My eyes are bad–so much so that when I go into the optometrist's office and hand him my glasses at the beginning of the examination, he takes one look at the lenses and says, "Myyyyyy! You *are* nearsighted, *aren't* you!"
I'm also dyslexic.
And did I mention that my family gets cataracts really early?
So I like using audiobooks as much as possible. I'm a subscriber to Audible, and I've blogged before about making my own audiobooks with TextAloud and AT&T Natural Voices, but most books aren't available via Audible, and scanning a book so I can use TextAloud on it is a really time-consuming process.
I was very interested when Amazon announced the first version of its Kindle e-book reader, but it didn't have text-to-speech, so I didn't buy one.
The new Kindle 2, though, does have text-to-speech (even if the voice isn't that great). I almost ordered one, which would allow me to hear numerous books that aren't available in audiobook form.
Unfortunately, Amazon quickly announced–after pressure from publishers and authors–that they were giving publishers and authors the ability to turn off the Kind's text-to-speech function for particular books.
The theory was that this might violate copyrights (wrong!–for a whole host of reasons) and that it might cut into audiobook sales.
I don't buy that because the Kindle voice is pathetic compared to a professionally done audiobook, which you can get for almost the same price as a Kindle book from Audible. Given the choice of listening to an annoying voice reading a book and spending a couple of dollars more for a professional reading, I'd take the latter any day.
And–guess what–you can download Audible audiobooks right onto your Kindle.
So I think Amazon is being shortsighted, and so do a bunch of my fellow shortsighted people. In fact many blind, dyslexic, and other reading-impaired folks have been protesting about this and starting petitions.
I hope they succeed in getting Amazon to change its policy, but in the meantime I've still got a question: How useful would a Kindle 2 be to me with its publisher-controlled text-to-speech function?
If Amazon is going to allow this feature to be disabled then what they should do–but haven't so far as I can tell–is list on a book's page whether or not the text-to-speech feature is enabled. I'd be mighty honked off if I paid ten bucks for a Kindle book download and then discovered I couldn't listen to it.
As a fallback to being able to predict in an individual book's case whether it's listenable, it would at least help to have an idea of how many publishers are turning off the text-to-speech function. It would be one thing if only 5% of them do, but it'd be another thing entirely if 95% of them do.
So I'm hoping there are some Kindle 2 people–or others in the know–who can give me a sense of how widespread the "No speech for you!" problem is on the Kindle.
Any help?
I can’t help, but I am with you and want one! And they shouldn’t do that. That is wrong.
This is outrageous and I hope authors show some compassion. Not quite as outrageous is the price of books. Why doesn’t Amazon do what Apple iTunes — make books available for a modest, uniform price?
Incidentally, has anyone tried to download scribd documents or google books to Kindke?
-J. Prot.
I really like the new sans serif font used in this entry. But then, I too am myopic.
All the books I’ve purchased (about 20) work in text-to-speech mode on my K2. I don’t use it a lot, but I have turned it on in the car and continued to “read” when I’m on the way home. I hope Amazon keeps enabling this feature with the products they offer. It’s not an audio book. It’s a semi-robotic sounding aid, not a well presented human reading. I have enjoyed some good audio books and the text-to-speech mode is certainly not to that level. It does, however, make it possible to listen to something that is written when reading it is not an option at the moment.
The theory was that this might violate copyrights (wrong!–for a whole host of reasons)
This does violate copyrights. Indeed, given that the authors may have already sold exclusive audio rights, Amazon may put them in breach of contract.
I hope authors show some compassion
How about how you showing some respect for the authors? By not violating their contracts for them?
“How about how you showing some respect for the authors? By not violating their contracts for them?”
(Grammar police alert) That could have been one sentence, Mary. :-7
Secondly, I didn’t see where Jimmy said “I think we should violate the licensing rights of the authors”. I also didn’t catch that disrespectful tone.
Text-to-speech isn’t, technically, any kind of audiobook. It’s just outputting text electronically through speakers instead of through pixels on your screen. Reasonable people don’t see any difference whatsoever — except that the version through your speakers is of a scandalously lower quality than what you get on screen.
Since all text is only an image or notation of morphemes of sound, one could argue that text-to-speech is actually the basic version — whereas visual text is an extra technological capability that authors should negotiate extra money for.
