Kindle Text to Speech

[jimhines]

peachtess asked what I thought about the Kindle2 Text to Speech drama. In brief, Amazon's Kindle 2 includes the ability to read a document out loud. The Authors Guild states that this falls under audio rights, and is therefore s a contractual violation, since audio rights are separate from electronic (e-book) rights. Amazon has since backed down.I don't

Comments

[lalam]

Why aren't people up in arms about sony reader's text to speech or microsoft reader's text to speech? it's more an accessiblity option for those who need it.

I find the whole debate ridiculous. audiobooks are professionally prepared entities that use music, hire good readers, etc. an Electronic voice that most of the time misreads is NOT the same.

This issue just about drives me insane that Amazon would even back down on it. Stupid!

[sistercoyote]

I can ask my Mac to read things to me, if I want (I don't, generally). Is that an infringement?

Also, Wil Wheaton recorded himself and the Kindle reading part of his new book (just so you know what the Kindle sounds like. Oddly, I don't, because I haven't listened to it yet).

[sistercoyote]

My Mac reads to me, too. If the Kindle 2 sounds anything like my Mac, it is a flat, emotionless voice that doesn't pronounce every word right (really, deluge is a real word and there's no reason for deli-uge), and is actually very boring to listen to.

*shrug*

[jimhines]

My GPS is fun to listen to, just because it's so entertaining to hear how it struggles with certain street names.

I'm told that gets especially fun when you're driving around Hawaii.

[temporus]

I really wouldn't be worried about Text to Speech. Yes, it's improving all the time, but frankly not nearly as much as people seem to believe. My 1980's Commodore Amiga could do text to speech which, while certainly is worse than today's standards, was not by all that much. And I'm pretty sure that my friend's TI99 in the early 1980's had a Text to Speech program on it. Again, not great, but still, this is technology that is well over three decades old, and still has major obstacles to overcome

[temporus]

Actually, I think that if Amazon can already add some kind of tag to enable the publishers/authors to control the T2S feature, then they could with only a bit more work add another tag/flag that would override such in the case of a person with a registered disability. Now, the question of whether its legal to provide that as a feature...I have no clue, but it would be a way to somewhat eat the virtual cake, and have it too.

Disability Issues

[anonymous]

I am dyslexic and purchased my Kendil so it could read to me.

I was very disappointed when the text-to-speech started to disappear. I work in the computer industry. I have spoken with Tim O'Reilly several times to make audio books. He has refused based on expense vs. income.

Text-to-Speech costs nothing for books that have no market for audio versions but would allow people like myself greater access to the knowledge that would better my live.

product format versus access function

[jchendee]

Quality of an audio performance versus audio interpretation isn't the real issue. There is no violation going on here, and the AG is wrong. They simply hope to intimidate manufacturers. Much as I would do the same under certain circumstances, those circumstances do not exist in this situation. Text-to-speech has been around for a decade or more; it's just that the AG has suddenly woken up to the fact. Such software is available for almost any electronic device that can display text as text rather than needing a purely graphic format. I've even see freeware and donationware for this. That's right, Kindle isn't doing anything new or innovative at all

Re: product format versus access function

[temporus]

Much older than one decade.

As I've stated above, my Commodore Amiga purchased in the late 1980's (and I still own) could do Text to Speech. My friend in the early 80's had a TI-99 that could do an even rougher version of the same thing.

This isn't even CLOSE to being new technology.

My Microsoft Office 2003 software can do it. Macs of all flavors have been doing it for decades.

Re: product format versus access function

[jchendee]

Bravo! I wasn't fully aware it was that old. (I'm working at the moment and didn't have time to get through all previous comments).

To be honest, I find AG an embarassment to authors for the way they are handling this with such tunnel vision... dinosaurs!

And thank goodness for the next wave in translation-ware. Otherwise there are certain rare Mandarin text I could have never accessed (even stilted machine translation was better than nothing).

Re: product format versus access function

[temporus]

You mean "All your base are belong to us" isn't the correct translation?