[blindkid] NFB Joins Coalition to Support E-book Reading Rights

Denise Colton dlcolton at parkcity.net
Sat Apr 4 23:19:39 UTC 2009


Dear Friends and Fellow Parents of Blind Children,

In February I purchased a Kindle 2 online because I was very excited about 
the access to many new e-books it would potentially offer my blind daughter 
with it's new text-to speech function.  We received the device in March and 
my daughter loves it.  It's not perfect in that she needs sighted assistance 
to purchase the books, but Amazon is working on making the device more 
accessible.

At a cost of about $350, it's relatively cheap compared to other technology 
available for the blind.  Unfortunately,  we learned shortly after this 
purchase that authors and publishers want to limit or disable the 
text-to-speech or perhaps charge more for it per book downloaded.

The NFB along with many other organizations that support reading for print 
disabled individuals have joined to form a coalition called "The Reading 
Rights Coalition".   The website is www.readingrights.org .  I would 
encourage you to learn more about the issue on the website, consider signing 
the petition available and perhaps writing to the the Authors Guild as we 
have to urge continued unfettered access to e-books via text-to-speech. 
Nation wide protests are also being planned.

I have attached copied of the letters my daughter and I sent out today.

Kind regards,

Denise Colton
NOPBC Board Member
Utah Parents of Blind Children- Vice-President
Park City, UT
dlcolton at parkcity.net




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