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Amazon Caves On Kindle 2 Text-To-Speech

Posted by Soulskill on from the unexpectedly-generous dept.

On Wednesday we discussed news that the Authors Guild had objected to the text-to-speech function on Amazon's Kindle 2, claiming that it infringed on audio book copyright. Today, Amazon said that while the feature is legally sound, they would be willing to disable text-to-speech on a title-by-title basis at the rightsholder's request. "We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is."

4 of 370 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So Amazon wins anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    So what do I know?

    Not enough to spell "losing" correctly, apparently.

  2. DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea by Mathinker · · Score: 4, Funny

    Even if the encryption algorithm and hardware were "unhackable", how hard could it be to set up a robot finger to press "Next Page" + a digital camera to photograph each page + OCR if desired????

    Have a Kindle title which you want TTS (and it was forbidden)? Just convert it to regular text, as above, and poof, TTS.

    Unless Amazon is going to start checking the files you TTS/read on your Kindle for copyright violations, I suppose.

    1. Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      That is the dumbest fucking thing I have read all week.

  3. Re:Time will tell by peculium.infirmus · · Score: 4, Funny

    I need more coffee, I spelled Stephen Hawking wrong..... Dont worry, I have already taken the appropriate amount of points off my geek card.