Author's Guild Says Kindle's Text-To-Speech Software Illegal 683
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."
To hell with them! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, despite this being a rediculous idea, what is the Authors' Guild actually trying to do here?
I mean, if anybody is really pushing to create more copyright holder rights, it's Amazon and the Kindle. Let's review...
-The right to not let my friends borrow my book when I'm finished reading it? Check.
-The right to not resell my book on the used books market when I'm done? Check.
-The right to having access to my books revoked on a whim if my provider goes out of business, or *gasp* decides it's not a profitable market (MSN Music, I'm looking at you)? Check.
With all these rights landgrabs that Amazon is making with their digital books on Amazon (and heck, digital media in general), I'd assumed they were colluding with the Author's Guild. I mean, if nobody can share your books, and nobody can help spread the buzz surrounding your great ideas or fiction... that means you'll make more sales... right?
To hell with all of them. I'll read quietly, or out loud when ever I please. And just for being assholes, I'm going to pirate the next book published by a guild author. And I'm going to listen to Microsoft Sam read it to me. And I'm going to pretend to like it.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the purpose of the "read out loud" right? Because reading out loud would be an interpretation and infringe on the art? What about a monotone voice, like text to speech?
What happens, however when the tech gets so good that it can read with emotion.. better yet, mimick the voice of any person we choose? Do the rules then change?
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously it does! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Interesting)
LOL! Reading aloud breaks encryption? I love life right now.
Wait. It gets better.
Since that means that a person uses their brain to "decrypt" the content, then a human brain could be considered an illegal circumvention device. Would proof of illiteracy be enough to get charges dropped? Will they simply put up prison walls around the entire country?
Oh, wait...they're already doing that. Walls in data and communications. Walls in ideas and music. Walls in personal rights and equal protection under the law. Walls between your right to property you own and governments' right to take it away and give it to someone with more money.
[sarcasm]
But, what the hey? As long as there's cable TV who's going to make that much fuss about all that stuff those nerds and geeks go on about.
[/sarcasm]
Between the dumbing-down of the population along with the desensitization to political corruption that have both been happening for many decades, I'm afraid the majority of people don't know, don't care, and don't want to know or care.
On top of all that, they're too busy trying to cope and help their families cope with living and paying bills when they have less and less coming in, jobs getting scarce, prices going up, and government taking an ever-larger bite from their wages.
Strat
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Shhhhh: nobody tell them about text-to-braille [google.ca].
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Insightful)
Never mind the people with a low level of literacy who could benefit from a speaking machine that highlights words to help correlate the sound with the written image. Or those people learning a foreign language with a different writing system than their own native language. The capitalist pig dogs must make a buck any which way they can.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the strongest reason for casting the authors guild into the darkest depth of hell. There is a tremendous problem getting books in audio format for blind people. The Kindle breaks that barrier. The authors guild are not just greedy they also want to discriminate against blind people. They are well on their way to achieving the status of bank executives.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't space-shift a DRM laiden product, because that requires breaking the encryption, which is against the DMCA.
Maybe, maybe not. That portion of the DMCA is, shall we say of questionable legality and enforceability, much like the EULA (IANAL BTW, not legal advice, ask a lawyer, yada yada yada). We're rather quickly approaching the point at which a serious legal challenge is going to come up against some of the more brain dead provisions of things like the DMCA and I really don't know which way things are going to fall. I rather hope fair use and the rights of the consumer triumph (not to mention common sense), but I
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that the creator of the DRM puts in this feature and it operates within the limitations of the DRM. The encryption is never broken because it's an approved use.
The problems with DRM come in when you think up a way to use your media that they didn't think up first.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
The closest example I can think of is buying a Harry Potter book and reading it to your kids.
As one of my old bosses used to say so frequently, "Fuck you, sue me."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Which is great advice unless your boss is Dog [tvsquad.com] the Bounty [foxnews.com] Hunter. [nwsource.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The closest example I can think of is buying a Harry Potter book and reading it to your kids.
I wonder if they'd sue you for torture as well.
Re:Not actually the closest example. (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes no sense, and has nothing to do with the matter at hand. This has nothing to do with "public performances," and is actually about "derivative works." Two TOTALLY different things. Did you even read the article? Because it's quite clear that the argument is about audio derivatives, not public performances, and your claim doesn't even really make much sense if you consider the legal definition of "public performance."
