Amazon Caves On Kindle 2 Text-To-Speech 370
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."
Hackable (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (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.
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people cannot set that up. The point of DRM is not to be un-hackable, it is to be un-hackable by most people, and a system that requires the assembly of a robot is beyond what most Kindle users can set up. In fact, Kindle would be the most successful DRM system ever if it required a robotic finger to defeat, because that is a circumvention measure that cannot be distributed as a file over the Internet, the way systems like deCSS can be.
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
irrelevant. It takes *ONE* person to do it and distribute the file. You missed the "and OCR it".
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Which is not a DRM break, it is an exploit of the last mile problem. It also fails to grant TTS functionality to anyone who wants it; it really grants to anyone who wants it for the specific media that someone with the equipment to scan the book has decided to scan.
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It's not a complete DRM break, but it is significant -- especially considering that it means the only way to get the version you want is to download it.
This means that if Amazon ever successfully forces it to get to that stage, as some forms of DRM are at the moment (Blu-Ray), you're also forcing anyone who wants a bit more freedom -- or a feature you've disabled -- to pirate the media in order to get it, whether or not they were ever a legitimate customer.
And once they go pirate, they might not go back.
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But if you consider what the post is actually saying, this is not a cave on amazon's part.
They're actually holding their ground. This basically says that if a publisher or author
decides they don't want TTS on kindle, then they have to make that decision on a choice by
choice basis. While it does sting Amazon to a degree, it hurts the author in question more,
since Amazon is still earning a profit off the TTS support it has for all authors who do
want it. It sounds like the goal is to hope only a minority ac
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:4, Insightful)
No, this is Amazon's attempt to play nice with publishers because they need content for the Kindle to work.
Holding their ground would be doing the opposite.
They know that time is on their side. They are hoping that, like with iTMS, e-books will inevitably represent the largest slice of the book & magazine pie. At that point they will be able to do whatever they like.
Good text-to-speech could conceivably kill off the audio book market. But I don't think that you could say it's the same thing as a copyrighted reading of a book performance. It's more like reading a book to your child. So for Amazon to stand their ground they'd have to recognize this as reinterpreting the law to force a market for a product that people eventually aren't going to want or need. And then say, "nope".
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"That's not a DRM break, it exploits the fact that DRM can't work."
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:4, Insightful)
You are not thinking this through to the obvious conclusion.
Try it like this:
Simply put, if it takes $1000 to copy the first $10 book, and $0 for an infinite number of copies, the DRM is broken.
Welcome to the digital age, once you get the hang of it, it's pretty neat.
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like a lot of work. I'd rather just buy the amazon.com book, and then download the pure text file off bittorent as a "backup" that I can conveniently play in my laptop or Iphone or Kindle. Ya know, there are several organizations that read books to the blind, and release them as audio. Like this one: http://www.readingsfortheblind.org/ [readingsfortheblind.org] - I wonder why the Authors' Guild doesn't complain about them?
Perhaps amazon ought to re-package their marketing. Instead of calling it "text to speech", call the Kindle "handicap accessible" and "reads aloud to our blind patrons". Then it would make the Authors' Guild President look like a dick. "He wants to stop blind people from enjoying books? What an ___."
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:4, Informative)
Because by law, the blind must have access to TTS, and therefore the authors' guild cannot make money on it. In this case, they see a money making opportunity, and want to capitalize on it at the expense of consumers.
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I see a blind advocacy group smacking the hell out of Amazon for this. Comparing TTS to audiobooks is like comparing a high school rendition of hamlet to a big broadway production of it. You hire voice ACTORS for a reason, you dont just plop some schlub in a chair with a script and say 'speak!'
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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DRM (we called it "copy-protection" when I was a lad)
No, you didn't. You called *COPY PROTECTION* "copy-protection". You didn't call DRM anything because DRM didn't exist.
I think authors should have a right to protect their labor from theft.
And this is why you fail - DRM is not about "theft", it's about control.
