encoded message into a different multimedia format.
That sounds like a blatant violation of the DMCA to me.
10 little-endian boys went out to dine, a big-endian carp ate one, and then there were -246.
I think [insert-deity-of-you-choice] has prior art on a "device capable of translating visual stimulus via a self-actuating neural network into audio signals".
The only difference here would be the addition of "using a computer".
Well, if that could be used for public performance, then they should sell ALL books with brown paper covers as if they were pornography to prevent casual and unauthorized viewing, and forbid the removal of said cover if in public. They should also require by law the use of blinders on the book in such a way that nearby people may not look over your shoulder or glance in your direction and commit serious acts of terrorism by viewing content which they do not own.
...Like a tube encompassing the book in one end and your head in the other (I hereby claim copyright on this invention!), or shroud yourself in a blanket armed with a flashlight. It's off to the patent office: "Method to view copyrighted materials" and off to Texas to litigate should I discover your children reading books under the covers of their sheets!
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
So if, say, I'm a father, and I read a bedtime story aloud to my kid, I'm in violation of their precious copyright and can be sued for damages? They can go FUCK themselves!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I didn't say that. I said that a different form for a copyright work does change the copyrighted work we're talking about. To extend my comment to infringement is wrong because of either first sale doctrine or exhaustion of rights (in their applicable countries). However, the Author's Guild may have only licensed their texts for use on the Kindle in display form, in which case there is infringement.
I've got nothing.
Nah, I think the use of their address is covered under fair use. Make sure you copyright the note so that if it is reproduced in any form, you have a legal recourse. Better yet, get one of those cards that has a small voicebox and edit in your text2speech translation of the note, then send both.
For best results, avoid doing stupid things.
Is there an exemption for librarians or teachers that read to small children in either a school or library setting?
I'd like to see them try to shut down those public performances.
Only if you were using kindle to read slashdot out loud.
My brother can't read without moving his lips.... sad but true... I have tried to cure him of this by trying everything from ridiculing him to taking the p!ss..... but nothing has worked.... I was completely unaware that he was breaking the law by giving a public performance of books when he "reads" in public places. I should have realized, after all, a passer by could be a lip reader and therefore have access to the books contents without paying for it, all thanks to my brother's ineptitude.
As a law abiding citizen I feel it is only right that I turn him in. Does anyone have the address for the "illegally performing written works" police?
None here.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's pretty obvious. You can BUY the paper book AND BUY the digital book AND BUY the book on tape AND BUY the CD spoken book AND BUY the digital spoken book. This is just another argument to BUY the same thing over and over again. The problem with this particular argument is that you have bought the book and you should have the right to consume it in whatever fashion you wish. One is certainly not "copying" it. It's not being copied to another device or blank media. I'm counting the days for them to try to close down every library in the world.
We could OCR a book years ago and Mac has had a text to speech reader for decades. I remember using a Mac plus is grade school and typing in a phrase and having the computer read it to me out loud. So why are they belly aching now??? As was stated by another ./ user...TO HELL WITH THEM!!
Of course it is ridiculous in a general sense that it is illegal to read a book out loud; but that isn't really what is being said here.
These works are licensed under a contract to be available and displayed on a Kindle. If that contract specified that the work is to be displayed on screen on the Kindle, then it is indeed a violation of the contract to have the Kindle reading it out loud; that's all there is to it.
This isn't an infringement on your rights, its a conflict over a business contract.
Google sponsored ad noticed at the top of the page ...
Text to Speech Suite 2009
New Text to Speech software release Free download today
www.SpeakComputers.com/
Sweet sweet irony, but it's reassuring to see that their contextual ads DO work.
Authors sign contracts for the use of their works by a publisher.
Exactly. Now, where did I as the buyer of a book sign a contract with either the publisher or the author? I didn't. So the terms they agreed to between themselves simply don't apply to me. Only copyright law binds me. And copyright law doesn't bar reading text aloud. It bars public performances without permission, but reading a book to myself isn't a public performance even if I do it out loud. Similarly if I have someone read the book to me, that's not a public performance (this distinction between performance and public performance is why you can let your friends watch your television when they're over but can't invite world+dog in to watch the big game on your fancy home-theater system).
I think Mr. Aiken is going to find himself in the position the SFWA president was in back in 2007: angering the readers upon whom the members of the organization he heads depend for their livelihood and, as a result, the members of the organization (who tend to dislike things that threaten to reduce their sales numbers).
Of course. You read it aloud, record it and then process it through a speech-recognizing software, and - bingo! Encryption broken. It is more of an analog hole really. I am waiting anxiously for the equivalent of HDCP for e-books. Perhaps a device that scramble the letters if it hears you reading the text. It will be mandatory in every ebook reader or consumer oriented OS, of course, or else you can't upload text to it. The IP must be protected at all costs from these damn pirates.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
It's not even an accurate copy. For example, if Kindle follows the rules of phonics, then I'm pretty sure it pronounces "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" as "Goldilocks and the Three Beers". As I've mentioned before, I don't believe any reader software can handle heteronyms (e.g. "read" is pronounced two different ways depending on context). Put a book through a text-to-speech converter and then through a speech-to-text converter, and you are virtually guaranteed to have text that differs from the original. How different does it need to be before it is considered a derivative work, and not a copy?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Contact The Authors Guild 31 East 32nd Street, 7th Floor New York, NY 10016 Phone: (212) 563-5904 Fax: (212) 564-5363 E-mail: staff@authorsguild.org I'm sure they would like to hear from you!
The Author's Guild is being snobbish and greedy. If I can make money from it, I don't give a crap-o-la if it reads my books or not. Yes, I'm a bit greedy too, but the AG is just looking for notoriety here, nothing more.
So I have a silly question : If a person reads a book out loud to a child, does that also break this licensing law? How about when I was in the Navy and it was allowed to have fathers and mothers read a book onto a videotape for their children to listen to back home? Does that break this law?
its also illegal to play your car radio loud enough for people to hear it. "Public Performance"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Don't worry Obama will save us from this. I mean just the other day at the gram ys a prodominate (such an important person that i can't remember his name) said that Obama was one of us, an artist, a person who will protect our way of life. Come to think of it, I think that guy was part of the RIAA, hmm.........