To clarify and educate; the Author's Guild is claiming that the Kindle's text-to-speech feature effectively is creating audio "derivative works," whenever it's employed, and copyright law reserves the right to audio derivatives for the author. This has nothing to do with public performances, and I don't know where you got that idea.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no issue. If I have a contract which allows me to sell frozen burritos, but not ready-to-eat burritos, selling frozen burritos along with a microwave (which turns them into ready-to-eat burritos) doesn't violate the contract.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Funny)
That is the best analogy using kitchen appliances and Mexican frozen food that I've heard so far this week.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure anyone would want exclusive rights to the derivative work I make based on a burrito.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty valid point, but the real problem with the analogy was it consisted of a frozen burrito and a microwave, and not some bizarrely-cobbled together analogy involving the automotive realm.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Insightful)
Be that as it may, I'd like to put the problem at the point where someone decided to sell separate text and audio contracts in an age where speech synthesis is common place. In other words, the contract is wrong to begin with.
Why the Guild's Position is in Our Best Interests (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently, a mid-level author has several payment streams potentially -- one from the books themselves and one from audio recordings. The Kindle threatens to eliminate one of those payment streams. Will the world really be better off if writers get paid less than they already are?
I think the Guild is doing exactly what any membership organization should do -- advocate for its members.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Informative)
You are missing the point that Amazon is selling the works as both text and audio when they have a contract to only sell text. That Amazon is touting the Kindles ability to translate text to audio as a reason to buy the Kindle demonstrates that Amazon thinks they are selling you something in addition to text.
But they aren't selling the works as audio. At no point do you receive an audio copy from Amazon. What you receive is a text copy which is what they have the contract to sell. It's the end consumer, the one with the kindle who is converting that text version into a audio version (on the fly I believe, so no fixed form, and therefore not covered by copyright law) not Amazon. Amazon is not responsible for what the consumer does with the product after it's sold, and unless you can figure out some way to argue that text-to-speech software is illegal or that its primary purpose is copyright violation (putting it in violation of the DMCA) there's nothing illegal about the kindle. Amazon is selling two products (for the purposes of this discussion), the first is a ebook reader that has build in text-to-speech support, and the second is ebooks. Amazon has contracts to sell the ebooks, and therefore can do so legally. The kindle so far as I know, is also perfectly legal (and if it isn't, there's probably a whole bunch more hardware and/or software that's also illegal). Furthermore, the user has the right to space shift the ebook they purchase (at least in the US, apparently in the UK they don't) so that's fine to. So, unless Amazon is actually allowing users to download mp3s or wavs or whatever of the ebooks they purchase I don't see anyway in which you could argue they're violating copyright.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Interesting)
In the digital age, copyright is all about contracts.
When Amazon sells you a hardcopy book, they don't need any permission to copy the book because they don't create the copy. When they sell you a Kindle book, they create the copy themselves, so they need a contract that grants them that right.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL, but I'd imagine the purpose of the read out loud right is to protect playwrights from having people perform their plays without permission or compensation. In that context, it makes sense. In the context of a text to speech computer intended for personal use, it makes no sense.
Sure, if someone starts hooking their Kindle up to a PA system and staging public performances of an electronic reading of someone's book, I could see an issue. However, the device itself having the ability to read text back is not in itself any kind of violation. Computers have had text to speech in some form for decades, and I'm sure they've been used to "speak" copyrighted works plenty of times in the past.
The Author's Guild is cutting off its nose to spite its face here.
I have a suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
Basic suggestion: get 50 people. Go to the "Author's Guild" offices, stage a sit-in, and everyone start reading some book aloud.
To make it REALLY funny, make it a freely-available Creative Commons book. Maybe Free Culture [free-culture.org] by Lessig.
Re:I have a suggestion (Score:5, Interesting)
Or more appropriately, Dracula. Out of copyright and freely available as an e-book.
Just play the Free audio book [librivox.org].
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Realistically, I think they are worried about audio book sales. I know lots of commuters that churn through a lot of audio books. The read-aloud feature of the Kindle might make a dent in those sales.
I don't think they are on very good legal ground - we shall see.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Interesting)
So should someone sue the guild, for not being accessible for the blind? Most blind books are not released for ages after the original. The read out loud feature could be seen as an accessibility tool, like the screen reader in XP.
