The Authors Guild Responds to Amazon
On their web site, The Author’s Guild has responded to the protest over their law suite against Amazon for supporting text-to-speech on the Kindle device. They wrote, “Knowing how difficult the road ahead is for the already fragile economics of authorship, we are particularly troubled at how all this arose, with Amazon attempting to use authors’ audio rights to lengthen its lead in the fledgling e-book industry. We could not allow this rights grab to happen. Audio books are a billion dollar market, the rights for which are packaged separately from — and are far more valuable than — e-book rights.”
The Guild did have a thoughtful solution for their copyright concerns. The Authors Guild suggests, “The first step is to take advantage of a special exception to the Copyright Act known as the Chafee Amendment, which permits the blind and others with certified physical print disabilities access to special versions, including audio versions, of copyrighted books. Technology makes this step easy: certified users of existing Kindles could activate their devices online to enable access to voice-output versions of all e-books. This process could be ready to go within weeks.”
I don’t know about weeks. I don’t know how serious The Authors Guild is about finding a solution when they accuse Amazon of a “rights grab”. My company, DigitalChalk, values its partnership with Amazon and has found them to be very easy to work with and possessing the utmost of integrity. I have some questions for The Authors Guild:
- Does the robotic voice of the Kindle threaten The Authors Guild professional book readers? I would encourage the professional readers to show confidence in their skilled craft and not be afraid of the Kindle robotic voice. No one wanting an audio book would find the Kindle text-to-speech entertaining or enjoyable to listen to. Blind people find it necessary and are used to listening to less than optimal speech technologies. I don’t think sighty would use the feature. Whatever you do keep the Zane Grey westerns coming with your so very talented readers that will entertain generations to come.
- Should assistive technology not be allowed because of The Authors Guild rights? Should all assistive technologies be eliminated because of copyright laws? Amazon is not charging extra for the text-to-speech feature. They are trying to make the text accessible. I don’t see a rights grab.
- Has the Kindle copied the audio books in intent, quality or packaging? Again, I would hope The Authors Guild products would have a higher quality reading for entertainment purposes. If not, I would suggest that The Authors Guild find some new readers and not worry about copyright violations.
- What is the process for certifying vision impaired users to use the text-to-speech feature of the Kindle? Will the Kindle provide a retina scan, (I am being facecious), or force me to electronically sign a legal agreement everytime I listen to a book? Will I need a doctor’s note?
I would like to encourage The Authors Guild to think seriously about their litigation. Please don’t do anything that would take this Amazon Kindle feature from the visually impaired. I finally have a device that I can use to access text. Thank you Amazon for caring about the blind!