Mary, and I mean this respectfully, you don’t understand copyright law very well. It is a protection for both the author and the viewer/purchaser. For the author it primarily a protection against reproduction of the work. For the viewer/purchaser it is a protection for them to use it as they wish for personal reasons (sometimes said as “not for profit”).
As an example, when my wife and I went on our honeymoon, we spent part of our time reading and I read her outloud one of my favorite books. By your logic, if the author had a sold the exclusive audiobook rights to that book, I would have been breaking the law. Heck, ever time I read Cat in the Hat to my kids at night I would be violating the copyright.
When you get/purchase a book, CD, DVD, software or any other copyrighted work, you are allowed to archive it, view it, translate it, convert it or do any number of things (I’ll ignore for the moment the encryption issue which separate laws from copyright change the legal status of some activities) with it as long as it is for personal use.
So, in the case of an eBook, when Amazon gives it to you, as long as they give it to you in the format for which they had the rights to sell it to you (i.e. electronic text), whatever the buyer does with it on their personal electronic device (i.e. computer or Kindle) as long as it is for personal use (and doesn’t violate encryption laws), is well within copyright law.
It’s the same reason ripping CD’s to MP3 files for personal use (like to put on one’s iPod) is legal despite the protestation of the music industry.
Mary wrote:
And responding to Jeb (in italics), she wrote:
Jeb can speak for himself, but as an author myself, I appreciate the importance of contracts and royalties and all that.
I normally agree with Mary, but this is not a violation of copyright law.
One reason is that there is no *copy* that is produced. You don’t produce an “audio copy” when you read a text out loud with your own throat, and you don’t make an “audio copy” when a text is read electronically, either. You only make an audio copy if you *save* an audio reading, e.g., by encoding it into mp3 format or another format that can be stored and used in the future.
This issue is clear enough in the law that Amazon’s lawyers apparently didn’t have a problem with including text-to-speech functionality in the device in the first place. If there were a substantive issue here they would have balked and the functionality wouldn’t be there.
Amazon believes, rightly, that this is not a violation of copyright because no audio copy–or audiobook–is being produced.
My understanding (based on speculation) is that the technology to turn off text to speech is yet to be put in, and we’ll get to know only down the line how many books get Text To Speech turned off.
don’t know for sure – however, i think the screen might be somewhat readable for you – you can take a look at some videos of kindle 2 at http://ireaderreview.com/kindle-2-video-kindle-3-video/ to see what the screen looks like.
this is not a violation of copyright law. One reason is that there is no *copy* that is produced. You don’t produce an “audio copy” when you read a text out loud with your own throat
Copyright isn’t just about whether a “copy” (reproduction) is produced. It also covers public performances (including those by means of “your own throat”), public displays and public distribution of existing copies. For example, the exclusive performance right allows the copyright holder to control the public performance of certain copyrighted works. These include musical works, literary works, dramatic works, choreographic works, pantomimes, motion pictures, and audio visual works. A performance is considered “public” when the work is “performed [by means of any device or process] in a place open to the public or at a place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances are gathered”. A performance is also considered “public” if it’s transmitted to multiple locations, such as through radio or television. So if you wanted to publicly perform a copyrighted song “with your own throat,” the rule is you’d generally need to obtain permission from the copyright owner or his representative. However, there are a few limited exceptions, such as for music played or sung as part of a worship service (unless that service were transmitted beyond where it takes place) and for performances as part of a face-to-face teaching activity at a non-profit educational institution.
Prescinding from commenting on whether Kindle’s text-to-speech might somehow constitute a copyright violation, I’ll just say Amazon is legally entitled to let the copyright holders individually make the decision whether to allow text-to-speech. It’s a business decision for Amazon (and for authors) as much as or moreso than it’s a legal decision.
Mary, and I mean this respectfully, you don’t understand copyright law very well.
With all due respect, you don’t understand copyright law very well.
If there were a device that scanned a written page and read it out loud, would it violate anyone’s copyright?
If I read a book I buy to a blind friend, am I violating anyone’s copyright?
There is a new book out called Against Intellectual Monopoly (available for free on the web) which makes a good case against patents and copyright. In any even, the law is certainly going overboard here.
Mary,
If authors have contracts with amazon or their publishers that prohibits this then that’s one thing. Do you know for a fact that they do?
–J. Prot.
