Slashdot Mirror
Authors Guild President Wants To End Royalty-Free TTS On Kindle
An anonymous reader writes "The president of the Authors Guild has launched a rant in the NY Times about how the Kindle 2 provides Text-to-Speech capabilities that, oh the horror, allow the user to have any text on the Kindle read to her. Roy Blunt, Jr. moans that this is copyright infringement of audio books, and that Kindle users should be forced to pay royalties on audio even though they've already paid for the text version of a book! Amazingly he harps on about how TTS technology has become so good that it may replace humans — and then uses this to argue that it's unfair for Kindle to provide TTS! I think the Authors Guild need a new president — someone less of a Luddite, and more familiar with copyright law." (See also the Guild's executive director's similar claims that reading aloud, royalty-free, is an illegal function of software.)
I'm sure the record labels pay much better for nutty speech than a bunch of writers.
OP needs to settle down and think about 10 years in the future when TTS *is* able to replace a human voice. Amazon is essentially licensing an e-book, and then turning it into an audio book, which has it's own licensing scheme. I for one actually agree that you should not be able to buy one and get the other for free - they are fundamentally different.
That said, what should happen is that each e-book has two flavors - TTS capable and not. The TTS capable version costs more to cover both licenses.
What an idiot - doesn't he realize how wonderful it is that technology makes it possible for us to avoid paying the authors we like as much money as we used to?
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This nicely illustrates a subtle trap that copyright law has fallen into. By being a 'bundle of rights' it has encouraged an approach of ever finer division of intellectual works and their uses. An infinite series of new markets to be exploited - that's the legacy of the 'long tail.' I look forward to serving our new 'reading on saturday morning in bed' licence-owning overlords!
Does this mean screen readers are copyright violation machines? Damn those freeloading blind people!
The ______ Agenda
People who head advocacy organizations, such as the Authors Guild, have to have issues they can push so as to get members of their groups to pay dues. If there are no real issues, they need to invent them.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
I got my Kindle 2.0 from the UPS driver yesterday.
I tried out this frightful technology and I can tell you - it sounds very much like Stephen Hawking reading to me.
If by "replace humans" he means Stephen Hawking doing book readings at the local Borders well then, yes, maybe he's right.
On the _other_ hand, I'd like my books read to me... "Once more, with feeling" (you dirty grubs).
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
How does the kindle TTS compare to say AT&T natural voice, or RealSpeak TTS engine. ...I still think it's much ado about nothing, but if the quality is indistinguishable from a human voice (which I doubt) then their argument might not be quite so feeble.
I used to read to my son, now I guess I need to just find a books on tape version of Good-Night Moon to avoid violating rights.
Is reading a bed time story to its children copyright infringement? This world is really crazy.
Votator.com implements a fair voting scheme (free
Is he seriously suggesting that a blind person who has legally purchased copyrighted text should have to pay extra to process that text into a usable format?
Some books have special editions in large typeface, intended for people with eyesight impairments. These books are more expensive, because more paper is used in printing them.
According to the Authors Guild logic, using a magnifying glass with a normal print book should be illegal, because then one gets large typeface for free?
The NYT is available on the Kindle. I wonder how many people are using TTS to listen to his rant. I know funny, and that's funny.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
I for one am excited. Finally, an application for us illiterate people! And a new market for them...
We've secretly replaced their regular Office software with a special software that only reads characters from the source code out loud instead of running the real executable. Let's see if they can tell the difference!
#include /rolls eyes
#include
The Man in Black
"Fuck you if you're blind. Now bend over and take it."
You'd think he would be happy about this as it increases the reach of written works to a group of people that couldn't previously use them - the illiterate. 80% of the world's population is literate, according to the UN, meaning they can write and read in one language. Therefore, 20% of the world's population, about 1,340,000,000 people, can't read.
I thought the RIAA strategy of alienating customers through lawsuits was bad. Here's the president of a guild saying that 1.34 billion new potential customers aren't important to him.
Hate to break the news, but performances of copyright works are protected by copyright as derivative works, which would include spoken word, unless the author gives a license. He seems to have some grasp of that, are you saying you are more knowledgeable about the statute? If so, please correct him.
Perhaps this is just one of his less funny dead-pan jokes?
HE WAS READING CAT IN THE HAT!!! ALOUD!!! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!!
Or afternoon reading sessions at libraries...
Volunteer book reader: "OK Kids - today we're going to read one of my favourites... Ready? OK! It goes like this...
One fish
Two fish
Red fish
blue fish..."
(BLAMMO!!!! - the door is blasted off its hinges)
Stormtroopers barge in.
"OK LADY!!!! FACE ON THE FLOOR!!! EVERYBODY DOWN AND SHUT UP!!! YOU'RE UNDER ARREST FOR VIOLATING COPYRIGHT WITH THE AUTHORS GUILD!!! TAKE HER AWAY BOYS!!!!"
She is kept in a squatting position for days in a transport plane, shuttled between one hellhole outpost of the American empire to another. She is ordered to form a naked pyramid with the folks at EFF and Pirate Bay. Eventually she confesses and realises she truly loves Big Brother. By surrendering her autonomy to financial interests she doesn't care what she remembers...she's entertained...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
While the audio-book business may be a billion dollar industry, how many people buy BOTH the print and audio versions of a book? I'm guessing the answer is "not very many".
When buying an e-book for the Kindle, the author and publishers both get their royalties. With what I am assuming to be a negligible amount of people purchasing BOTH, there really isn't a lot of lost royalty rights from non-e double-dipping. The people that might have a beef are the voice actors that are hired to read for audio books. THEY are in serious danger of being replaced by technology. Well, that's progress. Go commiserate with the slide-rule and buggy whip unions.
Having an artificial voice read an e-book really doesn't cut into any publisher or author profits. Instead of revenues shifting solely from paper books to e-books, there is also some shift from audio books to e-books. But the sum total shifting is still the same.
What it sounds like is the Author's Guild saw dollar signs in the potential to get paid twice for the same thing and doesn't like it that the rest of the world doesn't agree with them, hence the temper tantrum.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I'm sure there are more things that need to be considered, but I think these will have to be dealt with, but it will take a while. Government is not generally too quick on change (by design, really).
Qxe4
AFAIK, an audiobook is a derivative work of a normal print book, just like a screenplay and a movie are derivative works. And is therefore protected by copyright law. Just because I own a paper copy of a book does not mean that I can walk out of a bookstore with a free version of the audio book, or go see the movie for free. The fact that it's produced by a computer algorithm rather than a person reading out loud doesn't really have any bearing on the issue.
If I buy an audio book, I'm paying for the literary work and the performance of the voice actor. Since no voice actor is involved with Kindle TTS, I see no reason to pay extra.
They just want to sell it to you on dead tree, then sell you the bits, then sell you the cassette, (excuse me, DRM-laden WMA files) all of the same work, and charge you each time for it, that's all. What's so wrong with that?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
FUCK OFF!
<after basic filter>
{beeep} OFF!
<after christian fundamentalist filter>
you poor misunderstood darling.
