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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."
I'd mod you up if I had the points. Seriously though, the guild is discriminating against the blind and developmentally disabled. If they're going to enforce that text-to-speech be illegal, then publishing a book without an audio edition is illegal. We've already got laws enforcing websites be accessible to a degree, so why would e-books be an exception to this?
Mod parent up. If you haven't read "The Right to Read" yet, let me repeat that link for you. Go read it. Now.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Mimic the voice of any person we choose?
http://xkcd.com/462/
[quote]My point, though, is this: There are indeed a subset of the population that believe content authors should have the right to profit from the fact that some customers have differing needs in how they can view said content. "You can't buy the regular edition and adapt it to your needs; you have to buy the special high-priced usable-by-you edition (if we bother to make one)".[/quote]
Requesting a mod up of parent :)
I'm legally blind and had to have large print books throughout school.
To get a large print text book you have to go through convoluted channels to find publishers who enlarge those books. Often, you have to find several as one company doesn't handle all the books you might need.
The price for these books, of course, were a lot higher than a standard edition.
Also, a standard hard bound book is normally split into 4 section when enlarged. Each of these sections is a little over half the size of the original book and also hard bound.
God forbid you need to read a chapter that spans the end of one book and the beginning of the next, oh, and need the index or glossary too.
My district was as helpful as they could be, though I never took music courses beyond whatever was required in elementary or middleschool.
Still, I often had to carry around 30 to 50lb of books (Thanks to almost every class deciding to give homework or projects at the same time, of course), notepads, etc. Thanks to a large canvas bag from Army Surplus, I could barely manage to fit it all in the bag. Thanks to the weight, I've got some back problems now.
I hope they've got a better alternative in the works for people with needs that are alternative to the norm now.. as I've worked with several people with similar disabilities more frail than myself.