Okay now i'm officially worried.
The question you need to ask is whether it is a public performance of the work in question, in the sense relevant to copyright law. Reading a book out loud to yourself is fair use; reading it out loud to a small private gathering is so. A public performance of a work is a derivative; e.g., if you are really good at reading books, and you rent out a theater and sell tickets for people to come and hear you read other people's books, you would need license from the copyright holders.
Selling a machine that reads e-books out loud is somewhere in between. And note the question would most likely be whether the seller of the machine or the ebooks (not the user) is producing a derivative work of the ebook.
Are you adequate?
...play a record instead?
of extreme copyright. I'll file this idea right along side "Not watching advertisements on broadcast TV is theft".
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
So if I don't see very well and at the end of a long day I prefer listening rather than reading, I guess I'm fucked?
The Author's Guild can bite me.
What the Judge should say at the end of this case is "I could read you my judgment, but since it contains copyrighted material, I can't divulge my decision. Case dismissed." (bang)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
As stated in the acticle, Amazon sells audiobooks. Audiobooks are read out loud. distributing (NOT READING) a audiobook version requires a (seperate) licence from the copyright holder.
The trouble is that the electronic version can be electronically read out loud. This will never(in the coming decades) reach the quality of a good audiobook. What the guild tries to prevent is that having the book automatically entitles you to have a audiobook version. And there they have a point.
If you state that reading out loud is not allowed it sounds extreme, but if you state that distributing a audiobook version along a digital version requires an extra license, it sounds way less extreme.
I wonder how long it will take for the RIAA to follow suit -- no actually listening to music allowed!
don't forget to also remind him that a suit will follow if it was also read out loud in court during litigation.
Has anyone here ever listened to the audiobook for Ender's Game? I may be wrong on this, but that performance sounds to me like a good TTS program, not a human being. Especially telling is the name of the "performer," Bob Ascii. I wish I was making that up.
So basically what's happening here is Amazon is muscling in on the market for TTS recorded audio books. 'Cause I just love to spend $20+ on a recording of a computer reading a book to me. Oh yeah.
hilarious!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
I'm surprise Amazon wasn't sued because the original Kindle lacked text-to-speech. Isn't it just an accessibility feature added for people with disabilities? Aren't such things virtually required under the Americans with Disability Acts?
Now we need to start throwing a few dozen blind people in jail, ya know, to send a message.
Hey, if they read the letter aloud, we can invoice them for the "audio rights". If everyone on /. sends one...
The closest example, actually, is if you were very good at reading books out loud, and you rented out a theatre, advertised that you were going to read Harry Potter books, sold tickets, and had complete strangers pay to come in to listen to you reading them. The copyright holders would be quite within their rights to ask you to stop, because you've set up a textbook public performance of their work.
Note that the question isn't whether people who are in possessions of a book infringe the copyright by reading it out loud. The question is whether Amazon infringes the copyrights by selling both the e-books and a machine that reads them out loud. It's not quite the same as the textbook case shown above of a public performance of the work, but neither is it the same as privately reading a book out loud; the argument would go that there is no theater hall, but other than that, Amazon is "selling tickets" to the public to have Amazon read the work out loud to you.
So there is possibly a real question here as to where the line between public performance and fair use lies.
PS note that the argument is all about whether Amazon, which is the seller, is infringing the copyrights on the works that it sells. Contrary to what the bulk of the comments to this story assume, whether the buyers or people downstream from them infringe the books doesn't seem to be the problem here; if you have a copy of a book and you read it out loud to yourself, to your children or your friends, you're clear; these are not public performances of the work.
Are you adequate?
Assuming there's more than one author (otherwise it wouldn't be a guild, it'd be a nutter) shouldn't it be "Authors' Guild"?
At the bottom of the
When looking for schoolbooks for the severely dyslexic little brother of a friend we tried looking for audio books. Turned out there was an organisation which used to deal with that here. Notice "was". For schoolbooks which had no audio book available from the publisher they'd got teachers who volunteered to record audio books for blind students. Guess what the publishers thought of that. Now they aren't allowed hand out recordings to blind students and the publishers aren't interested in making or distributing any since the market is so small.
Did you check with Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic? They do require documentation of a print disability for membership.
And remember to tell them that they cannot read or show the letter to anybody, as you own copyright on it.
Note that by "you" in this quotation, you mean "the user of Kindle." Let's grant that the user of Kindle has the right to make this use of the work. That doesn't answer a crucial question, which is whether Amazon, the maker and seller of Kindle and the works that can be used in it, has the right to "space-shift" the works that it sells specifically for use in its device. You can bet that this is the angle the Author's Guild is going to push, in order to pressure Amazon to agree to license audiobook rights for the e-books they sell for Kindle.
The fact that I can record myself reading somebody else's book and play that recording for myself and small private gatherings doesn't mean that I can record myself reading the same book, and sell copies of the recording to the public. The Author's Guild is most certainly trying to equate what Amazon is doing to the latter, not the former.
Are you adequate?
Besides going against common sense, this would horrible disadvantage the blind/visually-impaired who run text-to-speech software (such as JAWS) on their computers and other devices. Yes, there are many organizations which provide free audio book versions to the disabled, but the availability of such works and the turnover from request to product is long and inconvenient.
Text-to-Speech converters have existed on personal computers for many years now. Personal computers can display eBooks. No doubt Amazon was not the first company or person to marry these two and have books read out verbally. So why do we only hear the screams of outrage now?
Also, where are the advocates for the legally blind? This has to be a boon to the visually impaired everywhere. Will someone sic them on this first group please? And can I sell tickets to the resulting catfight?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Aye, I'll happily spend my voting power somewhere other than the author's guild.
Maybe its time to move the guild into the 21st century. I don't purchase or keep as many books as I used to, but I do plan to continue reading. Clearly this is indicative of a trend Amazon has some familiarity with. Wouldn't it be surprising if the authors of the guild did not? So to the administration of the guild I say, 'lay down your hubris and use that intelligence!'
With regards to the visually impaired and kids, play the text to voice anyway, and if they sue you help the judicial system check the balance of power. It is our right and obligation to throw off tyranny.