As in "I made something, so I get to control what you do with it after I sell it to you, even if the law *EXPLICTLY* grants you the right to do something, I want to stop you from doing that."
Take your straw man somewhere else.
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not seeing any difference between "digital rights management" and the MicroProse C=64 disks I used to buy which used digital errors to block copying.
"Digital rights management" goes beyond just copying, though that is the primary driver. It includes not being able to use "region encoded" DVDs that you bought elsewhere. It means they don't want to let you skip over the copyright warning when you play your movie. It means they don't want to let you have a computer read a book that you just paid for. What does any of that have to do with "copy protection"?
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:4, Informative)
Try fair use. Quite legal. Quite contrary to DRM.
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DRM isn't illegal.
I know I might go to karma hell for saying that but people need to get over this.
People scream bloody murder about fair use and doctrine of first sale, I have some sad news for you. Fair use and doctrine of first sale only prevent companies from using *LEGAL MEANS* (i.e a law suit) against you if you try to exercise that right (and actually it doesn't prevent them from suing, but they shouldn't win). It doesn't mean they have to help you exercise that right or that they can't put in a t
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
>>> I'm not seeing any difference between "digital rights management" and the MicroProse C=64 disks I used to buy which used digital errors to block copying. It seems they both achieve the same goal: Stop copying and also block the user from uploading the Microprose game to a friend.
Well I am sorry, but I clearly see a difference.
"Copy Protection" did not prevent you from performing any of the following actions...
1. It did not prevent you from using your software on a portable unit. (SX-64)
2. It did not prevent you from using your software on a newer, upgraded model. (C=128) (Although this could be debated if the protection scheme turned out to be incompatible with the newer hardware. In those cases, the publisher, inevitably released patches or new versions that were compatible if the market conditions were acceptable.)
3. It did not prevent you from using your software on a replacement unit. (New C=64 machine purchased to replace broken C=64 machine)
4. It did not prevent you from taking your software over to a friends house and playing it with your friend. (If it was multi-player. At least you didn't have to cart your C=64 around with you to show off your new purchase.)
5. It did not prevent your from donating or re-selling that software to someone else after you no longer had a use for it. (Right of First Sale.)
6. It did not prevent you from using the software if you just happened to forget the password, forget the login account, or otherwise fail to validate the myriad other ways that are now used to ensure that the person attempting to use the software in indeed the original purchaser.
All of these issues are and have been generally applied to consumer purchases in the past. No one places DRM type restrictions on my purchase of an automobile, house, or TV set. Yet "Digital Rights Management" seeks to prevent the consumer from doing any one of the above.
In summary, "Copy Protection" prevented you from making unauthorized "copies" of the software. "DRM" is designed to prevent you from making unauthorized "uses" of that same software. However, letting a corporation who's ultimate motive is monetary profit (Nothing wrong with that) decide what is a legal and authorized "use" (Everything wrong with that) goes against the entire grain and intent of Copyright laws. Copyright laws were enacted to create a fair and balanced benefit between the author AND the public welfare! If we allow corporations to restrict how knowledge can be used (and that IS what intellectual property is, knowledge.) then we restrict everyone's, including our own, future development and welfare.
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent summary. People try hard to obfuscate the difference.
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5. It did not prevent your from donating or re-selling that software to someone else after you no longer had a use for it. (Right of First Sale.)
Doctrine of first sale is a protection against legal retaliation. It does not force the companies to design there product in such a way to help you exercise this right nor does it prevent them from putting in a technical or mechanical means of preventing you from exercising it.
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> No one places DRM type restrictions on my purchase of an automobile, house, or TV set.
Bad example. They do indeed put DRM type restrictions on buying a house in many places. They are called Homeowners Associations and Restrictive Covenants in some deeds. Until the courts and legislatures rewrote them (a dangerous flirtation with ex post facto lawmaking itself, probably the best of many bad options here) some properties had permanent restrictions saying you couldn't sell the property to [fill in oppr
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Really good post, except for one thing:
In summary, "Copy Protection" prevented you from making unauthorized "copies" of the software.