<after DRM filter>
go get em tiger - filthy pirates oughta be hung...
<after *AA filter>
let's do lunch.
<after /. filter>
first post!
I for one actually agree that you should not be able to buy one and get the other for free - they are fundamentally different.
When you buy an audio book on CD, you're paying for (among other things) the cost of production... hiring somebody to read the book, a sound studio to do the recording, the cost of mastering and pressing a set of CDs. That's how the higher price can be justified.
What the Kindle software does is essentially make the production cost of the audio zero (well, there's the cost of the software, but I'm simplifying things here).
What's to stop me as an individual from reading a book aloud and recording it for private use? Nothing. Selling such a recording, now that's another matter.
Is he just pulling our collective leg with this article? He's been known to have a somewhat subversive sense of humor and is frequently on the NPR comedy show "Wait, wait..."
It seems to me that equating the output of a text-to-speech process to the product of a human reading the text as an audiobook debases the value of the people who provide the voices of so many audiobooks. Now, granted, at least some of the people who read for audiobooks are volunteers helping our libraries, but there are also audiobooks that are read by professional talent. Consequently, this claim equates professional actors, or professional voice actors, with a bit of technology. Shouldn't the actors' union get involved in this fight?
P. Orin Zack
- - -
I write pointed political and business short stories at http://klurgsheld.wordpress.com/
So his counterpoint to the argument that copyright laws allows the Kindle text-to-speech feature is that blind people can't use the Kindle? It didn't seem that he remotely addressed their point. For though blind people can't independently operate a Kindle, doesn't mean that they can't operate it all. i.e. "Sonny can you load up A Tale of Two Cities and play it for me". Also for those people who are not blind but visually impaired(dsylexic, far-sighted, glaucoma, etc. ), they may be able to operate the Kindle 2. I am not a copyright lawyer but aren't there organizations whose sole purpose is to record books on audiotape royalty-free for blind and visually impaired persons. I don't see how this feature is any different.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
In fact, publishers, authors and American copyright laws have long provided for free audio availability to the blind and the guild is all for technologies that expand that availability.
I don't get why I cant use the content I have purchased for personal use in any way I want to so long as I use it personally or among my small group of friends, just as I might read a book to my son at bed time (or is that illegal now ?).
I get that there should be an extra payment (and have made such license payments) if I want to display a DVD publicly, because a bunch of other people might not buy the movie if they can just go see it projected by me.
I have yet to see why Kindle reading a book takes bread from the mouths of authors and I don't see why celebrity audio-book readers should feel that they have any god-given monopoly on reading books aloud.
Nullius in verba
If you read my Slashdot entry out loud, please remit $0.50 to my Paypal account. Thank you.
It's us sighted people who are expected to bend over the barrel.
I hope he's comfortable with the fact that he just lost the goodwill of a few hundred thousand geeks (who are among the heaviest readers). Good luck with that, champ.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Sure, a human-read book will be better, but as you say, that's often not available.
I know it is not fashionable to read the article or look at this from a different perspective, but Mr. Blount explicitly brought this issue up in the article. He said that providing such services to sight impaired people is something they have done for a long time and have no desire to end.
He is also not saying that this is a copyright violation. What he explicitly said is that the kindle creates extra value for the work. In return the people who created the material should share in that extra value.
It is fine to disagree with this statement. I personally think that market forces should determine the worth of the product. If you want to argue, though, you should argue against the points that he brought up instead of changing the subject and using a "straw man" argument.
If Amazons spin doctors were on the ball they could say that the writers guild are trying to deny the visually impaired the ability to purchase books and read/listen to them just like everyone else who has fully functional sight.
I was going to be irritated by the one-sidedness of the summary, but after reading the article, it's apparent that the submitter is spot on. Blount's rant is one of the most ignorant tirades I've ever read, and the "Luddite" title fits him like a glove. He wants job protection for no other reason than some jobs are threatened:
- There is no copyright violation
- There is no patent violation
- There is no contractual violation
- There is no theft
There is basically no violation of the law or any ethical guideline.
To enact his suggestion would prevent a large number of people from benefiting from this technology. He would make readers into leeches at the expense of the public. He is an embarrassment.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
Perhaps he could log in here and have Slashdot's "Robotic Overlord" read the comments to him. Except for this one. This one is only licensed for organo-retinal scanning. Also you must delete the memory engram in which it's stored if you don't agree to the license terms.
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
Next to last paragraph of his rant:
Apparently Mr. Blunt is indeed a greedy bastard: he's too cheap to hire a decent proofreader and incapable of doing the job himself. Not only that, he butchered someone else's words, not his own, in the process. Since it was an EFF LAWYER whose words he butchered, I guess he can expect a response any day now. :-)
According to the Authors Guild logic, using a magnifying glass with a normal print book should be illegal, because then one gets large typeface for free?
No, their logic seems to be even more warped than this. If you used your own magnifying glass then it is fine, no problem. But if you sell a book with a bundled magnifying glass and advertize it as a cheap large print book then they would not be happy.
As they are providing a service for the disabled. Postage is free, too.
"Under U.S. copyright law, NLS is authorized to reproduce and distribute talking books without copyright infringement as long as they are produced in a specialized format exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities."
Disclaimer: I'm not trying to make fun of the blind.
Every time I hear this argument I wonder if the next step is to take on text-to-speech in Windows and OS X that is there primarily as an accessibility feature for the "visually impaired."
Think Deeply.
It's a rendering. Good God, are they going to try to charge if we choose to re-render it in a different font size? Are they missing out on millions in revenue by not charging for iTunes music visualizations, which are clearly "performances" of music in a different modality, and surely at least as deserving of copyright protection?
The truth? Probably not many. Text to speech technology still has quite a way to go before it sounds human enough to not be jarring.
As for books, I'm not sure TTS will be able to express the emotion of a good book in my lifetime. If audiobooks were just about reading the text aloud then nobody except the blind would bother - and the preponderance audiobooks in real bookstores and even on torrent sites suggests to me that far more people than the blind are listening to books.
In other words, it's just offline trolling.
Since the first child was born, people have been saying and doing stupid sh*t solely for the attention they get. This is just more of the same.
Sending spam is legal, ethical, and basically a good thing
slashdot text to speech options... as I really think it appropriate to only read the article using TTS....
First, I don't think that this technology is going to be any substitute to audio books. Comparing a good audio book to a text to speech reader are apples and oranges. Second, and more importantly, this seems like an excellent way to expand the number of titles available to visually impaired. Not all books are available in braille or as audio books, but all books distributed through the Kindle can be enjoyed by the visually impaired. Tell me again why this is a bad thing?
Maybe I don't use books the same as others, but I don't see myself buying more than one version of the same book. I'm either going to buy the printed version, the audio book, or the electronic version. I don't see how this cannibalizes any book sales.
Finally, didn't Target settle a lawsuit dealing with the accessibility of its website because it did not work well with text-to-speech? It seems as if this a a reasonable accommodation to the visually disabled. I wouldn't want to argue that, even though websites could violated the ADA by not working well with text-to-speech software, books stored in electronic form should somehow be unusable to the visually impaired because there might be a recording, now or in the future. What a bunch of baloney.
