Amazon gives in to the whiners over Kindle 2 text-to-speech
By Dave Parrack
After getting a little bit of criticism from the Authors Guild over one feature of its new Kindle 2, Amazon has backed down to avoid a row. Are book publishers about to make the same mistake as record labels in rejecting new technology in order to maintain their hold over the industry?
Amazon launched its new Kindle 2 e-book reader on Feb. 9 with the help of Stephen King. One of the most lauded new features was the text-to-speech functionality that Amazon chose to call ‘Read-to-me’.
This new feature does exactly the same as the many text-to-speech programs already available on computers around the world. It basically translates any book or written word into its audio form and reads it out loud. No harm, no foul, or at least you’d think so.
On the day of launch, the executive director of the Authors Guild expressed his dissatisfaction with the feature, claiming “the right to read a book out loud” was “derivative under copyright law.” That claim was then backed up by the president of the Authors Guild, Roy Blount Jr., who chose the day after the Kindle 2 was released to write an NYT opinion piece detailing his objections to the feature.
Most people: bloggers, tech journalists, commentators, and even copyright specialists, dismissed the claims as a non-issue. The general consensus of opinion being that the Authors Guild was showing a lack of common sense and an inability to embrace new technologies.
Despite this, Amazon has now backed down, and is in the process of changing the system so that each individual rights-holder can decide whether the ‘Read-to-me’ function works with their property. In a statement outlining the changes, Amazon insists the feature is legal, but then backs down anyway.
Maybe Amazon is right to avoid a costly and potentially lengthy legal row and come to a compromise, but I personally wish it had stood its ground. Unfortunately, Amazon relies on the Authors Guild members to provide the content it sells, so this may have been an unwinnable fight.
It seems to me though that the book industry and the publishers who control it are making the same kinds of mistakes the music industry and record labels already have done – refusing to give up any control in order to embrace new technology. When is an industry actually going to look to the future rather than try to hold on to the past?
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