No, "Copy Protection" make it a pain in the ass to make copies - both 100% legal copies and infringing copies.
DRM lets you make all the copies you like - both 100% legal copies and infringing copies - but makes it pain in the ass to use them. And DRM putts you in prison if you give someone instructions on how to do it.
Copy protection is about making infringement difficult.
DRM
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I am not aware of a law that DISALLOWS it.
Do you require a law telling you that it's ok to take a piss? No. You have laws saying where and how you can't. Such as no pissing in the middle of a public resturant.
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Informative)
I am not aware of any law that allows copying a game. Not even for backups. Please provide a citation.
Copyright law:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#117 [copyright.gov]
 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs53
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. â" Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
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I'm not seeing any difference between "digital rights management" and the MicroProse C=64 disks I used to buy which used digital errors to block copying.
Heh. And we all know how well _that_ worked to keep people from copying the games. Ever call up a C64 BBS in the 1980s? Today all these old titles are preserved and still playable on emulators because of the people who cracked the games 20 years ago.
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So you're for DRM, until it's no longer convienent. It's a broken system from the start and will only ever keep "the honest people honest" and inconvienenced. I agree product developers deserve control over the distributio work, but that control ends once the work is in my hands. At that point I can do what I like to it in my own personal space.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Your analogy doesn't quite work because:
1. What about libraries?
2. Where are people guaranteed their labor will bring them money
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Sigh... Not this shit again [encycloped...matica.com]...
How would you like to spend a year creating a document, and then your boss decides to take the document without paying you?
I wouldn't. Just how do you think DRM would protect you from this?
In fact, why would you need it? Just sue your boss for the past year of wages. Not that it was very smart of you to work for free for a year...
Oh, but I forgot -- this is a bad analogy for something completely different.
In essence that's what happens to authors every time someone takes a book. It's stolen labor.
Ah, yes, because every time I take a book, I'm really forcing you to work for a year without getting paid. It's totally the same thing.
In fact, maybe this is even true if I don't actually take it
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I stopped reading you when you started redefining concepts.
Here in slashdot some of us are somewhat literate.
Copyright is not property, it's a distribution monopoly usually backed by a government.
Your view on the "essence" of copyright infringement is very far from mine, and from what I remember as usual from the pre-digital age.
I think the main problem is that copyright is such a difficult concept to grasp, that using analogies is always misleading (lying, I mean).
When intellectual works are released to the public, the same laws than assign copyright to the publisher, also give the ownership to the public domain.
So, you could not steal from the author something he does not own. Of course you can't steal a book from the public domain, because once you copy it, the public domain doesn't cease to have it, either, but that's another thing.
When you hear the words "stealing" or "theft", dealing with copyrights, usually it means someone is lying to you. You might be able to steal a copyright, but that would involve registering other people's work as yours, and you would be stealing the distribution monopoly, not the actual content. You can't steal intellectual works themselves.
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I don't think DRM (we called it "copy-protection" when I was a lad) should be stopped because I think authors should have a right to protect their labor from theft.
I completely agree and if DRM did only that there would be no issue. However DRM goes well beyond that. It stops be transferring a book from say a Kindle to an iTouch, it stops me from making a backup, it gives control of my device to a publisher etc.
These are important capabilities when dealing with digital media because while a physical book may last for decades digital devices last for 5 years at most. Books are hard to destroy by accident, whereas memory can easily be wiped or rendered inaccessible
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the AG made a point that they 'allow' the blind to do this for free, but don't want everyone to have that option (was in the original article a few days back). seems to me (iANAL) that if you open it up to one group, you have to let everyone.
but again, iANAL
Motivating Piracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a lot of work. I'd rather just buy the amazon.com book, and then download the pure text file off bittorent as a "backup" that I can conveniently play in my laptop or Iphone or Kindle.