I think they need to get the Writers' Guild head and the head of an Actors' Guild to have a discussion on how he thinks TTS could possibly replace the nuanced delivery of a skilled narrator.
I'm only picking actors because, ime, the best audio books are read by actors. Of course when they author is also an actor, it's nice, e.g. Stephen Fry. I love his audio books.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, you do not understand his point. Let me help you.
His point is that Amazon.com would like to set this up as "Big Mean Author's Guild vs. Helpless Blind People". When it's really the far more neutral "The Authors Guild vs. Amazon.com".
Now, a kindle owner pays ~$10 to Amazon.com for an e-book, and some of that goes to the copyright holders (e.g. the authors). The Authors Guild's members get far more money for audio books than for e-books. And the distinction between an audio-book and an e-book is blurred by the TTS feature of the Kindle2. (Right now it sounds like a computer, but in five years, TTS may advance enough to make audio books a thing of the past.)
What's the difference to you, the Kindle owner?
Probably nothing. Amazon's price-point probably wont change much either way.
What's the difference to the authors and amazon?
Well if Amazon gets its way, it can make more money off of each e-book sale. If the author's get their way, they can make more money off each e-book sale.
So the question is: Which do you like more? The people that write the books or the people that sell you the books?
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I'll tell you what. Our blind boys have taken up pirating ebooks! One of the worst and coolest of crimes.
Everybody wants their slice of the pie. They all poke their finger in to get "their fair share". What they fail to realize is that no one wants a slice of pie that has lots of finger holes. People will just find another pie that looks and tastes good.
For the metaphorically challenged...
They are ruining their medium by demanding we pay for something that is common sense. Their stories aren't great enough for people to want to pay twice for them (once for the text version, once for the text to speach license).
Being unreasonable with your customers used to mean you went out of business. Perhaps someone should remind this guy there is a recession going on and people are more likely to take their dollars elsewhere.
Ah, but this is _not_ an audiobook. It is a e-book, which is neither book nor audiobook. The intent of an e-book is that the data is embedded in a file which is then rendered on an electronic device in a format which can be sensed by the purchaser of the e-book.
Here's a question: If you bought the e-book, and your reader only had TTS but no screen, would there be a problem? What about a braille version? A color version? Now, what if you combined a B&W reader with a braille stripe on the bottom of the reader.
If the e-book is only in digital form, than ANY rendering is a "derivative" work. Note that fair use is significant here. From wikipedia, the Galoob v Nintendo ruling of the 9th circuit stated: "a party who distributes a copyrighted work cannot dictate how that work is to be enjoyed". In other words, the end user can do (nearly) whatever her or she damned well pleases once purchased. To say that you can't have a book read to you - either by a friend, a relative, or your personal reading device, is simply absurd.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I like audio books. Not because I don't like to read -- in fact if my time is limited, I'd rather read because I read far, far faster -- but because a well-read book is a pleasure. Well-done audio books are read by people who are excellent voice actors, able to emulate wide ranges of voices and to interpret fine nuances of emotion. The best readers can tell you volumes about the characters' lives and personalities just by the voices they choose.
In contrast, computerized text-to-speech algorithms do well to pronounce all of the words correctly. The lamest human readers are far more interesting to listen to.
The Kindle's text-to-speech feature is a useful tool, particularly for the sight-impaired, but it's hardly competition for audio books.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
What does he really expect to accomplish with these whining rants of his?
Does he think Amazon is going to give them money to shut up? Doubtful.
Is he going to increase sales of audio books to an alienated audience? Unlikely.
Will his shrill tone bring the march of technology to a screeching halt? All signs point to no.
I'm not quite sure what realistic outcome will come out of this, aside from drastically increasing the hit count of a google search for his name + "douchebag"
I can't envy his kids, ten years from now, discovering that family "legacy".
Because your reading a physical copy you own. Apparently they seem to feel that a digital representation of a book requires a license for both display on a screen as well as audio presentation. I guess they envision the horror of people sitting around starbucks playing the books for all to hear.
Really what it comes down to is they have a quantifiable revenue stream with audio books and want a fee applied to devices which can do both functions, I would not doubt they would go as far as requiring both forms to be purchased to allow for it to be heard. Hopefully he gets his way. Why? Because it would force down the price on both representations as no business would agree to full price on both. In other words, he may be digging his own grave.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
An amicus curiae brief from the Buggy Whip Manufaturer's Guild will forthcoming.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
My new Kindle has shipped from Amazon and will arrive any day. I'm planning to read Gutenberg books with it.
If Mr. Blunt is successful in getting Amazon to remove the text to speech feature from my Kindle, will he compensate me for the loss of use of something I paid for?
If prevents my Kindle from reading public domain books to me, then I expect a fucking check for a hundred bucks in my mailbox. Nothing less.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Why does he want to force the blind to rely on the limited availability of commercial and specialised works for the blind?
Maybe he's gone mad with power. Maybe he just doesn't understand the situation.
Nah. He's a dick.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
if you only want to listen to "A Brief History of Time".
This won't hurt Narrators who do audio books, because the quality of their performance is what most people are paying for.
How much extra should I pay to license a book if I move my lips when I'm reading? After all, moving my lips does constitute a "public performance" of a copyrighted work -- especially if there are any observers present who are capable of lip reading!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I hate to be modded down for going against this hate-fest, but this issue really boils down to whether a computer voice is a performance. I think most people would agree that Amazon would not be allowed to hire actors to read the eBooks and include those audio versions along with the eBook, without paying an audio book license. Clearly an actor reading a book is a performance. And clearly an unauthorized commercial performance is infringement.
The problem we're having is that we think that because the reading is done by a machine, that it's not a performance. Going way back to the 1800's it was determined that the use of player piano rolls were performances. That's not really much different here. The player piano changed the holes in the paper to sound. (You could make the same argument about the wax cylinder, record, cassette, or CD.)
So yes, the Kindle 2 is violating copyright. Yes it is infringing on the author's right to license audio book copies.
And yes, the analogy between the Kindle 2 and reading a book at home to your kids does not work because a reading of the book at home is not a commercial use. Reading a book to your kids is clearly different from selling audio books without a license.
And the whole argument that this could impact the blind is a red herring because that's not the issue here. The issue is whether Amazon can sell audio books without a license to people with sight.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
This is exactly the sort of thinking that led Sony to try and develop UMD as a portable media format.
People buy movies, they don't buy UMDs and DVDs. If someone buys a movie on DVD, it is extremely unlikely they are going to turn around the next day and buy it on UMD, since they already own the movie.
The same, I suspect, is largely true with books. People buy a book, and whether they buy it as a paperback or a hardcover or an audiobook or an eBook, they do not then wake up the next day and decide to buy the same book again. There's no reason to, because they already own the book.
When I need to take a trip, and I'm going to drive, I'll sometimes go out and buy an audiobook to listen to in the car. I've never felt a need to buy the paper version of an audiobook I already own, or vice versa.