Thank you
So... My daughter, who's severely dyslexic, uses the OSX text-to-speech feature to help her with her high school assignments. Is she breaking the law?
I don't even play a lawyer on TV, but this seems like a very specific, targeted claim. So, if I use Mobipocket (PC) in conjunction with Windows TTS am I breaking the law? How about when I read to my child? Ok, that last is probably fair use, but one could probably come up with dozens of uses of TTS which technically fall under this claim. And that's not even opening the speech-to-text can of worms.
If they carry this to the lawsuit stage, I'd be tempted to invoke the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
And then the AG should shut up.
But, when the Kindle-5 becomes more emotive, then, like M-5, it could reply:
"This... unit... must die" (cue Trek music: Dee-dew doo-doo-doo!)
Kirk: An..d.. what... is.. Murder...?
M-5: Murder-is-contrary-to-the-laws-of-God-and-man.
Kirk: What... is the punishment... for Murder?
M-5: This... unit... must... die (dee-dew doo-doo-dooo!)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Aiken, read my lips: FUCK YOU.
That will be 75 cents, please.
I'm a legally blind computer user who uses text-to-speech frequently. It's great using TTS to read texts I find online. I make it a policy not to buy e-books, because I believe these copyright Nazis are worse than terrorists! They encrypt the e-books and the only software that is graced with text-to-speech is closed source.
This incident is proof that they want to nail us disabled people to the walls and charge us an additional "license" fee in order to experience the same material a normal sited person can. Perhaps they are also conspiring with the vendors of high-priced accessibility software (which only runs on Windows) to force us to rely more on said high-priced products.
I'm PROUD to contribute to the downfall of these businesses/organisations by not "licensing" their garbage. Hurry up and go out of business please... You will not be missed, and the world will be a much better place.
There's no issue. If I have a contract which allows me to sell frozen burritos, but not ready-to-eat burritos, selling frozen burritos along with a microwave (which turns them into ready-to-eat burritos) doesn't violate the contract.
It seems the GP was actually saying that there is a contract for frozen burritos AND ready-to-eat burritos. And by Amazon selling frozen burritos along with a microwave, they are somehow skirting their contract for selling ready-to-eat burritos. How valid that is, who knows? Something tells me that a judge will know, at some point.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
You are all looking at it the wrong way. Think of the all those children who are having picture books read aloud by their kindergarten teachers! They are having a society of piracy ingrained at such a young age! We must arrest all the teachers immediately for the sake of the children.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
So, if the book denotes a character farting and I fart, did I just violate an author's audio right, or did I only violate the clean air act? Give me a break. I can understand if the Kindle was marketed as a PA system or something, but seriously, cmon authors - loosen up - fart a little.
We've had text to speech for the visually impaired on the computer for years... works w/ the internet too. Is the writers guild gonna sue over that too?
The Guild may actually have the more "just" position. Authors, with the exception of that rare 1 percent of best sellers, are not particularly well compensated. They do it because they love the profession and have some uncomfortable compulsion that makes them write, despite a average hourly salary measure in pennies.
Currently, a mid-level author has several payment streams potentially -- one from the books themselves and one from audio recordings. The Kindle threatens to eliminate one of those payment streams. Will the world really be better off if writers get paid less than they already are?
I think the Guild is doing exactly what any membership organization should do -- advocate for its members.
It's obvious what's going on here. The Guild (on behalf of the authors it reps) believes this feature may cut into audio book profits. No, they don't care that it's a monotone voice or that the work isn't actually being copied... They are probably looking into the future a bit and seeing how this type of technology could become a real problem down the road as the technology gets better and less expensive for vendors.
The entertainment industry and publishing industry depend on profits from customers buying multiple copies of the same media. I'm not suprised they've pounced on this. They take their exclusive right to copy (copyright) very seriously as it's tied to profits in more ways than one.
If tomorrow a Star Trek style replicator was announced you can be certain it wouldn't see the light of day due to infringement issues. Is it corporate greed keeping technology down? I don't know...
A lot of the comments on here express anger at the Authors' Guild for this story. But guys, the AG are well within their rights to demand that Amazon not sell away things they haven't paid for and don't belong to them.
If you had contracts with publishers for the last 15 years, one of which paid you for the rights to reproduce the digital text version of your work, and a second that paid you for the rights to produce audio versions of your work, wouldn't you be pissed off when the publisher cancelled the second contract and just paid you the same for the first contract but also sold an audio version along with the digital text version?
Damn right you would! Especially when you're only getting some paltry and pathetic sum for your artistic work in the first place. And especially when the law is in your favour. And especially when the person stealing from you is a multi-bazillionaire corporation.
A lot of people complained that this amounts to not being allowed to read aloud to your kids. No, it absolutely isn't about that at all. It's an entirely different legal issue. It's quite unlike good Slashdotters to leap to legal conclusions without even a cursory investigation of the relevant issues... right?
Look at the Copyright legislation. It's quite clear that there are separate copyrights for audio recordings of works. There are very, very good reasons for this.
It's really important to protect the rights of creators, artists and scientists who produce items of value to the society. The simple fact is that IF you don't protect those creations by allowing their creators to profit reasonably from their creation, nobody is going to create anything anymore. Protection of those rights is socially desirable in the furtherance of the arts and sciences. This is a foundational principle of copyright law Slashdotters would do well to understand.
Here's a case where a huge company, Amazon, is trying to sell something they don't have rights to. It's a situation where artists are getting ripped off by an already rich and exploitative entity. It's about a weak group of people trying to enforce their rights. We should support that effort if we expect to continue enjoying the fruits of their labours.
It's also worth remembering that most artists (including writers) are some of the most exploited and poor people in society. Amazon on the other hand... not so much.
In concluding contracts there is often a huge imbalance of bargaining power. This is a good example of that. Amazon as a huge entity can simply bully authors into accepting a price for their work lower than what it's worth. Authors are already paid too little for what their work is worth, and to allow Amazon away with stealing a right it has not paid for is pretty shocking.
