Authors Guild Silent Over iBooks Text-To-Speech

Last year we discussed news that the Authors Guild took issue with the Kindle's text-to-speech function, claiming it was illegal for the device to read their books aloud. Amazon disagreed, but said they were willing to disable the feature upon request from rightsholders. Now, jamie notes a recent article by David Pogue at the NY Times in which he points out that Apple's free iBooks app does the same thing, yet the Authors Guild has remained silent. Quoting: "... Now swipe down the page with two fingers to make the iPhone start reading the book to you, out loud, with a synthesized voice. It even turns the pages automatically and keeps going until you tap with two fingers to stop it. Yes, this is exactly the feature that debuted in the Amazon Kindle and was then removed when publishers screamed bloody murder. But somehow, so far, Apple has gotten away with it, maybe because nobody's even realized this feature is in there." That said, the feature was certainly noticed during the launch of the iPad, so perhaps the Authors Guild has other reasons for holding their peace.

Comments

The Authors Guild has learned a lesson?

[Cheech Wizard]

Maybe the Authors Guild has learned a lesson in how not to be pricks.

Re:The Authors Guild has learned a lesson?

[R3d M3rcury]

Amazon did not negotiate audio rights for the book when they set up their contracts. They got into trouble because of it and disabled the feature until the could negotiate the audio rights. Apple saw this and, when they negotiated their contracts, made sure that they had the audio rights for all books in the iBook Store.

Apple, as the e-book follower, learned about this problem in advance from Amazon's leadership in the market and had the contracts set up to allow audio. There's no big conspiracy here.

Re:What's the problem

[PCM2]

I'm not sure that's the issue. An author is under no obligation to defend a copyright or risk losing it, the way he might be obliged to defend a trademark or risk losing it. He can sue for copyright infringement today, tomorrow, or 50 years from now (under the current regime).

I think the debate is more about whether a text-to-speech process actually produces a derivative work. Authors have argued in the past that it does. But one could also argue that a computer reproducing a work via text-to-speech is no different than reproducing it by displaying its text on a screen -- and therefore it does not violate copyright.

Authors, on the other hand, don't want to lose the ability to sell audiobook editions because devices exist that can read books aloud automatically. Audiobook sales account for a large amount of royalties.