The Authors Guild, then, is contending that if you buy the eBook, and use TTS (even perfect awesome TTS with really good intonation and feeling), then they've lost an audio book sale, because if the eBook reader didn't have TTS, you would have bought the audio book.
What the Authors Guild is missing is that NO ONE DOES THIS; if the eBook reader DIDN'T have TTS, and I wanted the audio book, I would have bought the audio book and not the eBook. I would still only buy the book once.
Sure, the TTS is a nice feature, and of course it makes the eBook more versatile, but it hasn't lost an audiobook sale, it has replaced the audiobook sale. If the TTS wasn't there, I still wouldn't buy the book twice, so there's no sense giving them double royalties for eBooks.
Here in Australia, a hardcover costs AUD$55 now - and that's a hardcover that's designed to fall apart after 2 years or 4 readings. A (normal-sized) paperback costs AUD$20-25.
I used to buy an incredible number of books, and well over half of those were hardcover. Now I only buy the books I really really really want, and I only buy paperbacks. Paperbacks are considerably cheaper (though still expensive) and they tend to last a lot longer. I know, ridiculous, isn't it? The whole point of a hardcover is that it should last longer than the paperback.
I now spend a lot less money on books than I used to (and I have more disposable income now), because the publishers got greedy and took the opportunity of the GST being introduced to increase the cost of books astronomically. As a result, I don't get exposed to as many authors as I used to, because I don't buy on spec anymore - I stick with authors that I know I've enjoyed reading in the past. That means that very few new authors get any of my money.
Make books more affordable and accessible to people, and both publishers and authors will make more money. This obviously applies to audio books as well.
In five years theri might be TTS that outputs with an even monotone delivery. However, unless there are some major break-throughs in AI programming TTS will lack emotional depth, or other context appropriate changes in voice tone and speed, for the immediate future. If you don't understand the extent of the problem, just look at how hard it can be to detect sarcasm and other forms of humor in online posts, and this is for people who have emotions themselves! Granted I've listened to audio books were a steady monotone would be an improvement, but decent human voice acting will be superior until there is an AI that can read not just text but also read and understand CONTEXT.
healthy unions are as vital to our economy as healthy companies.
No. Without a healthy union, companies still have to contend with labor supply and demand. If they abuse their employees, the more competent employees will flee to other jobs. Without healthy companies, we don't have an efficient way to coordinate large amounts of workers, so we lose a lot of economies of scale.
To make matters worse, there seems to be a reverse correlation between the health of the union and that of the company.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
I bought the official audio book of 1984 directly from Amazon.com.
This is exactly Blount's point. You were willing to pay money to get an audio version. Audio books are a huge huge huge market (billions of dollars). E-books are a teeny tiny market (millions of dollars).
E-books are sold cheaply. Audio books command a premium because, as you youself noted, they have a value beyond the text that is worth paying for.
Amazon is Paying e-book prices and selling them as audiobooks. Sure they may sound crappy at the moment but this is likely to change.
Blount is just saying that publisher's need to charge kindle's e-book rights at a rate closer to audiobook rates. And if Amazon does not like that then they need to stop offering the audio conversion.
The tricky part of the argument is this. It's not the publishers who are fighting this. They love expanding the e-book market. Indeed the publisher selling the e-book rights might never have bought the audio rights from the author.
It's the writers who are objecting to having their e-books turned into audio books and not getting paid.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Not to mention that audio books are, in most cases, more expensive than paper books.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Decent TTS in a widely-used device will basically kill the audiobook market, and authors should be compensated in some way for the revenue lost there. What's wrong with that?
Two things are wrong:
(1) There is no need to compensate authors or any other businesses for revenue lost because of an obsolete business model.
(2) You're just wrong that this will kill the audiobook market. Until these devices can read the book in the author's own voice, audiobooks won't be going anywhere soon. Part of the thrill of many audiobooks is hearing the voice of the writer. The other benefit of that, of course, is being able to hear that an author like President Obama is tired of your motherfucking shit.
Has anyone considered that this is an advertisement for the kindle? Step 1: Make big stink about kindle stealing profits. Step 2: Watch people go out and buy kindle (because people like to steal stuff). Step 3: Profit from higher e-book sales.
That's only if you take the pure AI approach. That would be sweet, but isn't really necessary.
If you have a machine voice that can mimic emotional tones (which is what Blount was worried about) then it's just a matter of adding information to the e-book encoding to cue the machine reader where to apply what tone.
Plop some underemployed english major in front of a computer and have him encode all the Context you like. Sure it's not going to beat a trained actor, but I bet it'd be a hell-of-a-lot cheaper and faster to produce.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Decent TTS in a widely-used device will basically kill the audiobook market, and authors should be compensated in some way...
This is only true if you assume that there are people out there who would buy both the eBook AND the audio book if there was no TTS. Otherwise eBook sales aren't causing a loss of sales in the audio book market, they are merely replacing those sales.
I own a few books as audio books (usually bought before a long drive somewhere), and even in the cases of the really good ones, I've never felt a burning desire to buy the book again in print.
E-books sell for less than half to a quarter of audio book CD prices and fewer copies are sold. the ratio is enormous-- the Audio book market is 1000 times larger than the e-book market.
hence replacing 1-for-1 an audiobook with an e-book would cut the income by 1/2 or 1/4. Moreover if the author reads his own book, then his roylaties are even higher so the loss is maginified further.
you might wonder why then a publisher would be willing to sell if it represents a loss of revenue. The answer is that the e-book publisher and the audio book publisher are not the same person. the audio book publisher might be horrified that his sales are canialized by cheap e-baook sales, but from the e-book publisher's point of view it's a chance to expand their market 100 fold.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This is totally awesome. I am going to run out and join the authors guild immediately. They will protect me from my vicious double dipping fans!!!
NOT.
Creative commons has an interesting problem. How do you allow translation of an open work, without allowing someone to undermine the original text through dubious translation? In other words allow other language translations, but not "modify." It looks like there is a project to set up a consensus on translation. A system by which translations would be performed by the same process from work to work.
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Translate
So I wonder, isn't an automatically generated audio reading, just another translation? Is spoken language to text or vise versa a translation, or is it literally the same text? How about other languages? Dialects?
If all translations are really just a complex substitution problem that can be performed by the reader, does it benefit society to pay for services they didn't receive for a product they already paid for?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
The comments really are revealing here, but not in a positive way. The summary itself is inflammatory, stating that a clarification of the Guild's position is a "rant" with the author "moaning" - and I haven't seen a single comment modded up here that suggests that anybody actually READ the piece.
First of all, the issue here is not that reading aloud is copyright infringement - it isn't, and Blount explicitly says so. The issue here is as follows:
1. Audiobook rights constitute a separate right from e-book rights in copyright law.
2. Amazon is advertising that the Kindle 2 has the ability to effectively generate an audiobook from the e-book, and using that as a major selling point.
