RSSProtesters confront Author's Guild over Kindle text-to-speech
By Tim Conneally | Published April 9, 2009, 4:38 PM
By taking Amazon to task over the text-to-speech function of the Kindle 2, the Author's Guild has put itself in an undesirable position. Whereas the feature was originally open for use on any text contained within the device, the Author's Guild is now pressuring Amazon into letting publishers decide on an individual basis whether a book should be enabled with "voice performance" abilities.
At the end of March, twenty groups representing visually and cognitively impaired individuals, such as the American Council of the Blind, the International Dyslexia Association, and the National Center for Learning Disabilities, joined together and formed the Reading Rights Coalition to oppose the action of the Author's Guild.
The Coalition's mission statement says, "Sadly, the Authors Guild does not support equal access for us. The Guild has told us that to read their books with text-to-speech we must either submit to a special registration system (that not all may qualify for and that would expose disability information to all future eBook reader manufacturers) and prove our disabilities -- or pay extra."
This week, the coalition, led by the National Federation of the Blind protested in front of the Offices of the Author's Guild in New York, shouting "Stop the Greed, We Want to Read!"
The Guild issued a statement following the protests, explaining its position: "The Authors Guild will gladly be a forceful advocate for amending contracts to provide access to voice-output technology to everyone. We will not, however, surrender our members' economic rights to Amazon or anyone else. The leap to digital has been brutal for print media generally, and the economics of the transition from print to e-books do not look as promising as many assume. Authors can't afford to start this transition to digital by abandoning rights."
If the guild is trying to gain sympathy, it will have a very difficult time when it pits "economic rights" against civil rights.
books, novels, book on tapes, digital books, books to speech, books to brail, etc..., should each have a price.
anyone needs a book translated from one language or format into another already pays. likewise, a digital book converted into speech has a price as well.
like a copy machine that is able to reproduce copyrighted work (unlawfully), so it seems a digital reader can also infringe upon the rights of authors.
personally, i like books to moving pictures - on dvd.
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|LOL!
This simply ellicits too many politically incorrect, but apropos comedic images ....
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|I love that last line - economic rights vs. civil rights. That's exactly the issue. If you'd like to help, sign the petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read. Thanks so much!
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|Wow. Morons (the AG, not the blind).
However, the AG is probably mostly concerned about the inevitable eventual mass piracy of publications and grasping at straws.
"We will not, however, surrender our members' economic rights to Amazon or anyone else."
Rights? There is a right to not having your book read? Have they sued MS, Apple, etc for similar technologies?
What's next, is the Administrative Assistant's Guild going to sue voice-to-text companies?
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|the Authors Guild is another example of a group who simple do not understand the technology. The switch from print to digital has only been brutal to the controlling powers that were more afraid of giving up or losing their power or were sleeping during the tech. revolution.
A few print companies on the other hand saw the potential and took full advantage and are now prospering big time as a result. I'm sure the Authors Guild is now doing exactly what the RIAA did and still does. Lie to your clients make it sound like it's the end of the world and hide that there are options for them to provit. Then hope this all goes away, well have I got bad news for the Authors Guild. You snooze you loose.
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|We probably shouldn't be surprised that the established "power" is behind the times. They're trying to cling to their outmoded way of doing things. Eventually they'll succumb to the technology, like everyone else.
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|So, if I buy a book and read it aloud to my kid, should I pay extra? Look, the Kindle is giving authors a chance to come back into being trendy and provide media for a new audience. It allows them to resell classic books and push subscriptions. Print media has suffered over the last few years. But big sellers still work. It's the lesser known works that suffer. Being able to buy a book cheap and still listen to it if you're blind gives you a chance to find new authors. But I guess the guild doesn't need to develop new readers, they are comfortable with what they have. Just don't tell them about Audible, I guess, for people who like to pay a bit extra for acted books over computer-read ones.
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|I agree, same with classroom teachers, they should pay for every student they read too? So a class of 30? Wow sounds expensive. GREED vs RIGHTS. No brainer to me.
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