Of course since you now HAVE to do this in order to have the Kindle TTS work it makes me wonder how many people will simple skip the amazon.com step. It seems to me that this is the usual result of DRM: customer is prevented from doing something reasonable, customer gets really irritated with the company, customer finds out they can stick it to the company by downloading from P2P, customer stops being a customer.
Re:DRM for text is a really ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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????
Sounds like a lot more work than just buying a paper copy, gillotineing the spine off and shoving it in a sheet fed scanner.
Being moderately effective against the casual copiers is about the best a DRM scheme can home for. The geeks and the serious pirates will always find a way to get an unprotected copy.
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Yes, but unlike gun control, DRM doesn't leave the disarmed honest to the mercy of of the still armed dishonest.
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DRM is like gun control laws. They keep honest people honest, and that's it.
An honest person is an honest person, and gun control laws inconvenience him only. The dishonest person won't even notice when guns have been banned, since he probably didn't get his through a "legitimate" source anyway (gun control laws are DRM for firearms, that's all they are, and they work about as well.) The same holds true for the average Joe grabbing songs via P2P.
It's the honest guy that gets burned when the shit hits the fan. That's true whether it's the cops knocking on his door collecting that
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You're right at the current price point. When the publishers and Amazon are raking in $10-20 for an ebook with no physical substance, sometimes 50-100% more than the cost of a paperback, it certainly does seem worth breaking.
Only by loosening the bounds that hold 'em and substantially dropping the price will they ever be able to effectively compete with the printed word, piracy, and free content without completely stripping out the DRM. Tightening up the DRM and raising the price (by forcing duplicate purch
Not Hackable (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I would demand lower prices for TTS-disabled books. I should not be paying the same amount that I would for a non-disabled book, and I cert
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Any idea what package is being used for the text to speech? If it's any good it might be a nice addition to my desktop.
As most text to speech is pretty poor I doubt it is much better than an aid to blind kindle users.
Actually perhaps the best computerised voice would be anthony hopkins doing his hannibal lector voice. or maybe nelson mandela. wonder how long it would take to produce a large lexicon of words with minimal computerised substitution
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Doesn't matter. Any blind user who wants to hear a book will still be a criminal.
Frankly, I'm shocked at this. Organisations representing blind people have already written open letters to point out the discrimination involved here (although it should have been obvious), and amazon are nonetheless caving to pressure from big corporations who want to undermine citizens' rights under copyright law.
So Amazon wins anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
Which title would you buy, one that has the text 2 speech or one that doesn't? Seems like this is a value add, and any publisher would be loosing out by asking Amazon to withhold kindle.
So, Amazon in a sense wins, because I'm willing to bet most titles will end up with text 2 speech anyways.
Then again, some people buy operating systems when there are perfectly good operating systems available for free. So what do I know?
Re:So Amazon wins anyway (Score:4, Funny)
So what do I know?
Not enough to spell "losing" correctly, apparently.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Picking on people's typos is a cheap shot.
Re:So Amazon wins anyway (Score:4, Informative)
Not pointing it out and letting them go through life with the misguided impression that nobody cares that they sound like a fucking idiot is even worse. It's the same level of social apathy as letting someone walk around with a kick me sign taped to their back.
Only douchebags think that's acceptable.
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>>>Only douchebags [sic] think that's acceptable.
It's a TYPO. Instead of "losing" he typed "loosing". That's just a finger stumble, not stupidity. Correcting someone because they mis-spelled a word is one thing, because it helps to educate them, but nitpicking an obvious finger stumble/typo is a cheap shot. It's the online equivalent of laughing at someone when they trip and fall on their face. It makes YOU the douche bag.
Or grumpy old man ("Do you find yourself saying 'get off my lawn'? I
Re: (Score:2)
You would be surprised how many people think it is "loosing" instead of "losing". It's very common, and what's more, you can read it in written letters, notes, signs, etc all the time. In my experience, it is far more likely that he typed "loosing" because he thought it was correct than because he had ring-finger jitter - it's one thing if you type worsd liek thsi if you're having freaky fingers - then it's pretty obvious. Otherwise, due to non-trivial numbers of people unable to tell the difference betw
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Which title would you buy, one that has the text 2 speech or one that doesn't? Seems like this is a value add, and any publisher would be loosing out by asking Amazon to withhold kindle.