My kids will be *pissed* (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, I couldn't see that they should change at all.
Millions of kids read their kids bed time stories, many elderly people like to have stories read to them, why should a machine doing it suddenly require a whole new licensing regime? Or if this is already illegal then there's already something severely messed up with the laws surrounding written works.
They should be happy, it means blind people can also now buy books and get some use out of them.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Funny)
Millions of kids read their kids bed time stories
I, for one, welcome our new underage parent overlords.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But Amazon isn't distributing the book as audio. They're distributing text. The Kindle, in the user's hands, is turning that text into audio, without any distribution happening.
Amazon just happens to be selling the Kindle, but also sells the text, so it's possible to get confused about what Amazon is doing (the user buys text and experiences audio, so one can mistakenly believe that someone distributed audio to them). If someone else sold Kindles instead of Amazon, then the same situation (user buys text
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not even distributing it as text. They are distributing it as a modulated electronic signal which the kindle stores, interprets and displays as text.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Three reasons spring to mind:
* Discrimination against blind users
* Disregard for fair use in copyright law
* Dinosaur-like worldviews
* Dinosaur-like brains
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What is the purpose of the "read out loud" right?
For disabled people with partial or no sight. For someone who is partially sighted and paralyzed, putting on a set of headphones might not be an option. Hardware manufacturers are encouraged (if not required) to make their systems usable for disabled people. A "kindle" might be the perfect system for a blind person - lightweight, easy to carry about, easy to use controls and the ability to convert text-to-speech. Of course, all of this might just put the cas
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone with Dyslexia and cannot easily follow a straight line with my eyes. Reading books for any long period of time is very exhausting to me. Using text to speech even the old ones, is very helpful to let me get the information from the book.
I am fine reading reference or quick lookup for information but for books it very stressful. Having something like the kindle that speaks the text would be a good feature for people like me. And it is not a performance it is a handycap device. That allows information to go into my minds eye. A performance is skipping the minds eye step and giving the persons perception, of the information in the way they want it to be perceived.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Funny)
By that logic, all performances by Keanu Reeves are not derivitive works.
Woah.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The goal of artificial speech has always been to create a lifelike, authentic performance of human speech, not the more reproduction of a sequence of synthetic phonemes.
You accidentally the more reproduction? The whole thing?
Steven Hawking edition (Score:4, Insightful)
No I paid extra to have Stephen Hawking read the book.
I think the point here is that what current text to voice converters are ghastly, this will not always be the case. In the future you will be able to have Marylin Monroe or John F. Kennedy read your book outloud and it will sound exactly right.
They are selling the book in a DRM form precisely so they can split the reading rights from the voice rights. Ideally they can make more profit that way. You are free to buy it in both forms. You might not like that but if there is competition in the market one can presume an efficient market can deliver each at a lower cost as a result of the extra profit to be made. So in theory it could benefit the consumer. And indeed the DRM versions are cheaper than than the print version in many cases.
You might object to that because it seems like you lost some traditional right of ownership. But until people invented text -to voice converters you never missed this did you? it's only when this became possible that you noticed that they did not want you to do it. so it's not a traditional right. Moreover, if you read the book out loud yourself then sold the recornding you would have been sued.
SO they do have a point.
The place where it goes off the rails is if you use this to listen to the book with no intention of reselling the voice conversion. What's wrong with that? DOn't you "own" it.
I think the answer is that, it's not you that committed the infringement, it's Amazon for making it possible. Afterall amazon sells both forms written and audio. Now they are selling both for the price of the DRM written version. You can see why the booksellers are mad.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I forbid such usage- and deny you the ablity to read this comment out loud to your friends either.
As a Microsoft Preffered Partner, I understand this situation. How much will it cost me for the rights to read things out. Also, how far should I bend over?
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Interesting)
Make more money for the Authors' Guild. This has absolutely nothing to do with authors, writers, publishers, editors, or anyone who reads books. This is solely the money-grabbing greed of Paul Aiken and his cronies. If I were an employee of the guild I would be so ashamed of Aiken's comments I'd resign. This man, despite his apparent position representing authors, is actually against people enjoying books.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Informative)
The RIAA wants you to enjoy their music by yourself, but not let others share the enjoyment.
The MPAA wants you to watch their movies, but pay per viewing and only where it lets you.