We should be rallying for an online self-publishing/self-vending system where authors can offer their works for sale by individual download. For digital versions of books, there is very little that a publisher actually offers in way of services in the Internet age. There's no paper, there's no ink, there's no typesetting costs. So why the hell are we paying so much for digital versions of these books? And why the hell are the authors getting so little of the profit?
As I said in another post, the only entity that wouldn't benefit from such a system would be the big publishers. Authors make more, consumers pay less, and less trees die. What's not to love?
Say no to stealing -- when it's Amazon doing it.
I take my kids to the library on the weekends to pick out books and sit in on story time at noon. Is this "performance" of a book to eight or nine kids a breach of copyright? Is my county and possibly the federal govt funding them breaking the law?
Don't open the covers of your books outdoors, satelites will be able to see the text and make copies! RIAA SATELITES!
Because the Kindle has DRM, and there's already some great TTS software for PCs, where text based media does not have DRM protection as a rule. So they go after Kindle? This is like shooting yourself in the foot, and using a bazooka.
I've been diagnosed with ADHD, which some people think is a joke, but it isn't. I promise you I never would have gotten through a single chapter of a computer book if not for test to speech software. I use Linux, but if there's one Windows-based program I swear by, it's a text-to-speech GUI program called "ReadPlease". There's a free version online, but the deluxe version, which can directly open a book-length text file, is one of two software packages I have actually paid for in the last six years. I used to run a VM just for that one program, but just recetly it started running in WINE!
Legally, ADHD is so bad that I am considered disables, and disabled people will be screwed if this gets anywhere. But I'm pretty sure it won't.
> to read out loud is a production akin to an illegal copy, or a public performance.
No. Reading out loud is _not_ akin to those.
It _might_ be akin to an illegal copy if, for example, it was read into a tape recorder. The tape could be considered a 'copy'. Without recording it there is no copy.
It _might_ be akin to a public performance, if it was being performed to the public. I would expect that if there was a public audience then using a projector to put the pages of a book on a screen for them to read would be a public performance, and thus illegal. If the book were read to them or read by text-to-speech over a PA then these would also be public performances.
But reading aloud to yourself or to family is _not_ public regardless of whether it is a performance.
Copyright should apply equally to all forms of expression. If I were to buy sheet music should I be restricted on only looking at it or reading it ? If I hit a few piano keys in my house should this be deemed the same as performing at a concert, or making a record, and I should pay more fees appropriate to those activities ?
Printed sheet music is just a notation, other notations may exist, computer readable ones. In fact an mp3 is a digital notation of the music, one that requires a computer to interpret. This could be viewed on screen graphically, or it could be made audible with a player. Is this audible version then an illegal copy, or a public performance ?
The Guild's claim is that even to read out loud is a production akin to an illegal copy, or a public performance."
Pretty sure they are not talking about the first grade teacher reading a book to her classroom, or a mother reading to her child, or a professor reading to his classrom, or a business owner reading to his employees. Pretty sure they are talking about this technology. Not that I agree with them, but they may be worried people will use this and then copy the audio of the text (which also hinders audio-book sales).
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
America is full of people who hate freedom. They claim to love freedom. They pay lip service to freedom until they are blue in the face. And to some extent they *do* love freedom...so long as only they have it.
What they hate is when other people (specifically, their customers) have freedom. They want to have tremendous control over those who might be their customers. They want to control every aspect of what these people do, so they can ensure that they extract every single cent they possibly can from their offerings.
They don't want people to be free to use a competitor's products, let alone to make any un-paid-for use of their own products. And, to this end, they must take control of pretty much everything such people do.
So they dress up this control in false language. They say that they are now "free" to earn a living off of a creative work. They mask all of their efforts at slavery by dressing them up as if they were a form of freedom unto themselves. But the truth is obvious. They are attempting to use the legal system (and, in many cases, technological options) to prevent "the masses" from being able to do what they want to do.
As an aside, some of the more pragmatic ones stop talking about freedom and instead try to make the case that if they cannot have absolute control then they will not be able to make any profit at all from their offerings, and hence there will be no offerings. The world will fall into an empty pit of cultural deprivation. A moment's reflection reveals the falsity of this sentiment...as well as reflection upon history or plain common sense. But to those of unclear mind this argument seems compelling enough...and the innocents wind up being indoctrinated against freedom.
The end result is that those of us who truly do love freedom have to fight for it...every day....until we die. The day we stop fighting is the day we lose it all.
The real issue here is that this is going to get struck down because everyone is used to reading books and it would be absurd for them or their computer not to be able to read it out loud. On the other hand these "new fangled blu-ray disks" are different in peoples minds. They are not used to using clips from movies in papers/speeches/presentations etc like they are from books. People do not see the inconsistency of applying DRM to some things and not to everything. Mainly because they are used to the idea that reading a book out loud falls under "fair use" and not used to uses of newer forms of media in the same way. Example: I can quote several sentences from a book in a paper to make a point (and am encouraged/taught to do so by my schooling). I can even distribute my paper. However if I include a clip from a movie in a presentation them I am violating copy right law. People just dont see the inconsistency. Which is why IMHO we need to relate it back to things people are used to dealing with more.
If this is not upheld, I don't see any possibility for audio books in the future. You might be able to sell very specialized such books by having either famous personalities or the author doing the reading but that would be about it.
Think about it. If Amazon has the right to sell a book in a format which can be played as an audio book, then they can directly make an "audio book" and sell that. Period. The two are identical. Putting he audio information on a cassette or CD is the same as enabling audio playback through a device which does it. I don't see any possible way to separate the two legally. Thus ends the possibility for audio books, as there is no revenue from them any longer.
Any argument about first sale and control of the product after the sale is silly. Because you buy a book you do not have the right to distribute in any form that book. Including reading it into a recorder and distributing that recording. Under very special conditions you have the right to read the book aloud while others are listening and these have been spelled out for a long time in copyright law. It has nothing to do with making a copy or "public performance" and evertyhing to do with making a derivatve work. The fact that it is my voice and inflection adding to the original content is what makes it a derivative work. Yes, I have added to the content, but as I have no right to the original content, my rights to the derivative content are very limited.
