Quote:
Originally Posted by Madam Broshkina
I have noticed that many of the Microsoft LIT books I have purchased have the text to speech option disabled.
I wonder if Amazon has negotiated seperate rights for this feature. If not Mr. Aiken may have a point.
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A couple of points:
I'm a member of the Authors Guild, and I was a little horrified to hear him make this claim--because to my mind, having a Kindle or computer read a file aloud is no different in copyright terms from my reading a book aloud to my family.
And yet, I understand why he made the statement. Authors do indeed license audio rights to their books separately from other rights. They might or might not go to the text publisher for subsidiary sale. But to me, that's a different thing, because there you're talking about a professionally produced audio reading of the work--presumably by a professional reader who will give the reading inflection and expression. Now, it may well be that some people who like audio books will forego buying audiobooks if their Kindle will read text aloud in a computer voice. (Given that Amazon owns Audible, I imagine there were some in-house discussions about this.) So I don't agree with Mr. Aiken, but it is an arguable point.
Re the Microsoft LIT files with read-aloud disabled, I've been frustrated by that in terms of my own books at fictionwise, because I think people should have that option when they buy my ebooks. Just today, I put the question to the production head at ereads: With the Kindle offering read-aloud, does that mean we can get rid of the prohibition on my ereads titles? He answered that it is fictionwise that requires the disabling of read-aloud, and ereads can't do anything unless fictionwise changes their policy. I wonder, in view of this statement from the Authors Guild, if the reason for the fictionwise policy isn't that they don't want publishers after them about unlicensed audio rights.
Finally, someone mentioned Amazon owning the DRM on the books they sell. That is incorrect. (I also got clarification about that today.) The DRM is on the supplied files from the publisher, and it's there because Mobipocket.com requires it. What I am told is that Amazon draws most of their inventory from Mobipocket.com, which they own. So Amazon doesn't apply the DRM, and they might not
directly require it, but it is required by the gatekeeper, Mobipocket. I can't swear this applies to all publishers, but that's what ereads is facing, and that's why ereads titles on Amazon have DRM.