The Authors Guild wants you to read their books, but only to yourself, and if you enjoy them, tell your friends to buy them, but don't tell them why.
The Lord of War wants you to shoot bullets at people for as long as you can buy them. You don't even have to hit anything. Just keep buying.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Funny)
The Author's Guild has me over a barrel. 2-4 books a day (2 at nap time if I'm home and another couple before bed). Man, I never realized that reading Dr Seuss to my 3-year-old would be such a nightmare in terms of derivative rights and royalties.
Even though I've been doing this daily for years, does it help me at all that he's yet to give me any kind of financial compensation for it?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's going to be tough to gauge... If reading to my child makes me smile and they claim 10% royalties, does that mean I have to smirk at them? If reading to my child helps him fall asleep, does that mean I owe them a couple of scrapings off of an Ambien? If I read a scary story and he has a nightmare, do I need to jump out of the author's closet and shout, "Boo!"?
They really need to put together a cost-schedule for this stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Make more money for the Authors' Guild. This has absolutely nothing to do with authors, writers, publishers, editors, or anyone who reads books. This is solely the money-grabbing greed of Paul Aiken and his cronies.
You clearly have no understanding of what the Authors' Guild is. It's merely an organization to represent it's member authors. The AG makes no more or less money however many books are sold or in any format. Members pay their flat dues and that's it.
The AG clearly feels they are representing what their members want. That may or may not be correct, but it has nothing to do with the organization's finances or any cronyism.
Not what it looks like (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sitting here thinking that no lawyer could possibly be dumb enough to advise their client with this legal theory. Even if we accept this concept at face value (which it does have some value related to public performances and derivitive works), fair use throws a huge monkey wrench into any potential lawsuits. Courts have repeatedly held up that once you are sold a copy of a product, you are entititled to privately do whatever you want with it. That includes space and time shifting. Text to speech is just another type of space shifting. i.e. Moving from one medium to another.
Then I realized that there's no way Mr. Aiken is serious about these threats. He's posturing in an attempt to force Amazon to rethink the text-to-speech in light of their audio book business. This becomes especially clear based on the response from an Amazon spokesperson:
So never fear! The world isn't quite upside down yet. This is just business as usual. Someone's trying to play a weak hand and hopes the other side folds. (Good luck with that.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Seeing as they haven't done a damn thing about any other text reader, I think they can safely go fuck themselves. Amazon is not making audio recordings of books, the user is invoking a program to convert text to speech and pointing it at a text they bought from Amazon.
Now if Amazon was selling the audio recording of the Kindle reading the book, then they would have a case.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Do you hear the sound of the words echo through your head as you read words, like me? Well, as the copyright owner of this comment, I forbid such usage- and deny you the ablity to read this comment out loud to your friends either.
So no more bed time stories?
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Funny)
So no more bed time stories?
Just apply for a bed time story license from the authors guild. Make sure that you educate your children about copyright law though -- the license is only valid for you and if they repeat the story to their friends at school we'll have to haul them into court.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You will need to read to them a copyright notice before starting each book, just like you get on DVD's. Hopefully they won't fall asleep, or start crying in fear, before you finish the 10 minute spiel.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slashdot Bedtime Stories, Volume 1 (Score:4, Funny)
"Once upon a time in a mythical land called Soviet Russia, Natalie Portman had a big bowl of hot grits..."
Fixed that for you.
Re:Slashdot Bedtime Stories, Volume 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
That's all wrong. In Soviet Russia, a big bowl of hot grits had Natalie Portman.
wtf... (Score:3, Funny)
That's the worst car analogy in the history of slashdot!
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Informative)
If I am not mistaken copyright law in most countries holds exceptions for disabled people, they can use "translated" versions without paying extra.
Translated versions would for example be text to speech, but also the still ubiquitos braille.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:5, Interesting)
You have no idea.
When looking for schoolbooks for the severely dyslexic little brother of a friend we tried looking for audio books. Turned out there was an organisation which used to deal with that here. Notice "was".
For schoolbooks which had no audio book available from the publisher they'd got teachers who volunteered to record audio books for blind students.
Guess what the publishers thought of that.
Now they aren't allowed hand out recordings to blind students and the publishers aren't interested in making or distributing any since the market is so small.