We can either accept the idea of limited rights of derivative works or we can pretty much give up on paying people for individual sales of their creative works. Lots of people seem to think that there are no more original ideas and that everything from now on must, by definition, be a "derivative work" of some original creator. I don't think this is valid and I would say people making that argument lack creativity. There are lots of truely creative people in the world, but not everyone is. To allow them to leech off the works of others because of their lack of creativity isn't right and it isn't a good idea.
So every text to speech machine for the blind is now in violation....
Nice.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yes, the audio rights and text rights are sold separately. But if I buy the text rights and then read the text aloud, or have someone read the text aloud to me, or buy a product that will read the text aloud to me, then I only need the text rights to do that.
I'm not hiring James Earl Jones to do a voice over and trying to sell copies of it on e-bay. I'm taking the text that I paid for and having someone/something read it to me. I PAID for it! I PAID for the someone/something to read it to me! I'm not asking them to give it to me in audio format, I'm not reselling the audio format. I'm not even saving a copy of the audio format anywhere. There is no reason to pay them for the audio format. Fuck 'em.
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
Did the Author's Guild overlook Adobe's Reader's free Read Out Loud feature? This has been around since at least version 8, as far as I can tell.
Perhaps more of a publicity gimmick than an actual worry about someone infringing on their work? A small laptop with a copy of Adobe Reader is no different than the Kindle in terms of functionality, but who would cover a story regarding Adobe Reader? The Kindle is popular, it's in the news, so let's attach ourselves to it and get a free publicity ride.
I'm confused here, are you saying only a scumbag would say that blind people should be able to access books as inexpensively as a sighted person? Are you implying that people who try to fight for legal protections for the disabled are scumbags?
Or is scumbag simply your euphemism for lawyer? (Which is understandable.)
Or did I miss something else?
Little Brother, watching the watchers
WTF
so, if I were to type in a paragraph from a book, and put it into BlindSpeak to be synthesized..... would that be illegal?
I guess I should pioneer the illiterate society we're about to become, since I can no longer read stories to my 4-year old daughter, so she gets used to hearing the words, seeing me point them out on the pages as we read, and teaching her to read in general... because "Hop on Pop", "Snowy Day", "Goodnight Moon" and other standard children's stories are now a "performance".
I should immediately alert the daycare facility also (200+ children, 50+ teachers and educators) and have them send out an immediate alert to all of the parents as well. Reading stories aloud is now illegal.
I hope this becomes terribly clear that this is facrical, and that this is a prime example of why this has gone WAY too far overboard. Seriously. If you can't make your money on the original work, become a better author.
We don't tolerate this same methodology in ANY other industry (well ok, except music, but that is corrupted by the same flawed thinking).
Please, stop. Think. Use your head, and put the needs of a literate society ahead of the fattening of your own wallet.
all you would need to do is consider this an extension of the "large type" for the blind and the ADA kicks in
and besides exactly how would this really cut into the professional "Audio Book" market??
it like saying a childs band is in the same market as the Trans-Siberian Orchestra or some street clown is in the same market as Marcel Marceau (okay so hes doing the "stuck in a coffin act" atm but...)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Sounds probably-correct to me -- it's definitely a derivative work or a performance. Those are both separate rights.
Speaking as an author, I would like to point out that CERN almost certainly has equipment capable of measuring the interval during which I cared whether someone, somewhere, was using a computer to "read" my book -- but I don't. All I have is conventional stopwatches.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
IP law is broken and needs fixing. I just hope the cure isn't worse than the disease.
Think Deeply.
This has got to be an example of ignorance causing a person to shoot themselves in the foot! The accessibility feature of 'reading' the book is a method of enabling MORE people to want or be able to access it. That means more sales. That means more money. How can this group of people seriously put forth such an argument that would actually hurt sales? In a vain attempt to believe that humanity has not gone completely insane, I choose to believe that this 'statement' from the guild was not unanimously approved by all members prior to it being published. If I'm wrong, shoot me, because all is lost.
Even the MPAA distinguishes between a public performance, where someone plays a DVD in a public place, and private viewing, where it is played for the benefit of only a few friends or relatives. I would think that the same distinction would apply to the audience listening to your Kindle. Plug it into a PA system and its a violation. Otherwise not.
The Authors Guild is just pissed that they're going to miss out on their 'Books on Tape' revenue.
Have gnu, will travel.
... And this is different from the EXACT SAME FEATURE in Microsoft Reader and Adobe Acrobat how? Okay, so I'm not carting around a Kindle, but rather a laptop. I have the same book, purchased from Amazon as an ebook in PDF format, and lo and behold I can have my computer read to me.
This has been the case since someone thought up Reader and Acrobat Reader's ability to use Microsoft's text-to-speech capabilities. The ONLY difference here is in the device. I think the author's guild wants some of Amazon's sweet, sweet moneys.
If the Guild wants to advocate about this, it should make commercials or something explaining to consumers why a professionally recorded audiobook read by voice actors is a superior product to some computer generated text-to-speech.
Ranting about how it this should be illegal and how it's not fair to authors is just silly.
I love playing video games, but I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to make a living doing it, so I went out and got a different job and I play those games as a hobby. If you can't pay your bills writing books full time, then suck it up and go find another way to put food on the table. Write on the weekends and in the evenings and stop complaining.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Every Mac, and I'm pretty sure every PC, will read aloud any segment of text that you can highlight. Seriously, highlight text, right click, Speak This Text (or something to that effect).
So, if someone sells eBooks that can be read on computers (Say, from mobipocket.com), are they also subject to this copyright violation?
Bonus: Apple touts text-to-speech as a Universal Access feature for the blind. Amazon could pull the "Why does the Author's Guild hate blind people?" defense.
So Dr. Sbaitso is a copyright infringer now??
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Amazon is licenced to sell digital copies of these books. And as far as I know, selling devices that can 'perform' electronic books - by rendering the book as text, as audio, as Braille, as smells, whatever, is also not illegal.
So how is selling licensed digital books AND selling a device like the Kindle a copyright violation?
You could make a recording of the Kindle reading a book and try (!) to sell that, or give it away, and that would be a copyright violation. Or, you could put the Kindle on a box in a theatre, and allow a group of people to listen to it, with or without payment, that too is a copyright violation. Broadcasting it on HAM radio is also a copyright violation.
