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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."
Text to speech is just another type of space shifting. i.e. Moving from one medium to another.
.doc to .txt on the electronic file, we're talking about going from visual perception to aural perception. Are you going to argue I'm entitled to produce sheet music for a symphony I bought on CD as a matter of fair use? No way. I'm going to get away with it, sure, but not because it's okay.
I disagree. Allowable space shifting (as tested in the courts) has left the work essentially unchanged. We're not talking about going from