Linked by Jordan Spencer Cunningham on Wed 18th Feb 2009 00:00 UTC
The Author's Guild has been having some trouble coping with the Kindle 2's Read to Me feature because it supposedly undermines author's rights. Their argument? "They don't have the right to read a book out loud." It sounds ridiculous; we've been reading out loud since we were wee little children, and text-to-speech has been in use since before the Google Empire (by hundreds of years technically, and by decades literally). However, after explanation by Engadget's very own pretentious ex-copyright attorney, the blurred lines of law and lawlessness gets even blurrier. Does the Author's Guild have a valid point, or are they splitting hairs?
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Member since:
2005-07-18
If the choice was:
A – listen to a machine recite a book
Or
B – listen to a person recite a book
I would pick B. The quality and clarity will be superior. Text to speech certainly may be convenient, but it is not something I would put in the realm of copy right infringement anymore than if my wife were reading the a passage to me while I was driving the car. The only difference is who or what is reading the passage. Secondly, Kindle2 will display more than just books so the text to speech Kindle2 employs has uses beyond just reading a work of literature: it can also read back your dissertation or latest love poem to your wife.
Now, if someone took the text to speech output from a work of literature and sold it, that would be infringement. But I think people would be more inclined to purchase the audio from a human vs. from a machine.