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."

Comments

Re:To hell with them!

[Sj0]

Only since January 20th. Before that it was a nice thing to do.

Re:Love/Hate of freedom

[hobbit]

How very astute of you to notice that all members of a nation share exactly the same traits. Luckily I'm British and therefore love the Queen, so I don't have to waste my time with things like freedom.