3. Amazon is not buying audiobook rights, even though they are generating an audiobook performance for commercial gain.
All of this was clarified in the article - which apparently nobody read. Now, whether a computer-read book constitutes a full audiobook is a tricky matter, but we're not talking about software reading to the blind here - in fact, Blount specificially states "In fact, publishers, authors and American copyright laws have long provided for free audio availability to the blind and the guild is all for technologies that expand that availability. (The federation, though, points out that blind readers can't independently use the Kindle 2's visual, on-screen controls.) But that doesn't mean Amazon should be able, without copyright-holders' participation, to pass that service on to everyone." What we're talking about is the ability to create an audiobook being advertised as a selling point to sell more Kindles, without the audiobook rights having actually been acquired by Amazon.
What will be determined - and with technology advancing, it is an issue that does need to be hashed out - is whether a computer generated audio reading of a book on a commerical e-book reader constitutes an audiobook performance. Sadly, that's not what's being discussed here. Pity, as this is one place where there could be a fruitful and intelligent discussion on that.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
A well-done audio book will have emotion, nuances, voice changes, etc. Talking Text will be serviceable, but not especially interesting.
In my town we have a group of experienced voice-readers who periodically perform reading books or plays in front of paying audiences. That effect is between a book and fully-staged play. Your imagination supplies the visual details. You can more easily concentrate on the words. You hear emotion and see it in the voice-reader's faces.
Perhaps talking text will evolve in the future. I anticipate a "voice-markup" annotation that might suggest emotion, tone, gender, etc. to the reading computer. Music and screenplays do such now. In the distance future an A.I. reading computer will be able to figure these out.
But it still doesn't preclude selling audiobooks. A lot of people buy audiobooks because they like the way a particular person reads. I remember seeing plenty of books read out by actors (Lemmon comes to mind). If granny has to choose between "nice sounding male voice X" and "computerish sounding person X", she'll probably still stick with the audiobooks. Not to mention that those buying kindles, with the exception of the visually impaired who supposedly aren't the target of this particular rant, aren't necessarily the audiobook types anyhow.
There are plenty subtleties of a human voice that a computer isn't going to match any time soon. Speech patterns, accent, and tone vary greatly by narrator. The idea that the kindles are taking aware from the value of audiobooks is a bit absurd (unless you count to the impaired, which again are supposedly not the target of this argument).
So, if I have a TTS read the lyrics of a song to me, do I owe the band money for that?
Well, what if I had a TTS read the script of "Transformers" while I showed some shots of the movie? Would that infringe on Paramount's copyright?
Parent reading the bedtime story vs. Kindle2 reading the bedtime story is an interesting argument. Let's take it further - it's 100 years into the future and the android nanny is putting the kids to bed. Is it illegal for the nanny to read the bedtime story aloud? It's text-to-speech after all. This is like a really boring chapter of I, Robot...
Its funny though, in an email conversation with the FSF over audio reproduction (no recorded, TTS on the fly) of a GFDL work they said that it wasn't permitted via the license at all and I would have to get copyright permission directly from the author.
Seems the FSF hates blind people too.
Some people are saying that authors deserve to be paid for the audio. They're right. What they're forgetting, though, is that the authors are paid. Amazon paid for the e-book. The author whatever piece of that that they agreed would be fair. (Had they not agreed, all this talk about "copyright infringement" would be a hell of a lot less theoretical and Amazon's lawyers would already be scrambling and asking their client, "You did what?")
It's not Amazon's fault that the writers sell the e-book so cheaply compared to audiobooks, just as it's not hulu's or boxee's fault that the video content providers sell video with a web browser framed around it, more cheaply that the same exact video without the web browser framed around it.
Market segmentation is about fucking with people. Computers transforming the information you bought into a way that is easiest for you to use, is about getting un-fucked.
I vote for the computer.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
His real gripe is with the Kindle with which he has no direct relationship. Yes, Amazon happens to be a licensee, but he is only copyright as a lever to try to insert himself between Amazon and Kindle purchasers.
Why does this man hate blind people?
Because he loves money, you silly!
In his "rant" he finally gets to the real core of the issue:
To this I say bullsh*t. I'm sorry, it's bad enough that you want to charge me the same damn price for an e-book as for a dead tree book, and then not give me the same rights with one as with the other*. Now you want to say that if I pay for a device with a particular function, I shouldn't be allowed to use it? I suppose I'm not allowed to read the damn book out loud now too? Or have someone ELSE read it to me out loud? 'Cause that's the BS you're trying to sell me, and dude, I'm not buying it.
If I pay for a (fictional) device to put dead tree books in, and it OCR's them and reads them out loud, am I suddenly not allowed to do that either? What a load of crap. If technology really IS making "performance art" (i.e. books on tape) obsolete, then guess what...your product isn't worth what it used to be. Live with it. Once I've paid for my copy I'm done...if you come back and tell me any more of this kind of crap I just won't bother buying your product in the future.
*Yes, yes, I have a ton of books from http://www.webscription.net/. I'm aware that at least they "get" it.
Would Mr. Blunt like a little CHEESE with his WHINE? Aren't audio books read and recorded by real live human beings? I know that speech synthesis has come a long ways, but it's STILL not as good as having a talented live person do a reading. Oh, and this thing from the previous story on this subject about reading it out loud also being an infringement for "public performance"? GTFO, dude! What, you're going to sue someone for reading to 95 year old Grandmas in the retirement home, who can't see well enough to read or can't hold the book up? You're going to sue Mom and Dad for reading to their kid(s)? Preposterous, stuff, and nonsense! Stop stealing pages from the RIAA's playbook, you schmuck!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Doesn't Acrobat do TTS as well? Are they going to sue Adobe? MS makes a similar item for their usability suite....are they in the sights as well? Or are they being selective, knowing that they'd get hammered?...
The issue at hand is if Kindle 2 indeed has decent text-2-speech, it will be a market changer. If an author expects to get $X from a book and a publisher expects to get $Y from it, they lay out fees according to planned sales (different for each media). eBooks are chap to produce, inconvenient to read and a 'niche' market, thus licensing for those is cheap. Audio books get more and more popular (with mp3 players and services like Audible), have larger production costs (although pretty manageable) and expected income from those is much higher. Thus point he *should* have made is that if ebook eats into audio book sales, there should either be a separate royalty skew for "ebook with right to vocalize" or ebooks altogether should be skewed differently.
Bottom line, there is clearly no violation today and if authors believe they are not adequately compensated, they should change licensing terms for future titles.
And in other news, grandmothers are being rounded up in droves for "reading" bedtime stories aloud to their grandchildren. Copyright infringement charges are starting at $150,000.00 per incident.
Oh the humanity of it all!!
Think of the children!!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This nutjob has apparently been learning RIAA tactics, but not noticing the consequences.
I hope he realizes[heh heh, yeah right] that the harder he throws this boomerang, the harder it's going to smack him when it comes back around at him.
The best comment on writers dealing with the digital world I've read so far, has been by a successful writer himself. (one of my top 10 authors)
Here is what Eric Flint has to say[excerpt from link]:
It makes for an interesting read, seeing things from an author's perspective.