But Amazon isn't doing any of those things.
assignment != equality != identity
now i can't read let my mac read my pdfs for me :(
Are they the Author's Guild, or the Guild of Calamitous Intent?
Think about it. If Amazon has the right to sell a book in a format which can be played as an audio book, then they can directly make an "audio book" and sell that. Period. The two are identical.
You clearly haven't done the Coke/Pepsi thing with audio books and text-reader programs.
Once upon a time, I had a job where the tasks were mindless enough that the better part of my brain was able to appreciate an audio book while I worked. Kept me sane over the course of a year or so. One evening I tried an experiment; I'd just downloaded a hundred thousand words of research document and I was anxious to dig into it, but I had to go to work. So I got the bright idea of bringing a laptop with a high-end speak & spell type program and it and just listening to the compy read the document out to me. It seemed like a straight forward idea. But aside from spending the better part of a day off screwing around trying to get this seemingly simple plan to work, the end result was pretty hopeless.
Yes, you could understand it. . , sort of, but. . , holy cow! (Look at that last sentence, for instance. An actor would get that instantly and make it a fun sentence to hear read out loud. By contrast, it would take a lot of human tweaking to hand-hold a computer through the same obstacle course of inflection and emotive variables to speak the same line half-way convincingly, let alone in a way which is entertaining.)
Even a nameless voice actor can do a brilliant job on a reading compared to the best computer program. Nobody, to my knowledge anyway, has yet marketed an AI capable of an even mildly convincing artificial voice capable of taking raw text and reading it correctly. There's no, "Again but with more feeling" command on any drop down menus. With the level of human-involved tweak which would be required to make a single book sound close to right, you could hire a voice actor to read a couple dozen books or more. Basically, until we have a good AI, this isn't going to be an issue, and when that happens, the world will see changes more alarming than the demise of the humble audio book.
But otherwise, your thinking offers some interesting food for thought.
-FL
I think the point is being missed here. Amazon is making a profit from their ability to read the book aloud. If you read the book aloud to our children, or to your friends, you aren't garnishing a profit...and if you are, then you deserve to be sued for that profit.
Also, the text-to-speech function would provide a repeatable performance given the same tone, and influx given to those words...what would be the use in buying the Book-On-CD read by the author when Amazon profits from their performance of the same work?
Paul Aiken is ill today. He was affected by the very very dangerous sick, called COPYRIGHTISM OF THE BRAIN.
Sure, except they're stepping on the toes of the legally blind. This will be an interesting fight if the ACLU gets called.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
Are braile readers also banded?
As I've said before, if public libraries were a new concept that someone had just thought of recently, and some town had opened one for the first time this year, they'd get their assed sued off.
The idea that they can buy one copy of a book and then let people borrow and read it (and repeat this process indefinitely), without any extra fee going to the publisher or author and without any special ongoing licence, would be considered preposterous.
The idea (if it were new) that a public library could charge a small membership fee to out-of-towners to be able to borrow books would definitely be considered profiting off copyright infringement. And the idea of a municipal government opening libraries with public funds and not charging residents anything to become members would be considered socialism.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
First, the Authors Guild needs to have a Dictionary and Encyclopedia set shoved up it's bumm far enough that they can actually read it.
Additionally, I know a number of poor readers that can't even read unless they vocalize.
Ok, my most common use of text to speech is for when I'm driving. I want to read something, don't have enough time, but driving can take huge blocks of boring time that I can't do anything else visual but drive. I've played more than one book on my laptop when I'm driving.
Oh, and although T2S is far from perfect on the monotone issue, it's not like the old sci-fi shows now. Modern text to speech checks punctuation and puts in some tonal queues for the listener. In fact, I've talked to humans who spoke with less inflection...
Excuse my ignorance, because I've never bought an audio book. Are they more expensive than printed versions? If they are, then I must say I hate the Guild for exploiting the blind. Why that discrimination?
Or perhaps audio versions cost more because it costs more to make them. Then Kindle is helping blind people, because they can buy books they couldn't afford otherwise.
If the price is the same, every lost sale in audio books means one book sold in the Kindle version, so the end result should be neutral for the authors.
I don't know that that's particularly relevant. It's likely that people don't buy both the electronic and the audio versions of a book, so if someone buys the ebook to play it out loud, they're probably buying it because it was cheaper than the audiobook, not because they wanted both and were getting two for one.
Yes, audiobooks might be more expensive than ebooks. Couldn't this just be a market force driving down the price of audiobooks?
While much of /. is focused on the end user's rights in purchased material; that argument ignores any contractual agreements between Amazon and the Writer's Guild or its members. It's quite possible that they licensed the electronic distribution rights for digital print copies, which does not include the right to have the Kindle "read aloud" the text. As such, adding that feature is something subject to further contract negotiations.
To put it in context of the Sony decision, I can buy a CD rip an MP3, but the radio stations can't put an MP3 on their website up for me to download; they could buy the right to do that if they wanted but that's a separate negotiation that has nothing to do with my ability to rip a copy.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
This one is just so ridiculous that none of us should even try to figure it out. Just trying to measure the validity of their complaint will mean they have already won.
The Kindle text-to-speech software simply does not infringe on any of the rights of the copyright holder.
The Kindle doesn't simply do text-to-speech translation. Amazon doesn't have the right to sell these books in an open format. Nobody but the copy-holder does. What Amazon has done is, in effect, by way of it's special access to the encryption/decryption technology, made itself the exclusive source for electronic audio translation of the work. Don't you think the copy-holder should have some say about an exclusive arangement such as this?
Fuck you fuckball! Reading aloud is a prior work.
I nearly started laughing at this, its so ridiculous. So, if I read my book out loud to a few of my friends, I would be breaking the law? Yeah, sure. If I read the words of the book to myself in my head, I would also be breaking the law, according to them. Whatever device is reading this out loud is for personal use, not for broadcasting the entire book to a massive audience.
I hope Amazon aren't selling Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" in a version that can be read out loud :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
It downgrades video quality if your videocard or monitor isn't HDCP compatible?
I keep hearing this, and honest question- how can I tell when this happens? Is there a test file I can download and try that won't work? Is there a set of circumstances that I can replicate? I keep hearing all this DRM built into windows, but it's never actually affected me...