So, Amazon in a sense wins, because I'm willing to bet most titles will end up with text 2 speech anyways.
I agree - I think it will give authors and publishers an opportunity to experiment to determine if T2S has any value to consumers.
For example, if the tech allows it, you could offer two tier pricing - with T2S costing a little more. Tinker with pricing and see what happens to sales.
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I think it will give authors and publishers an opportunity to experiment to determine if T2S has any value to consumers.
Bah. I think it's just an easy way out for Amazon to avoid a potential court battle with the crazed Authors Guild. It's hard for me to believe Amazon wouldn't win, but it's also not really worth it. You'll notice that the publishers weren't making a big stink about this.
For example, if the tech allows it, you could offer two tier pricing - with T2S costing a little more.
The voice appare
No close substitutes (Score:2)
Which title would you buy, one that has the text 2 speech or one that doesn't?
Novels tend not to have close substitutes. Say both Anne Rice and Stephenie Meyer decide to turn off text-to-speech. Would someone who depends on text-to-speech (but doesn't qualify for a section 121 device) have to switch from vampire stories to something else? Or how would you work around having text-to-speech turned off in the textbooks that your instructor has assigned?
Then again, some people buy operating systems when there are perfectly good operating systems available for free.
Because operating systems aren't perfect substitutes either. There are plenty of apps and devices that run on Windows, but they neither
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I buy books because of the content, not the technological features.
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It's possible that Amazon may have waved an offer in front of the Author's Guild that will allow both a Kindle e-book file and an Audible spoken word file download at the same time.
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I'll only buy TTS books. I own a Kindle2 and have more than 20 texts (philosophy works for my degree and debate coaching) on there already. I've spent more than $500 in the past week on my Kindle investment.
As someone who also commutes, I find the TTS to be invaluable already. We'll see if that continues to last, but as I'm reading for educational purposes, not entertainment, I have a utilitarian informational need. I don't need an actor reading Baudrillard's "The Illusion of the End" (the words are powerfu
DRM wins again! (Score:2, Insightful)
So you can't "buy" the title, can't sell it or loan it out, can't give it away, and now they can control precisely how you consume it. Is it any wonder why devices like this are doomed to fail when it comes to the mass market. People aren't complete stupid.
Re:DRM wins again! (Score:5, Insightful)
And Then they are again so intelligent that some pay premium to strip the DRM from their old iTunes tracks instead of downloading these from another source.
Yeah, people are not completely stupid...
Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)
Why am I cheering about what seems to be a complete breakdown of what geeks want?
Simple - for most books, the "rightsholder" is the AUTHOR, not the publisher. (This is the opposite situation from the music industry.)
So authors will need to contact Amazon to disable this, and I'm betting that generally they won't bother. If the book publishers tell Amazon to do it, Amazon can just point out that the copyright is not in their control.
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If that's true, why was the book form of the RIAA (Authors Guild) doing the suing? And if the Guild can presume to speak for authors in court, can't they do the same when they demand amazon block the text-to-speech feature? I'm not really seeing that the Guild will act any differently than the RIAA has acted.
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The Authors Guild did not actually sue anyone, they just raised a media stink.
I'm not exactly a raving fan of the Authors Guild for this, but I'm happy they didn't sue any grandmas who don't even own the device in question in order to make their point.
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You don't understand how publishing works. I'm an author with several books under his belt.
I hold the copyright in all my books, yes. But I grant the publishing company an exclusive license to publish them. Effectively, I sign the book over to them, and they decide what to do with it.
In nearly all cases, publishing companies dictate the terms, and request absolute and universal publishing rights. I'm sure a handful of big-name authors flip this around, but most of us have to dance to the publisher's beat.
