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."
Re:To hell with them! (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?
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.
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.
Write to them and tell them to stop being stupid. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:To hell with them! (Score:2, Informative)
It's really no different than ripping a CD to a mp3 and then loading it on your MP3 player.
Which is unlawful in the UK. And you think the DMCA is bad?
What lawsuit? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Accessibility, anyone? (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.
Re:To hell with them! (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 cassette tape/CD/DVD audio book market out of business.
Current text-to-speech system already allow the user to choose the sex/age of the spoken voice. There are even some online systems that can translate small paragraphs into any number of different voices. [att.com]
Books for the Dyslexic (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Did you check with Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic [rfbd.org]? They do require documentation of a print disability for membership.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:3, Informative)
Have you actually read the portion of the DMCA which bans cracking? Because there is a relevant legal standard that the copyright owner would have to meet in order for it to be a violation.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00001201----000-.html [cornell.edu]
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:3, Informative)
Citation necessary. Copies necessary for use of a digital medium are given an explicit exemption from copyright protection. And there is a requirement that the copy be stored for longer than the period necessary to view it. Which means that you're definitely off the hook for RAM or even HDD buffers necessary for streamed video.
Citation provided:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/more-bad-law-wow-glider-case [eff.org]
Unfortunately, we often confuse what is technically correct, with what is legally correct.
Re:Not actually the closest example. (Score:3, Informative)
No, not quite. The argument wouldn't run simply that the seller is selling both an e-book and a device that can read text out loud. That is certainly allowed. The problematic case is the one where somebody sells a device that simultaneously comprises an e-book reader that can read books out loud, and e-books in a proprietary format intended to work only in that e-book reader.
If the e-books were in some standard, open format, and there was a competitive market for devices that could read e-books in that format, then this story could well be different, because the party that provided the e-books could easily be a different party than the one that provided the text-to-speech feature; and thus, the first party could quite easily disclaim responsibility for what the second party does, while the second party could claim that it is not bound by any agreements with the copyright holder, and that it just is providing a shortcut for something the users could already do (extract the text from the e-book and pass it through text-to-speech software). And even if the e-book seller and the device seller were the same party, the existence of such a market would help, because they could argue that their relationship to the publisher qua e-book seller and their relationship to the user qua device seller are severed by the existence of such a market.
The way things are with Kindle and its e-books, however, is that Amazon can't claim to be offering two clearly severable things. Their e-books don't work without their reader, so the publisher can try to argue that the work in question is the combination of the e-book file with the Kindle device, and not the e-book file itself. The question is whether this argument will succeed.
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.
Re:To hell with them! (Score:1, Informative)
I guess this isn't so widely known, but in the US, book copyright does not apply to the blind at all! My mother in law works for Bookshare, which scans in and digitizes all kinds of books, making them available to qualifying disabled people at no charge. Funded by US Dept. of Education. http://www.bookshare.org/