Thread: eBook protest on CNN frontpage
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Old 04-09-2009, 04:48 AM   #15
Fledchen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catsittingstill View Post
@Jeffrey--

Thanks for putting up the Author's Guild's press release. Until I read this, and spoke to an author about audio rights last weekend, I didn't really understand what was at stake with the TTS thing.

For an author it can make the difference between being able to put chicken and broccoli on the table, versus living on ramen. Now I understand better why some of them feel so strongly about this. The audio book rights are worth serious money to them.

I think the idea in the press release that TTS should be available for the blind, and that print-disabled people should be able to get Kindles that override TTS restrictions is a good one. If you made those Kindles without e-Ink screens (what good does the screen do a blind person anyway?) and got the TTS to work with the menus and put braille on the keys, you could pretty much guarantee that their use would be restricted to print-disabled people, and they wouldn't be used by sighted people to sneak around the TTS restrictions.

I mean, I like having my book read itself to me while I'm driving, but I wouldn't want it to *only* be read-aloud; I'd rather read for myself when I can, as it's so much quicker.
It might be even better if they teamed up with Springer Design or Humanware, which already manufacture TTS ebook readers specifically designed with blind people in mind. Humanware's VR Stream already works with several different formats and DRM schemes, including Audible. If they can put Kindle books on the iPhone/iTouch, why not another device? It's not that ebooks aren't already available to blind people, but rather that many people would like to be able to purchase brand-new bestsellers rather than have to wait years until NLS or a charitable organization makes them available in accessible formats.

Also keep in mind that less than 10% of legally blind people can read braille. It's better to have a simple keyboard with an easily-memorized control system and audible menus than to try to label every button with a specific function.
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