So
Serious impacts... (Score:5, Interesting)
Although seriously questionable legally, if the authors guild was able to prove that Text-To-Speech of copyright books was copyright infringement then that would be absolutely huge.
Tons of disabled people already depend on text-to-speech and with an ever older populace this is only going to become even more important to everyone.
Plus, where does the copyright end? If someone makes a book reference in public will they get their butt sued? Or will we have to get a public display licence to have a conversation now?
Ultimately Amazon shouldn't concede on this. In fact I want this to be legally tested and put to rest asap.
17 USC 121 (Score:5, Informative)
Tons of disabled people already depend on text-to-speech and with an ever older populace this is only going to become even more important to everyone.
People with disabilities can use specialized devices, which are made available only by prescription to people with a qualifying disability, that play copies of works produced under an exception to the U.S. copyright statute (17 USC 121 [copyright.gov]). Kindle 2, being available to all, does not meet this requirement.
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That exemption doesn't extend to text-to-speech. It is in reference Tactile Paper, Books, and other materials.
Note the sentence - "specialized format exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities."
As text-to-speech is in no way specialised it isn't inclusive. Also you don't need a prescription to get hold of a tactile interface.
Re:17 USC 121 (Score:4, Informative)
Note the sentence - "specialized format exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities."
Here's a photo of the specialized format I'm talking about [loc.gov].
Also you don't need a prescription to get hold of a tactile interface.
But you do need proof of disability from a "competent authority" [loc.gov] to get hold of a Digital Talking Book Player.
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Although seriously questionable legally...
Are you a lawyer?
Tons of disabled people already depend on text-to-speech and with an ever older populace this is only going to become even more important to everyone.
Guess not.
Disabled folks get a legal pass around the Copyright law specifically for this.
Plus, where does the copyright end? If someone makes a book reference in public will they get their butt sued? Or will we have to get a public display licence to have a conversation now?
What?!? What are you talkin
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Goes to far (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Goes to far (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon/Kindle should stick to their guns and let the end user decide to turn on the TTS engine or not.
Then the authors who complained to the Guild would stick to their guns and withdraw some works from Kindle entirely. Would you want such an outcome?
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Then the authors who complained to the Guild would stick to their guns and withdraw some works from Kindle entirely. Would you want such an outcome?
Yes.
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Then the authors who complained to the Guild would stick to their guns and withdraw some works from Kindle entirely. Would you want such an outcome?
Yes, I would.
Did I miss the memo? DRM is OK now? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Did I miss the memo? DRM is OK now? (Score:4, Funny)
I hear ya! Those iPods. I really wish they could play something other then iTunes DRM files. Every other MP3 player plays, well, MP3s, and we all know you can't put DRM on those! Or even if I could take a cd I own and put it into the iPod format so I could listen to it on the iPod and not have to buy it again from them. Mean ol' Steve making me buy the White album again. If only I'd have known that I'd have to buy everything I wanted to listen to from iTunes.
Maybe someday someone will figure out how to get other files onto a Kindle so you don't have to buy everything from Amazon...
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For me it's to expensive and I want the books for free to be interested.
But one can always whine on DRM even if one don't care for the device =P
Why DRM is wrong (Score:2)
This is a perfect example of why DRM is wrong in all respects. Hey, I agree, authors need a revenue stream, but damn it, people who pay money for a work shouldn't have to keep paying to use it.
Copyright is a balance between the rights of an author and the good of society. We have lost "the society" as a stake holder in the discussion.
If you produce a medium that prevents the "fair use" of the content, then I believe you should not have the force of copyright to protect you.
A true shame (Score:2)
Subvocalization FTW (Score:3, Funny)
Publishers won't be makin' a penny offa me for this "added value" anyway... I have to subvocalize when I read, so I wouldn't want to hear anyone but the voices already inside my head. Ooops, gotta go, one of them wants something....