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Now that's fallout of a Capitalistic society. Thank GOD and Even Thanks Devil atleast in my country(India) nobody can even think of thinking such a thing. Mob would have killed the Guy and their office set on fire. And even if that would not have happened our Supreme Court would have fuc|Zeitgeist Addendum
Evolution is great grand mother of Revolution.....
It's really no different than ripping a CD to a mp3 and then loading it on your MP3 player.
Except, in Australia at least, copying a CD track to mp3 IS STILL ILLEGAL !
While the Aust. govt. is in the process of changing those laws, it hasn't happened yet.
Thats right...every single PC / IPod / mp3 in Australia is carting around technically
illegal music, whether you legally purchased it or not. Currently you do not have the
right to transfer a copyright work from one medium to another medium (in OZ... not the US)
The MAFIAA however, are extremely reluctant to enforce it, because they know it would lead
to a protest that would see them lose much more than simple fair use.
So one day we see on the 7:00PM news that an entire kindergarten class, teacher and all where sued for reading "See spot run. Run Spot." out loud in class. The authors union claims that the children, aided by their teacher were a conspiracy to commit a "public performance" of copyrighted work.
Neil Gaiman has expressed his opinion of this issue in his blog.
My point of view: When you buy a book, you're also buying the right to read it aloud, have it read to you by anyone, read it to your children on long car trips, record yourself reading it and send that to your girlfriend etc. This is the same kind of thing, only without the ability to do the voices properly, and no-one's going to confuse it with an audiobook. And that any authors' societies or publishers who are thinking of spending money on fighting a fundamentally pointless legal case would be much better off taking that money and advertising and promoting what audio books are and what's good about them with it.
There is always the 'vicarious infringement': 'Vicarious infringement occurs where someone has a direct financial interest in the infringing actions being committed by another and has the ability to control it, even if they do not know that the infringement is taking place and do not directly take part in it.' or 'contributory infringement ': 'Contributory infringement occurs where someone knows that infringing activity is taking place and either induces it, causes it, or materially contributes to it.' (http://www.quizlaw.com/copyrights/what_is_vicarious_infringement.php) these arguments would center on the question of text-to-speech as 'format shifting' (not okay in the UK?) or some kind of infringement.
They are not distributing audio - they are distributing text. If I read that text aloud to my kids am I now breaking the law? If not then what is the difference when I have a device read the same text aloud to them?
FUCK THE PARTIALLY SIGHTED! FUCK THEM IN THE EAR!!!!!!!
Because that's pretty much what it amounts to.
I wonder what the difference is between reading a book on your computer with a screen reader software (if you're partially sighted for example or just don't want to burn your eyes out) and Kindle text-to-speech?
Is Apple's text-to-speech illegal too? The Amiga narrator.device and translator.library, used to read out, say, a quote from a book? Text to speech goes back a hell of a long way in computers....
I think I will write them a letter. I will copyright the letter and inform them they may not read it aloud under any circumstances. They won't be able to copy it or fax it either. Maybe it would be better to send it to the lawyers, so the lawyers can inform them they received a letter, but can't share it, only mail the original to them.
More members to join the losing RIAA team in digital rights restriction syndrome.
What's the difference if you combine the revenue streams?
Unask the question. I'm sorry coopers and blacksmiths are losing revenue streams, but if the alternative is threatening my freedoms then so be it. Text-to-speech has been around for a long time. Fair use covers reading a book aloud to my kids. I don't see how this is a public performance or a derivative work.
To be a 'work' don't you have to be affixed to some type of media?
And forget the odd notion that the artificial enunciation of plain text is equivalent to a person's nuanced and emotive reading.
Where can you get that? I've never heard this in an audiobook. Screenplay adaptations yes but audiobooks are, in my experience, an excellent substitute for insomnia medication
Authors, with the exception of that rare 1 percent of best sellers, don't generally see their works get made into audio books in the first place.
If we want to help authors make more money, we should give them the opportunity to sell to people who want audio without the overhead of voice actors and production costs.
Seriously, do you contend that poor authors stand to lose significant revenue they currently get from sales to people who buy both the audio and of print books of their non-best-seller books? I find that implausible in the extreme, and can't figure out how this possibly costs the authors any sales otherwise.
I think the Guild is doing what most over-bureaucratic organizations do: cling to the model they know, resisting adaptation to reality to the detriment of their members.
But really, digital readouts are not the same as artistic audio books...
And since there is no fixation, there is no copyright infringement... Otherwise running software would in itself be a copyright infringement
I'm tempted to stand a kindle up next to my computer's microphone and turn on Vista Voice Recognition to start dictating to word. I'm almost certain some type of hilarity will ensue that will ultimately end with me facing a lawsuit.
The Guild may actually have the more "just" position. Authors, with the exception of that rare 1 percent of best sellers, are not particularly well compensated. They do it because they love the profession and have some uncomfortable compulsion that makes them write, despite a average hourly salary measure in pennies.
Probably the same compulsion that drives lots of people to participate in various creative fields who just plain suck at it. LA is full of bad "actresses". Bars across the country are full of bad musicians - hell, some of them even charge cover to let bad singers sing! And don't forget bad artists....
People like to be creative. It's fun. But you don't get paid for doing something creative - you get paid for doing something creative that other people are willing to pay for.
And if nobody wants to pay for it, well, that doesn't mean you're poorly compensated. It just means you're producing crap.
paintball
I take it the Writer's Guild is full of the every man writers, and the Author's Guild is full of douchebags?
At first I scoffed at the audacity of the Authors' Guild, but after thinking about it I'm not so sure that they don't have a point. At least, it needs to be settled by a court.
What Amazon is doing is supplying an algorithm which translates the written word into the spoken text. Suppose this was declared legal with no strings attached. Now suppose Amazon writes a very specific decoding algorithm for that text, which converts the original ASCII into a data stream which represents James Earl Jones reading the same text. Both are just algorithms. Now judges aren't bound by ridiculous analogies and so could very easily rule the first to be fine but the second to be illegal, but it doesn't seem so cut and dried.