*shameless plug*: some of my favorite authors I have found on Jim Baen's site. Lots of free stuff, and an easy way to buy the non free stuff, almost all books have sample chapters on line, good prices (books usually start at $4 USD), cheap subscription plan(monthly fee-read 'til your eyes bleed), etc.
The only time I buy an actual, physical book is when I'm flying somewhere. (usually once every 3-4 years)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I think people are discounting the value of a good narrator. TTS is going to be monotone and not pause appropriately, etc.
There are recent advancements in computer speech that can sound pretty good (Hatsune Miku from Yamaha's Vocaloid comes to mind), but it requires a lot of effort adjusting the tone and pitch variables. Otherwise it doesn't sound much different from Microsoft Sam. This is something you won't get from generic TTS.
He just kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence, moving from topic to topic, such that no one had the chance to interrupt him, it was really quite hypnotic.
Word - this is a perfect example of what's going on. If they don't put out things in a format people want to buy people will go to other means to get it in the right format.
Mod parent up, +1 Insightful. I wish I had mod points...
To me this is the most convincing argument
If you want the one correct solution it is to charge more for the Kindle version which runs on a Kindle and features TTS than for a regular eBook version. This way you collect money for the "dual use" feature of the book on Kindle.
And Amazon then responds with a !TTS flag which flags works (at a cheaper price) for books where the TTS feature is disabled.
But it's up to the author's to say that their work is more valuable when played on a Kindle and charge accordingly for it - not Amazon!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Audio book right are frequently sold separately from ebook rights.
If you had purchased the rights to sell audiobooks for John Grisham for a million dollars, you'd be pissed, too.
Perhaps contracts will be modified to account for dual purpose use, but for now, Amazon doesn't have the right to sell audio version of an ebook, that right has been sold to someone else.
The quality is irrelevant, we all know it will be better soon.
http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php
Is this guy also President of the Buggy Whip Manufacturers Guild, by any chance?
Mr. Blunt is just saying that instead we should all show our support and torrent our audiobooks from PirateBay.
Blount is just saying that publisher's need to charge kindle's e-book rights at a rate closer to audiobook rates. And if Amazon does not like that then they need to stop offering the audio conversion.
This is where you go astray. If Amazon doesn't like the higher rates, they should stop purchasing the rights. If they stop purchasing, the publishers will have to reduce rates to the point where they start purchasing again. This way, the rights are priced according to their actual value.
In no case should Amazon be forced to stop offering text-to-speech capability. Merely including TTS technology itself does not constitute creating and distributing a derivative work (it's up to the user to do that). I am dead set against copyright holders meddling with the kind of technology others can and can't produce, though it does happen (see SCMS for one example). That's the sort of approach that will lead to the banning of the fast-forward button.
On the other hand, copyright holders are free to try and license their works for a higher price if they think it has a higher value. If it really does, then Amazon and consumers will be willing to pay more.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Here's my problem. The Roman alphabet and the english language is a phonetic system where a series of sounds are represented by symbols. Therefore, when you buy a book in the english language, you're buying a very long set of data designed to represent a long series of sounds. How is creating a device to reconstitute that series of sounds into a sound stream for a legitimate (and paid) end-user a violation of that, while reconstituting it by looking at the symbols and recreating the sounds yourself not a violation of that?
Amazon isn't distributing audio files or derivative works. They're distributing the original work in it's original format as provided by the writer, and they happen to be distributing a second, separate device which can automatically convert this original work into the series of sounds they're meant to represent. It seems to me like if this interpretation is to be accepted, every MP3 player on the planet is evil because it too converts a medium meant to represent sounds into.....sounds!
It's been a long time.
The Author's Guild should just give it a rest.
Having just received my Kindle 2 and trying the TTS in it, nobody is seriously going to use TTS on the thing. Think robot voice with no cadence or inflection. I've worked phone menu trees with more personality.
That is all.
Just outsource your sorry ass to cheap immigrant labour or to an outsourcing company in budapest.
(Right now it sounds like a computer, but in five years, TTS may advance enough to make audio books a thing of the past.)
Are you kidding? Text to speech has been around for 25 years. It hasn't advanced _at all_ in that time period. The "super advanced" text to speech devices use pre-recorded words and phrases, and the emotions are all wrong when strung together. Elements like pauses, word pacing, volume, these are important to an audio book, and they are a LONG ways off.
So how come we don't get a rebate on the partial reproduction of the original text works?
This is total bullshit. TTS is fine to read a small text, but it does not guess intonations. With a real voice actor, there is an added value, an interpretation, but automated TTS is just like asking to your 10 year old little brother to read the text. It may be practical but it's artistically zero and will damage the text.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
Quick tip, the Authors Guild is not talking about an "end-user" violation. The Authors Guild doesn't want anything from you, they just want more money from Amazon.
A valid argument against this move by the Authors Guild would be that by slimming Amazon's margins the authors are biting the hand that feeds them.
The counter argument would be to point to what happened to screen writers with the conversion from VHS residuals to DVD residuals. When DVD supplanted VHS, the writers got screwed.
New mediums (like Kindle) make artists' work MORE valuable. In which case, it's not unreasonable for them to expect to make more money.
In any case, the end user/consumer really doesn't have a stake in either position.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
If you add information to the ebook, you are creating a derivative work.
TTS killed the audiobook star... *hums song*
..... why did they decide to become authors? It's a pretty well-known fact that becoming an author full-time, while fun if you like writing, is a pretty poor financial decision.
The Guild of Calamitous Intent? Ah! Now it makes sense!
-- NeilO
So, what if I hire one of the recently unemployed to read the book aloud while sitting next to me? Is that a copyright violation?
How about these idiots let me use my content the way I want to use my content - so long as I don't redistribute it?
business technology; news at nine.
This si still the begininng. Not to long from now actors will start to be replaced in large scale.
The actirs guild will have a fit, and probably demand the animated characters be part of the guild.
The time of audio books is coming to an end.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I prefer the death of prerecorded audio books and the authors guild gets it's cut for each purchased ebook.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Whether you call it audio rights, which means the right to perform the work orally, or an audio performance, you're talking about the same result and the same thing. Let's not let semantics bog us down.
Yes, it's semantics, but it's also important. If "audio rights" is used in the same sense as "movie rights", then "audio rights" means the right to produce a derivative work. If "audio rights" mean the right to publicly perform the work, that is a different right in the eyes of the law.
Once again, courts have determined that the use of player pianos constitute a performance.
If you're referring to White-Smith Music v. Apollo (which, as described by my IP law prof, is recognized as "one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever"), the court found that piano rolls didn't constitute copies of sheet music. This in turn led Congress to pass a new copyright act. In any case, read on for why this isn't relevant to the Kindle.
In the exact same way, the use of the Kindle 2 to translate text to an audio format constinues a performance.
Yes, it constitutes a performance. It does not constitute a public performance, unless it's done in public (thus my auditorium example). 17 U.S.C. Sec. 106(4) is very clear that there is an exclusive right to public performance, not to performance in general.
Of course the pianos were not sued.
