Sunday, March 01, 2009

Kindle Text to Speech Part 2 - The View From The Other Side

Technology is supposed to enhance the experience, convenience and introduce new features that aren’t available through the existing environment. However in our haste to secure, batten down content we have created a situation where some would say we have fewer rights than we do today and are restricted at every turn by those who want us to embrace the New World that they are shaping by their acts. Today we don't have the right to share the book, to resell it; to openly transfer it between devices and in the principle to give a ‘private performance’ of the book for non commercial is being limited by the Author Guild.

Much debate has taken place since Amazon introduced its Kindle 2 text to speech feature, the Authors Guild objected and the subsequent reposition by Amazon. Its interesting that authors appear to be far more engaged in this debate that that of the Authors Guild on the Google Book Search, but its also interesting to hear how rights are interrupted in an attempt to justify what some would argue is unjustifiable.

Jane Little in her blog makes the case ‘Why Amazon Was Wrong to Back Down from Authors Guild’. Courtneymilan in her blog makes an equally strong case in ‘read-aloud-now-with-bad-pictures’.

We recommend that they should be read by the Authors Guild, but somehow we doubt that they will.

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