Just like in the case of "pirated" music, we see a place where copyright law needs to be updated to account for new technology. It's inevitable that this issue was going to come up sooner or later. It's to the benefit of the Guilds' opponents that the Author Guilds' claim sounds so ridiculous on the surface, because it would be relatively easy to stir up public sentiment against their claim, and to get a law through Congress reversing any court ruling in the Guild's favor. A more subtle test case would have worked a lot better.
Maybe we turn turn the tables and make the work an audio only one, and restrict the ability to read the text?
The problem is that in the various areas affected the consumer's guild has been so much less effective than the producer's guild.
Dave, I'm going to have to ask you to put the book down.
Dave?
Put the book down, Dave.
Evil is the money of root.
This copyright craziness has gone far enough. Im sick of it.
I think that the people who support it, and boast it or refer to it, needs a life.
I will use my little motto I always use yet again
"If you don't want someone to read or use something, Don't publish it"
Just my 2 cents worth.
People listening on their kindle hardly equates to lost sales. They've still bought the book: the ebook version rather than the audio book.
If you buy a book, would you ever buy the same book in audiobook format? This isn't a VHS/DVD/BluRay situation where obsolescence or quality are factors. Here, it's just two paths to the exact same end point for the consumer.
I can't see this causing any lost sales. The kindle isn't creating, nor storing, nor selling, any derivative work from the text.
Think of it as "features for the visually impaired".
The DMCA makes it illegal to help someone else break the encryption. There's a big difference.
Simply put, the maker of the software you use to rip your DVDs is/was in violation of the DMCA; your use of this illegal software is perfectly legal because of court decisions defending space-shifting rights in the US.
Think this is stupid? That helping someone do something which is legal shouldn't be illegal? Don't look at me, I didn't invent that law!
...they're really not going to like it when they find out about my running Harry Potter through the Bork Bork Bork! filter.
'They don't have the right to read a book out loud,'
This is probably the most idiotic thing I have heard about copyright in a long time.
My sugestion is why let us read it in the first place ? We'll remember it and so an unauthorized copy will be placed in our head. Conclusion: anybody without an approved lobotomy shouldn't be allowed to read !
(from the don't-give-them-any-ideas dept.)
Is burning books illegal too? After all, that could be considered a political statement on the original work, one that is so deeply founded in the content of the work that it could be pretty much considered a derivative work of its own: Certainly, one could not make such statement if one would not have read the original text (or at least deeply pondered its cultural significance - as we all know, certain people criticise things they just heard about).
What is the Author's Guild going to do to stop that particular flagrant and deeply offensive misuse of author's rights?
</sarcasm>
Neil Gaiman has a realistic view of this: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/02/quick-argument-summary.html
Given the historical use of screen readers by blind users I don't think this one will go anywhere.
If nothing else, the Americans with Disabilities Act probably kicks in somewhere here.
Frank Zappa would have had some fun with this.
It reminds me of when Joe gets out of prison and finds that all music is illegal. He's left to imagine guitar solos in his head...but even imagining music is illegal.
This "Guild" will have us doing something like that one day. Perhaps there will be rights that must be purchased to even imagine the story in your mind. Reading is one thing but to imagine....well, that costs extra.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
On the one hand I can see their point. They see the death of the audio-book market. At $50-200 a pop that's quit a profit hit but on the other I have to say I hope they shoot this one down quickly. I mean essentially what they are saying is that if I read the cat and the hat to my four year old and some MPAA/RIAA or equivalent snoop heard me I could be fined for "performing" the work? I mean come on... Let's ignore 10,000 years of history and suddenly make it illegal to read to someone just because it's mechanical?
First, we need to make sure we're all on the same page about what a derivative work is. From http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html
According to the Copyright Act, a derivative work is: "a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted."
A derivative work usually involves a type of transformation, such as the transformation of a novel into a motion picture. In the computer industry, a second version of a software program is generally considered a derivative work based upon the earlier version.
Given that, creating an audiobook from a text (whether by recording a person speaking, or on-the-fly with a computer program) is a derivative work, the right to which is reserved for the copyright holder. A lot of people talk about reading a bedtime story to their kids being okay and it obviously is - IANAL, but I suspect that if you recorded that reading of Harry Potter and posted it on the 'net for download for a small fee, or even free, you'd face some swift legal action. My understanding is that just because you purchased the rights to a work in one form does not mean you can, other than for personal use, convert it to any other form.
Consider the following what-if: some CGI and AI genius creates an algorithm that can take a book, interpret the descriptions and generate a visual adaption, not just an audio one via text-to-speech. Would that be considered
Fact is (as far as I can tell, again IANAcopyrightL) an audiobook, whether created by a human or a computer, is an established derivative of a book, and is protected by copyright law, and you cannot distribute such without being given the right by the copyright holder. (Although I guess it could be argued that a text-to-speech algorithm generating the audio on the fly is entirely different from doing the exact same thing in a studio and transmitting the result as an audio file? It's not like Amazon is sending out actual audio information. Hmm...)
I think this could be construed as a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. How is a blind user to read a book if not with reading software, like ZoomText or something similar?
If someone would have bought the audio book, but instead buys the ebook and listens to the text-to-speech, the Authors' Guild hasn't even lost out on royalties. I doubt very many people buy both the print and audio versions of the same books at the moment, so it's one sale either way.
They are clearly just attempting to charge twice for the same thing.
This is ridiculous verve from a group of fusty bookish hens who still call their association a "guild" this far into human history. I suppose their statement was submitted to the Wall Street Journal on parchment, hand delivered by Yohan and Pee Wee.
btw - Perhaps some one else knows the answer... Isn't the Kindle running on GNU software? Isn't the source code publicly available because of this GNU licensing? Or are the reader apps running on top of Linux still proprietary?
Books are intended to be read. For a thousand years and longer, authors expect and accept that books would be read, read aloud, and even read to other people. In no way has any author prior to this century ever thought in the slightest way that this is somehow wrong.
A right expected and enjoyed for millennium will not be usurped by a greedy and misguided fool that seeks to extort more money from us using a relatively new law.
If he had his way, cooks (like your parents and yourself) would have to pay royalties for everyone that eats the food they cooked using a recipe...