Fair enough, I was just being pedantic here :-)
God, I wish people who knew nothing about the law would simply stop smashing their fingers. The copyright on the book is fixed. The book was written down and is sitting on a shelf someplace in a fixed state. God, why are you wasting our time on this BS?!
The copyright (on the original portions) of a derivative work is separate from the copyright on the original work. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 103(b). TTS can't constitute a derivative work, because it's not fixed, which is one of the fundamental requirements of copyrightability.
If we agree, then what are we arguing about?! . . . For Amazon to pay for the audio license. God, was that so hard?
No, I'm saying that Amazon doesn't need a license for audio rights, and that their current e-book license gives them the right to include TTS technology with the Kindle, and that perhaps the e-book license should be more expensive.
Because what you know about copyright law comes from what you've read online. Everything you read on line is not true. Seriously.
Funny, I could have sworn that what I know about copyright law comes from my IP law book and the lectures I've attended at the law school.
In any case, I can't waste any more time on /., I've got reading to do for tomorrow :-)
So what, do they want proof of blindness before the speaker is activated?
Yes. See 17 USC 121(a) (with my emphasis): "Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement of copyright for an authorized entity to reproduce or to distribute copies or phonorecords of a previously published, nondramatic literary work if such copies or phonorecords are reproduced or distributed in specialized formats exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities."
There is no user test for blindness that can't be passed by a sighted person with their eyes closed (no pun intended).
People who malinger in order to gain access to equipment for playing phonorecords of copyrighted audio books designed for blind people without a qualifying disability are likely committing fraud.
Even if it had the hardware, there's nothing to prevent a sighted person from learning braille, and even if blind people had electronically readable disability identification cards, it can't prevent a blind person from using it in the presence of sighted people or a microphone.
Technologically it can't prevent an analog hole attack, but legally it can: "Copies or phonorecords to which this section applies shall -- (A) not be reproduced or distributed in a format other than a specialized format exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities".
You can however create a device that converts sighted people into blind people (lasers), thereby authorizing them to hear their books.
Such a device would probably violate laws in all fifty states.
How do I acquire such a free audio copy? Do they demand medical proof of blindness?
Apparently so. I wrote another comment that analyzes the statute in question.
If you add information to the ebook, you are creating a derivative work.
And if you as a publisher refuse to provide a license to Amazon for adding emphasis markup to books, it's likely that Amazon will drop you from Kindle and/or lower the ranking of listings of print copies of your works, and you will get 0 sales and 0 royalties.
Audio books or free TTS on Kindle and other devices. Period.
Pre-made audio books have to die if there is no revenue and there will be very little with this sort of thing.
Next question: Can I record the output of Windows or a Kindle and sell that to people to play in their cars? If copyright means nothing, why not?
Well the RIAA engages in similar shenanagins crying "for the artist" when really they just want to pocket the money themselves. So rather than supporting RIAA artists many people have decided to only do business with artists on independant lables.
Technology can read for us now instead of a human. So...should accountants be sueing quickbooks or GNUcash for taking away some of their business because those programs can automate a great number of accounting functions? This is complete and total bullshit. What if I have streaming media of me reading all the information I add to my website and charge for that stream? Should I be able to sue Apple or Microsoft or some group of developers for daring to build a computer that would read those same contents itself?
When the AG decides to go to bat for people who purchase e-books and their right to resell them to someone else because that is what you can do with books I will take them a little more seriously. They seem perfectly happy with destroying the used books market threat using e-books, but when a device starts reading that e-book they cry foul? Fuck em!
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
This is the exact kind of case I've been waiting for! The claims being made against the Kindle are SO ridiculous that EVERYONE will realize this is idiotic. BTW, where are the advocacy groups for the disabled on this one?
When the RIAA started their lawsuits and I became more familiar with their of anti-democratic tacts I started using (and encouraged others to use) "aternative" methods for obtaining their content. This was for me civil disobedience, a protest and an attempt to harm an evil that acted above the law.
I am an avid reader and buy several books a week, either physically or down to my Kindle. This op-ed has me concerned that by doing so I am funding another organization intent on abusing it's lobbying influence and position of strength (relative to the individual consumer) in an attack on what should be obvious rights for the individual. I will investigate further, but I know that if the Author's Guild continues down this path I will be forced to stop buying their member's books.
I will still read their books. Any book one could want is easily obtainable through other means. Will I feel guilty about not compensating authors I love and enjoy for their work? Absolutely! However maybe this will lead to them reconsidering their professional affiliations. How guilty can one feel about not giving money to people who support the evil works of organizations intent on destroying individual liberties in the pursuit of selfish enrichment? Screw em.
Skipping over the already well-discussed audio rights issue, let me rant about access for the visually impaired. Blount's arguments in the Times' OIp-Ed in regards to the lack of accessibility of the Kindle 2 to the blind were flawed. I hope that he is only ignorant, rather than disingenuous. Blind people have a variety of visual impairments and varying levels of functional vision. I have enough functional vision to read the Kindle with low vision glasses for short periods of time. Supplementing this with text-to-speech makes the Kindle pretty damn near the ideal accessible reading device for me. So dismissing the accessibility implications with a glib rephrasing of his conversation with the NFB is both misleading and unjustified. I do not want to be stuck going back and forth between devices for the profoundly blind and my tiny-fonted iPod for the rest of my life. I have posted this discussion in more detail on my blog: http://www.timobrienphotos.com/2009/02/blount-bluntly-dismisses-the-blind-on-the-nytimes-op-ed-page/.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Were there no protection to authors against performances of their works, then, e.g., someone could just take their books, record performances of them, and sell copies of those recordings royalty free. The authors would get nothing, which most of us will agree is bad.
However, in this case, the Kindle will generally be "performing" only for the person who has already purchased a copy of the book. In other words, the author still gets compensated. Where the Kindle's TTS output is used to "perform" to lots of people, there are laws in place to deal with that, already. So basically, there's no case here even if we agree that the Kindle creates a "performance."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There is an Americans with Disabilities Act that gives various rights and exists to promote speech-enabled applications. Machines/tools to 'read' text, via software, aloud have existed for years. Attempting to limit such software would be an attempt to discriminate against blind or sight-challenged individuals. IANAL, but it might require such a disabled person to file a complaint -- but that seems excessively anal...
It may be a bit hard to grasp why the authors are concerned about Amazon's actions, but it's not at all like opposing MP3 players because they play sounds.
But simply being a bit concerned because the easy copying of digital music may have an impact upon your ability to sell copies of your music?
I'm pretty sure that's easy to understand.
Similarly, some authors are concerned that Amazon's Kindle TTS foreshadows an impact upon the audiobook industry, and given that we do respect the rights of creators of intellectual property at least for a period of time, it's worth listening to their concerns.
So the question is: Which do you like more? The people that write the books or the people that sell you the books?
It shouldn't matter who I like. Rather than:
When it's really the far more neutral "The Authors Guild vs. Amazon.com".
...it's: "The Rights of the People vs. Those Who Want to Take Away those Rights".