As far as rights holders are concerned the disabled can go fuck themselves.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Insightful)
"To hell with all of them. I'll read quietly, or out loud when ever I please. And just for being assholes, I'm going to pirate the next book published by a guild author. And I'm going to listen to Microsoft Sam read it to me. And I'm going to pretend to like it."
It might hit them harder if you gave your attention instead to people who respected you more.
drew
--
http://zotz.kompoz.com/ [kompoz.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The major problem with this suit is that Amazon isn't producing audio books of other people's works and selling them as derivative works. It's letting people access the content they paid for in a different way.
This lawsuit deserves to fail and the author's guild should pay the legal fees of amazon and the court as well for this idiocy.
What lawsuit? (Score:4, Informative)
Write to them and tell them to stop being stupid. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Write to them and tell them to stop being stupi (Score:4, Funny)
Spend the $.41 or whateverit'satthesedays for a stamp and scribble down a short note telling them to get Aiken to STFU.
Add a disclaimer at the bottom indicating that Aiken must read the letter himself (it can't be read by his secretary to him) and that he must not move his lips while doing so. Anything else would require that he pays audio royalties to the author of the letter. He can't have it both ways.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Funny)
No, and I don't move my lips while reading either. I read substantially faster than I can talk. But not faster than a woman can talk.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe authors get higher royalties for audio books, and they are worried that authors will lose some of the potential higher earnings.
I see some RIAA/AG tinfoil hattery coming after that comment.
No more bed time stories for my daughter? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No more bed time stories for my daughter? (Score:5, Funny)
"Come inside," said the bird to mouse. "I'll show you what's inside Paul Aiken's house."
A Rolex, a Ferrari, a Ming dynasty spittoon. A lawyer, not an author, but a certified Loon.
Hogwash (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes I read a portion of a book out loud - to myself - in order to slow down my thought processes. It is akin, I think, to taking notes when being lectured. The act of reading out loud alters both the rate and the quality of my understanding of the text.
Which, according to Paul Aiken, means I'm a criminal.
Speaking as the owner of one of the oldest SF-specialized literary agencies in the country, and as someone who is quite interested in protecting author's rights for all the obvious reasons, I think Aiken has fallen off the cognitive cliff, and that he does no one - not authors, not consumers, not publishers - any favors by pushing this over-the-top interpretation of what an "audio performance" is.
Wow, kicking blind people. A new low (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow, kicking blind people. A new low (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was in high school, the director of our AV department waged a protracted battle with me over my making enlarged copies of sheet music in the orchestra. Never mind that this was a matter of vision accessability. Never mind that the school had allocated me a legitimately-purchased original, just as they did for each other student. Never mind that academic fair use would have been squarely in play even if the above hadn't been true, and certainly never mind that the law specifically forbade the reasoning behind his theory as to why fair use shouldn't apply.
I probably should've sued the district, but that's not how I roll.
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)".
Absolutely Ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
All this revolves around are audio books sales. Forget the fact that right now synthesized text to speech is painful to listen vs a human voice, this is just another case of technology slowly making one industry obsolete.
They might as well sue teachers or those libraries that offer children's programs by reading a book out loud.
They say nothing makes more problems than solutions, and I feel the concept of intellectual property taking this to extreme.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Forget the fact that right now synthesized text to speech is painful to listen vs a human voice
Coming up next, "Moby Dick" as read by GlaDOS.
Voice Web Browsers (Score:5, Insightful)
Accessibility, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's a battle we've already lost. Go to:
http://www.fictionwise.com/ [fictionwise.com]
and check any of the books by major publishers. If you scroll down a little, you see: "printing disabled. read aloud disabled." DRM is already used to do this. And bypassing the DRM is against the law. I suspect the Authors want Amazon to put DRM that will allow publishers to turn off the TTS feature.
Other derivative works. (Score:5, Funny)
Also, there will be a small royalty charge for moving your lips as you read. This has two benefits. There will be fewer people moving their lips as they read. And there will be fewer people reading.
-Loyal
It may once have been but is not now (Score:4, Insightful)
Before the days of IT technology producing sound from text required a performance.
Now sound from text is a programmed translation. No more different or complex than the rendering of the book PDF information on the screen.