Big blow for future AI development! (Score:2)
As with everything in capitalistic scientific advancement, and foremost in the military, development works best if there is a future practical application in sight. So far NLP (NOT [god beware] Neurolinguistic Programming, but Natural Language Processing) and AI research didn't make big strides because they are just fiddling around with no real idea what to use this for. But with the Kindle 2, we have the first actual application which would benefit from n
Clever play (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how many of the authors will now 'opt out' of the text-to-speech feature. I'm guessing: none.
Amazon showed this threat for what it was: extortion.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"I wonder how the authors -- who are supposed to be served by the Authors Guild -- feel about it."
John Scalzi
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/02/11/hello/ [scalzi.com]
Cory Doctorow
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/25/authors-guild-vs-rea.html [boingboing.net]
Neil Gaiman
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/02/quick-argument-summary.html [neilgaiman.com]
Wil Wheaton
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/02/wil-wheaton-vs-text-2-speech.html [typepad.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how many of the authors will now 'opt out' of the text-to-speech feature. I'm guessing: none.
"None" might be a bit optimistic, but I'll bet it won't be very many. One big difference between the music and book industries is that authors aren't under the thumbs of publishers the way musicians are with the record labels. Authors nearly always retain copyright ownership, for one thing.
One thing that the industries have in common is that authors and musicians both WANT people to read/listen to their works. They also need to be paid for it, at a bare minimum enough that they don't have to get anothe
Wil Wheaton vs. text 2 speech (Score:3, Interesting)
Wil Wheaton has evaluated the Author Guild's claim and found it stupid. [typepad.com] Other wise authors [neilgaiman.com] concur.
The Authors Guild acts more like you'd expect from a Book Publishers Guild, though I'm sure a large number of authors are on their side on this.
Good solution (Score:3, Insightful)
This really makes the choices obvious for authors, as well as for the dim-witted authors guild:
Either you:
a) Think you can profitably produce and market an audio book version of your work, or
b) Realize the audio book market for your work is too small to be profitable, and you'd be better off taking advantage of Kindle's no-cost-to-you TTS enhanced sales of your e-Book, or
c) Both of the above. The truth being that TTS is decades away from sounding anything like an emotive prosodic human reading, and that the market overlap between true human read audio books and robotic sounding TTS is miniscule.
***
As far as how TTS will improve, I can only see two long-term possibilities that will allow it to approach human quality:
1) It'll be based on a human-level AI where it can interpret the text as well as a human. It'll happen, but not for a long time.
2) An expert system approach, based partly on language/speech expertise, and partly on limited semantic analysis (e.g. based on something like Cyc) where plain text can be analyzed and marked up with prosody/voicing/emotional, etc, annotation to be interpreted by a suitable enhanced TTS engine. This doesn't need to be done in real-time - e-Books and other content could be offline processed into this enhanced form. This option wouldn't result in as nuanced a performance as a human one (because it'd be based on minimal understanding of the text), but it could be a major step up from the minimal prosodic/etc rules built into TTS engines today, and the current lack of emotional/voicing control. We're still talking years if not decades of research and development though.
"Digital Hole" Is Our Right (Score:2)
I legally acquire some content, I have the right to do whatever I want with it for my personal consumption. I can use it to scare away crows, even if some "license" doesn't grant that "privilege".
Now, my rights do not force a manufacturer (or SW developer) to add features like a digital jack or an API, if the provider doesn't want to. But the copyright owner of the content does not have the right to stop that provider, if the provider wants to. And indeed the provider does not have the right to do additiona
Americans wih Disabillities Act? (Score:2)
It really makes me wonder if Amazon could fight this via something like the Americans with Disabilities Act. After all, should publishers get an extra kick-back just because a third party helps someone else to read a book they've already paid for?