I live overseas, and one of the odd jobs that comes to foreigners like me is reading English transcripts for promotional videos and such. It's actually not easy to sit there and read aloud for minutes at a time. Not saying the Author's Guild guy isn't off his rocker (he's just defending his industry, natural behavior) but it's a pain. It's also quite slow compared to reading silently.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I have heard Richard Stallman talk about the "Kindle Swindle", but this is really quite ridiculous. If I checked out a book from the library and then hired someone to read that book to me out loud then would I be infringing the copyright of the original author? If the reading took place in a public place then maybe, but what if the reading took place on private property and admission wasn't charged? For example, suppose that a book of poetry was read out loud by an actor hired for the purpose at a private party? Consider also that the TTS, as advertised by Amazon, shows the use of headphones so that the text is always read back privately to the owner of the Kindle and not over externally audible speakers or at least not through speakers built into the Kindle. IMHO, there is no infringement of copyright for using TTS to render text in audio and particularly so when the recitation is privately and quietely enjoyed. The Kindle may be a swindle, but with extra payments for audio playback it would be even worse.
...Right now it sounds like a computer, but in five years, TTS may advance enough to make audio books a thing of the past...
I seem to remember saying something similar in 1991 when first playing with MacOS 7's TTS. I think my super old mac still speaks more clearly than my kindle. At this rate, the author's guild has at least until 2027 to refine their rhetoric - I can't wait! pins and needles!
M
Roy Blunt Jr. is pretty funny whenever he's on "Wait, Wait, don't tell Me. . .".
Are we sure he's not joking? He does have a tendency to ramble.
I wonder whether the authors would complain just as loudly if amazon sold a device that could read paper books to you? Disregarding the technical difficulties (scanning, flipping pages) this would be very similar to what the kindle 2 does. Yes, as technology improves a very lucrative market (audiobooks) will disappear but there are no guarantees for any market. 20 years ago there was no (or only a very small) market for audiobooks and within 10 years it will probably disappear completely. That's life. Other opportunities will open up instead. Using intellectual property laws to stop innovation is not only amoral, its futile.
The problem with your (fairly accurate, although I have heard Kindle 2 TTS output and it's not awful) assessment is that it's subject to change. Who's to say that Kindle 3 or 4 won't have much better TTS, able to convey more natural speech and even emotion based on context? There's a lot of very clever research going on in this area already.
I can easily imagine a future where the device is much better at reading in a more human, natural form, and you can buy Kindle celebrity voices (much like you can for your Sat Nav) to read to you. Could be a nice earner for Morgan Freeman...
OP assumes that Kindle users are all female, implying that only a woman would be stupid enough to shell out for such an overpriced device.
So we're in the car, traveling to one place or another.
My honey's behind the wheel, and asks if I'll read from that latest trash detective novel I picked up at the used book store the other day.
To whom do I cut the royalty check?
If he knew what was good for him, Roy Blunt Jr. would STFU.
Doesn't he know that Amazon's TTS technology is covered by several patents? Hence his members' "audio books", being produced by the act of "converting a textual medium into a series of auditory stimuli designed to induce cognition" are a clear violation of said patents?
I think he should count himself lucky he's not Jeff Bezos' towel-boy already!
So the question is: Which do you like more? The people that write the books or the people that sell you the books?
Neither, I prefer decisions to be made with a tiny bit of common sense. The fact we are even having this debate is hilarious.
If the author's guild isn't interested in what the end-user does, then they have no business talking about this. Amazon is selling text. At no point are they selling audio files. They happen to sell a device that will render text into sound, but as with my mp3 example, it's just a case of taking a format designed to reproduce audio and doing just that.
If Microsoft sold the end-user a device to convert text into speech, would Amazon be forced to pay for audio book rights? If some company built a device that would scan a page, convert it to text, then convert the text to speech, would paper publishers be forced to pay for audio book rights?
It's madness. Amazon is only selling text. They aren't selling audio books. What the end-user does with that text, even with an Amazon provided device, is their problem, not Amazon's.
It's been a long time.
You're talking about two different things.
To me, this is more like a publisher demanding a rental store pay full box price for full distribution rights for every xbox game rental because an end-user might have a hacked xbox and could pirate the game.
Amazon is selling text, not audio. The fact that the end user can take a device, even one made by amazon, and turn it into audio is irrelevant. Under that theory, every paper publisher should have to pay for audio book rights because all it takes is a scanner and some patience to turn a paper book into an audio book.
It's been a long time.
My point is that copyright law allows features that aid the disabled as an exemption. He does not address how text-to-speech does not fall under this exemption. While authors might like to get royalties for this, that's besides the point. Also whether positioning this issue as Amazon vs Guild or Guild vs Blind people is also besides the point.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Adobe Acrobat Reader has the "Read Out Loud" feature built in, (find it under the "View" menu). My guess is that Writer's Guild going to put its sights on Adobe. What's next? Probably telling us that we cannot have any Text To Speech apps in our OS!
None of you are lawyers (as far as I could tell from the previous posts). Neither am I. What I do know about this is that the terms of Amazon selling these e-books are defined by very carefully drafted contracts (assuming that both sides had lawyers who like earning fees) and this issue will be decided on a legal interpretation of those contracts.
It's not a matter of philosophy. It's not a matter of technology. It's a legal matter.
This guy makes his living as humorist. He regularly appears on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, the NPR equivalent of the Daily Show. If you read the fine article, you will see that he is making a joke. Just read the first paragraph. Additional, he frequently dead pans his lines to greater comedic effect.
Nobody has brought up the "First Sale Doctrine" of copyright -- once they have sold something to you (and, incidently, paying the authors), they don't have the right to come back and try to control your subsequent use. Otherwise you would have to pay for reading to your kids, or reselling your books or cds at a yard sale. So, don't count on this one surviving any legal challenge.
They tried to make my local library pay for every book borrowed.
Far more interesting to me is that the ebooks are not text at all. They are a series of electrical impulses that can be represented as numbers. Those numbers can then be rendered into something understandable by humans in various ways.
One of those ways is a chip to analyze the numbers and convert them to a series of curves or pixels, and a display to paint them onto. Another way is a chip to analyze the sequences and turn them into a series of audio clips, and a speaker to send those clips out. Honestly, if they didn't want the books to be rendered in multiple ways, they shouldn't have distributed them using a method that *requires* rendering to use.
Can't think of any Author's Guild members who wrote a worthwhile word in their life, so I'm gonna have to go with the bookseller.
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Amazon is allowing publishers to "voluntarily" opt out of allowing their books to be TTS enabled. In other words, Amazon has caved and is allowing publishers to sell crippled versions of their books.
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Actually, rental stores usually pay more for their copies to have the right to rent them out. Least that's what my experience has been. I know I tried to buy a movie for my mother once, and she freaked out when she heard it was like 80 dollars. I explained to her that was for a rental copy, which she didn't need, and told her I'd look for a used version elsewhere.
And no, your statement of "but anybody could do it" doesn't pan out, since the publishers are able to realize that anybody going to that much trouble is lost to them anyway. However, Amazon doing it puts things in a different light.