New Kindle Audio Feature Causes a Stir

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Nor does your continued dissemblance and launching of straw men in lieu of addressing the points that myself and other posit to you do you any credit.do you any credit.

I find Jeffrey's position quite credible, actually. And even though I may be sympathetic to your cause, your style of argument is not doing you any credit. Just my opinion, shared without any ill will.

[cjschmidt]

If the AG follows through with legal action, you bet this is cause for boycott. Consumers are losing nearly all of the rights they had in the paper to digital switch. We can't resell, trade, or even give away books to friends. At some point, we need to say "no more". The Kindle is one the verge of truly bringing ebooks into the mainstream, then there is no going back.

The only way to achieve the type of control they want is via massive DRM. Publishers should be very wary. There is a point where content becomes so restricted and difficult to use that it encourages more piracy than it prevents... look at the MPAA and RIAA.

This is about our rights, not Amazon selling audio books.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Lilly

I hope if they sue, Amazon wins because it could effect more then e-books. My GPS is text to speech, when I'm driving I would rather have the directions read to me instead of me reading it from the screen. Not every GPS have that capability, my old Tom Tom did not but I have a new Garmin bought during the Christmas holidays and it does.

Actually there is an additional license payment to Navteq for TTS on your GPS. This is not just a technical feature.

Dale

[Fledchen]

I'm surprised no one has brought up the Chafee Amendment, which is part of U.S. copyright law, and actually does apply to the accessibility of books.
I'm also surprised that this issue has never been brought up with previous ebook devices that had text-to-speech, such as the Road Runner, the BookPort, the BookCourier, the VictorReader Stream, etc. Although they were/are specifically designed for the blind and print-disabled, there are no restrictions that prevent non-disabled people from purchasing these devices.

[narbeauchamp]

Not sure if anyone saw this in Op-Ed Section of NYT : The Kindle Swindle ? [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/op...ount.html?_r=1 ] written by Roy Blount,president of the Author's Guild.

[Ervserver]

The Kindle Swindle....got a nice ring to it

[Liviu_5]

This ending quote from the NYT article above - nice find btw, begs the question why????:

"For the record: no, the Authors Guild does not expect royalties from anybody doing non-commercial performances of “Goodnight Moon.” If parents want to send their children off to bed with the voice of Kindle 2, however, it’s another matter."


Text to speech software is perfectly legal, what's the problem of adding it on the Kindle?

I truly would love Authors Guild to get Amazon to court for this, get smacked badly and learn their lesson once and for all; or even better snub Amazon on the theory that better unread and unknown, than gaaaasp people would dare to take advantage ...

Sometimes confronting reality takes hitting your head on the wall repeatedly until you cannot take it and decide the wall *is* there after all

[HarryT]

What a silly argument. Does anyone really equate TTS software with an "audio performance"? If that's the case, every Windows PC and Mac is in violation, since both have TTS built in as a standard feature.

[Moejoe]

I've been following this and it makes no sense whatsoever. What does he hope to achieve with all this hot-air and nonsense? Because I can bet you a penny to a shiny new dollar that he'll never win an argument with any sane thinking individual. And if he does win some kind of concession or force a crippling of the technology, you know someone will step in and make it all shiny again. This is a lose-lose on his part and it makes him, and by extension, the Author's Guild look as peevish and irrelevant as the likes of the RIAA/MPAA/IFPI et al.

[Ervserver]

If you read through the comments on Amazon many state they purchased the Kindle II for the text to speech feature, stating buying ebooks and using this feature is less expensive than buying audio books. Amazon markets the Kindle for this purpose as well. It will be interesting how this plays out

[HarryT]

I buy a lot of audio books. A good audiobook is a "performance" of the work in every sense of the word (I particularly recommend Barbara Rosenblatt's reading of Elizabeth Peters' "Amelia Peabody" series as a superb example of the "art" of audiobook reading). There is no way that a TTS system is even in the same ballpark.

As has been said, though, if the Kindle is "illegal" then so is every PC and Mac for the same reason - all can do TTS.

[Ervserver]

I think the Audiobook world see's the Kindle II as a possible threat to revenues as folks like Clarice are willing to sacrifice some quality to save a few $$

CLARICE BRACKETT says:
I had a Kindle 1 but since I bought it I have developed health problems that prevent me from holding a book for more than a few minutes. Since reading is one of the greatest joys of my life, I invested in the Kindle 2 solely because of the text to speech feature. I listened to the first book on it last night, Ur by Stephen King. The voice is not, of course, comparable to Audible books, but it is still good enough if you cannot read the text. It is a real blessing to me to be able to read any book I have downloaded on it. I do buy some Audible books, but not many since they cost more than the books at Amazon

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What a silly argument. Does anyone really equate TTS software with an "audio performance"? If that's the case, every Windows PC and Mac is in violation, since both have TTS built in as a standard feature.

It's like equating scrolling text with a movie

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by Jellby

It's like equating scrolling text with a movie

...Or even allowing font/size changes to text ....

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I buy a lot of audio books. A good audiobook is a "performance" of the work in every sense of the word (I particularly recommend Barbara Rosenblatt's reading of Elizabeth Peters' "Amelia Peabody" series as a superb example of the "art" of audiobook reading). There is no way that a TTS system is even in the same ballpark.

As has been said, though, if the Kindle is "illegal" then so is every PC and Mac for the same reason - all can do TTS.

A agree with the audiobook performance aspects and I buy Audible books for this reason. However, while TTS is available on PCs and Macs there are restrictions on its use as supplied by Microsoft and Apple. Some eBooks do not support this feature and it will not work on those eBooks as enforced by the Microsoft Reader and the Adobe Reader. TTS is also an extra cost feature on GPS devices that support it. I am not sure Amazon will win this if it goes to court but I do think TTS is not the same as audio performances so we'll have to wait and see what the courts say.

Personally I like this feature on the new Kindle. I noticed that no one seems to have noticed the new AAX feature. This is an audible eBook format that includes the ability to display maps and pictures while reading a book aloud. Personally I think this is also an important feature and a great step forward. The images are embedded in the format and appear automatically in the correct place.

Dale