In 2004, Google announced that it had entered into agreements with several libraries to digitize books, including books protected by U.S. copyright law, in those libraries’ collections. Several authors and publishers brought this lawsuit against Google, claiming that its digitization without permission infringed their copyrights. In response to the authors’ and publishers’ claims of copyright infringement, Google argued that its digitization of the books and display of snippets, or a few lines, of the books is permitted under the U.S. copyright law’s doctrine of “fair use.” Instead of resolving the legal dispute over whether Google’s digitization and display of the books is permissible under U.S. law as a “fair use,” the parties negotiated a settlement.
On June 11, 2009, a federal court will hold a fairness hearing to review the proposed settlement of lawsuits brought by U.S. authors and publishers against Google for its unauthorized scanning and use of in-copyright books as part of the Google Library Project.
For more info, go here:
http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/
Mary, it’s respectful when disagreeing with someone to elaborate on why you are disagreeing with them.
Care to elaborate on what about my comment is errant?
Jimmy,
Wil Wheaton did a good roundup of his own and several other author’s reactions to the Kindle text to speech copyright debate. I especially liked Neil Gaiman’s take.
It’s the same reason ripping CD’s to MP3 files for personal use (like to put on one’s iPod) is legal despite the protestation of the music industry.
If the copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own and the copy is just for your personal use, the RIAA says it’s not protesting that. From the RIAA’s website:
It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) – but, again, not for commercial purposes.
Beyond that, there’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as: The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own [and] [t]he copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
[…]Are there occasionally exceptions to these rules? Sure. […] This site is intended to educate consumers about the issues associated with the downloading, uploading and consumer copying of music. It is not intended to offer legal advice or be a comprehensive guide to copyright law and the commercial uses of music.
Angel of Death, I’m glad to see the RIAA has softened their stance to the degree that they’re publishing info on their website to that effect. For years although they’d admit it when forced to, they effectively ran a FUD campaign trying keep consumers confused as to whether that was legal.
In fact, you can see some of the finger-prints of that FUD campaign in the quote you provided:
“onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them)”
What are special audio CD-R’s? How do I know what those look like? I have to use them? Royalties must paid for me to make a personal copy? Or was that just for digital tapes?
All of that is bogus FUD to confuse customers.
Nevertheless, the quoted statement is a lot more open and honest than what I’ve seen from them in the past.
Just ducking in here with a link to an Ars Technica review of some of the relevant issues. I have no comments, myself, other than that, while I appreciate that copyright laws exist and have to be followed, I don’t think they have been very well thought out in some instances and are somewhat arbitrary.
I was taking Lent off from reading/writing to blogs.
I enjoyed the silence, but I missed the company.
I hope you did not think my “goose” was cooked nor my feathers roasted.
The Chicken
Let’s try that link, again (it looked clickable in the preview, honest):
Here
The Chicken
Nice to see you back, Chicken.
All of that is bogus FUD to confuse customers.
When it comes to technology, it often doesn’t take much to confuse customers. And keeping royalties flowing in the face of technology can be a challenge as well.
May the Angel of Italics please close them.
Dyslexic? Really?
It seems to me that publishers that turned off the text-to-speech function would quickly become unpopular. So I don’t think many of them would. I have Andy Ihnatko’s book “iPod Fully Loaded” (ISBN 9780470049501). Appendix B is entitled Text to Speech. Appendix C is an overview of the book, available for free at http://www.wiley.com. He is quoted about the issues for publishers in an article by Vaneta Rogers at http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090409-e-reader-comics.html .
Dyslexic? Really?
Relaly!
For me, the Text-to-Speech feature is extremely helpful. I use my Kindle to subscribe to certain blogs and have their stories read to me while I shave every morning. It is quite liberating and a really important new step in the development of the printed word. Of course it is not perfect and sometimes the voice so mangles the text that you have to stop it and pick it up to read what was really meant.
But in terms of accessibility this development means that many people who have problems with eyesight can “read” books that were once not available. That is an important breakthrough and should be one of the main considerations when authors complain about copyright infringement.
I am a consumer of both audio books and ebooks and I consider each as having their own merits and drawbacks but I do not see this goofy electronic feature as a violation of copyright.
And when are they going to get Tolkein’s stuff on Kindle?
Sorry to post a comment that is non-thread related, but the proper thread has closed off comments. For anyone who has not heard (and cares), Sharona will make a guest appearance on Monk’s eighth (and last) season in an episode entitled, “Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants”. The script is, apparently, not based on the book of the same title by Lee Goldberg. I do not know when the air date will be.
The Chicken