Keep in mind that there are very distinct differences between text-to-speeching an actual book versus listening to an audio book. For example, can you specify an audio book to only play back a particular sentence from a particular paragraph on a particular page? Al
Americans with Disabilities Act? (Score:2, Interesting)
You know, I am not a lawyer, but I wonder how the Americans with Disabilities Act could affect this in the end? Essentially, Amazon.com was offering a reasonable accommodation permitting any blind person to read any of the e-books that they sell. As I understand it, businesses are required to provide reasonable accommodations for disabled customers. At this point, the publishers are basically making an unreasonable insistence on reducing accessibility. I think it unlikely that they will be able to successfu
I can see how it makes sense from the Guild's view (Score:2)
I imagine the boardroom discussion went something along the line of, "Hey, Vinnie! Dees m*th3rf@&!3r& at Amazon is selling da same as our audio books at book prices 'n cutting into our pie. Send the sharks on 'em!" All about "added value" one would think.
Amazon? I imagine they figure the blind have a national association that can make a big stink about this without Amazon wasting their own lawyer time.
Much ado about nothing (Score:2)
This whole thing is silly.
When a computer program can compete with a talented human reader in converting text to audio, authors and publishers won't care about that problem at all.
On that day, a computer program will be able to WRITE the book, as well as perform it.
American with Disabilities Act (Score:2)
I can see this kind of actions running foul of the ADA. How are blind people going to have access to this technology?
Also in the works are actions against capchas not conforming to the ADA. Example, Microsoft has an audio capcha that people with hearing difficulties
can't solve. I know because I am far from deaf and was trying to download a hotfix. They have an audio capcha which I have difficulty solving. To make matters worse, they failed to offer alternatives. Of course this also applies to people
Re:Time will tell (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Time will tell (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Time will tell (Score:4, Funny)
>>>many people want Stephen King to sound like Steven Hawking ?
I've never heard King read any of his books, but I have heard Toni Morrison. In that case, the robotic voice would be an improvement. Toni reads her books as if she's taking downers. That's a flaw lots of authors have; they may be great writers but their speech leaves a lot to be desired. Give me Hawking instead.
Re:Seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be that sort of thing without any special version thereof.
The big deal here was that it was cutting out another revenue stream (which was more per unit than the books were...) and cutting out the pay to the person doing the book reading. Unfortunately, not all books are converted to audio. Most are not, actually.
Now, if Kindle can do audio books, it's sort of fine- but it's going to be an overpriced media player that one could accomplish this limited result with a smaller, cheaper device. The thing that made the Kindle even more special is that you didn't NEED someone to read out a book into audio format, it was going to open up a larger space up for the blind. That is now up in the air that there will be any such thing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
These screen readers can be activated and used by anyone, not just the blind. So is this technology illegal? Should the users of such be required to prove they are disabled before it can be activated on their computers?
While the voices on the Kindle 2 were not that great there are very high quality voices wh
Asked and answered. (Score:4, Informative)
And will there be an override for people with disabilities?
No, because they use something other than Kindle [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:2)
The rest of the Kindle interface is entirely visual, so I doubt any blind people will be using it in the first place. Text-to-speech isn't much use if you can't navigate to the option to turn it on, or select a book for it to read.
Re:NOT author & publisher's choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon should not have caved to this ridiculous request. The final choice is with consumers, who should refuse to buy any book that they can't run through text-to-speech or any other device that enables them to use their purchase.
While I agree that Amazon should have told these guys to go fuck themselves, what they have actually done is a brilliant "carrot and stick" maneuver that will ultimately get them what they want:
1. Amazon gives in to the Guild's demand (the carrot), and will conveniently label those books on their site which prohibit TTS.
2. People who think the Authors Guild is a bunch of dicks can boycott the clearly-marked titles and purchase others.
3. Sales of TTS-prohibited books plummet (the stick).
4. Authors Guild realizes that their greed has actually cost them money, and reverses their decision.
~Philly
Re:Fembot DRM (Score:3, Funny)
Wait till Amazon offers the Kindle Android Fembot. And then the lawyers put restrictions on it.
Then maybe people like you will come to understand why these issues matter. Or, maybe I should rephrase that...