Welcome to the information age. Data is data and rendering translations are done all over the place, ascii to display bits. HTML to display. GIF, JPEG to images, MPEG to sound, MPEG to video. ascii, pdf or html to sound is no more difficult or complex. Just a little newer.
sales of written and audio versions (Score:3, Informative)
Do people buy both? I've always thought people bought one or the other. Long haul truckers and blind people buy audio versions, and others buy the written versions. I don't think Kindle will change that.
I can see people taking advantage of this, like someone listening instead of reading while cleaning the house or something, but that person would probably never think to buy an audio version of the book. I can't see there being enough lost sales to care.
"controlling legal authority" for that opinion? (Score:3, Interesting)
In the immortal words of Al Gore: Do they have a "controlling legal authority" for that interpretation of copyright law, or is this just a legal posture, that is not supported by law or precedent?
dave
News just in... (Score:5, Funny)
Rumor has it that if they are successful, the Authors Guild will next file suit against God for providing a source of light outside in daytime.
Ah yes, the authors guild (Score:5, Funny)
Same authors guild who want a royalty on all used book sales?
Guys, do the world a favor, go play in traffic.
Epic battle incoming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ladies and gentlemen! A full-contact legal battle for the ages!
In this corner, we have the Author's Guild, with the full weight of American copyright law behind them.
And in this corner, we've got the National Federation for the Blind, swinging a big stick: the Americans with Disabilities Act!
Gentlemen ... FIGHT!
I may or may not speak for the majority (Score:3)
and that sentiment is:
FUCK OFF, YOU GREEDY STUPID ASSHOLES!
have a nice day.
RS
How do they respond to the ADA... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
If it is a public performance... (Score:3, Insightful)
If the copyright claim is based on a public performance, then the person who must be sued in the lawsuit is the performer, because they are the ones infringing on the copyright. In this case, the performer is the kindle itself.
If the kindle is the performer, as an entity without legal status, then the responsible party would be the owner of the entity, in this case, the customer. NOT Amazon.
Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
Neil Gaiman (Score:4, Informative)
Neil Gaiman has expressed his opinion of this issue in his blog. [neilgaiman.com]
My point of view: When you buy a book, you're also buying the right to read it aloud, have it read to you by anyone, read it to your children on long car trips, record yourself reading it and send that to your girlfriend etc. This is the same kind of thing, only without the ability to do the voices properly, and no-one's going to confuse it with an audiobook. And that any authors' societies or publishers who are thinking of spending money on fighting a fundamentally pointless legal case would be much better off taking that money and advertising and promoting what audio books are and what's good about them with it.
Right to read? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
And that's how copyright law works.
No, that's how copyright law is twisted, taken out of context, and used as a club to bully people with. My goodness, if I put a colored filter over a book and read it in a different light, I am now producing a derivative work. If I take a book and rip a page out, this is now a derivative work. If I write something in the margin, I have produced a derivative work. And heaven forbid I lend my book to a friend, learn from it and try to use my skills or (
Why teachers are not criminals in the USA (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot comments are not legal advice. Run them past your attorney if you have questions.
By their reasoning, all of my elementary school teachers are criminals.
Not exactly. The performance of a work as part of face-to-face teaching takes advantage of several limitations of copyright's scope, both implicit in fair use (17 USC 107 [bitlaw.com]) and explicit (17 USC 110(1) [bitlaw.com]). Besides, 17 USC 110(4) would appear to make this whole article not apply.
17 USC 110(4) (Score:3)
Reading something out loud is pretty much the definition of performance, and if done for an unspecified number greater than 1, is public in aggregate (multiple single readings)
True, it's performance. But from the definition of "publicly" in 17 USC 101 [bitlaw.com], I don't see how individual private performances of a single copy constitute performances done "publicly" when repeated in front of separate audiences. Otherwise, owning a tape deck would infringe copyright law because I can play a tape multiple times to different people. Can you cite other statutes or case law supporting your interpretation?
if not immediate fact (multiple person audience).
Don't plug the headphone jack into a public address system, and it's not public. Even some p
Re:Fact vs. Flame (Score:4, Insightful)
A performance is *not* a copy. Under 17 U.S.C. 101, a copy is a *material object*. It also has to be "fixed," which (again S. 101) means the copy has to exist for "more than a transitory duration."
No derivative work is created here, either because the creation of a work means fixing it in a copy or phonorecord, neither of which is happening here.
Tepples already addressed your public performance point, so I won't reiterate that.