[blindlaw] Informational Picketing Against Authors Guild inNewYork City

Sat Mar 28 11:16:27 UTC 2009

Hi Everett,

First, let me say that not only are Federation members supportive of this
action, but we have in fact reached out to other disability organizations
representing individuals with spinal cord injuries, dyslexia and other
learning disabilities, and other print disabilities and they are all in
agreement with this position. Second, the issue here is not whether authors
have the right to control their intellectual property, which they most
certainly do. The issue is whether they can parse up the uses of an e-book
that an individual has already paid for and claim that each potential use of
it is an intellectual property right.

The Authors Guild is upset because Amazon added a text-to-speech function to
its Kindle 2, which means that downloaded e-books can be read aloud.
Initially, Amazon did not plan to include the ability to disable that
function; the company only backed down when the Authors Guild raised a
stink. But the fact is that Amazon was initially legally correct to believe
that there was no inherent intellectual property right involved. The reading
aloud of text that one has purchased, in private, is not a copyright
violation but a fair use. To argue otherwise is to argue that parents who
read bedtime stories to their kids, or for that matter blind people who have
a print textbook read aloud to them by a reader (human or machine), are
violating copyright law. This is ridiculous and every copyright lawyer worth
his or her salt knows it; even the Authors Guild is now backing down from
it, arguing instead that the terms of their contracts prohibit this use. It
makes absolutely no difference whether the reading aloud is done by a human
or a machine, as long as there is no "public performance" or derivative work
created. 

The Authors Guild wants what you have suggested--a registration system for
people with disabilities, who would then be allowed to unlock the
text-to-speech function. But more than just blind people are affected here,
and many of them have disabilities that are not tied to a specific organic
cause and can't be medically diagnosed. Besides, who would administer this
system? Amazon? The Authors Guild? And more to the point, why should
disabled readers have to register to read a book that we have paid good
money for? The Guild's position is tantamount to saying, "You can buy our
e-books but you can't read them without clearance from us." It is
unacceptable and discriminatory.

Bottom line; Everyone who pays good money for an e-book--which is not
inherently either a visual or audio work and could conceivably be converted
into even more formats, including Braille--should be able to read it in
whatever form works best for them. The authors have a chance here to get
money from the disability community--a revenue stream they've never had
before since right now we get a lot of our reading material from free or
subscription services like NLS or Bookshare. But our money apparently isn't
good enough for them. Sure, they're motivated not by keeping us out but by
trying to keep out the sighted, in order to make sure that the sighted
either pay a surcharge for text-to-speech or buy the much more expensive
audio book version. But that's just greed, not an intellectual property
dispute. And disabled people who have legitimate reading problems but can't
"prove" them to the satisfaction of the Authors Guild will also have to pay
that surcharge. This is wrong on many levels and it's lousy business too. I
hope that in light of all this you will consider supporting our action.

Library services for the blind and others have their place, but the advent
of the e-book means that we no longer have to be locked into those systems
and potentially will have access to a much broader array of literary
content. This has been the dream of the blind and others with print
disabilities for generations. We are not going to let a knee-jerk, poorly
thought out reaction from some authors organization take that dream away.

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of E.J. Zufelt
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 5:01 AM
To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Informational Picketing Against Authors Guild
inNewYork City

Good morning,

My concern with this action is whether or not the opinion expressed is  
representative of NFB membership.  I for one believe that Amazon is  
well within their reasonable right to block this functionality from  
titles on their site to perserve the authors rights to their  
intellectual property.

Perhaps a better approach would be for Amazon to be required to make  
an unlocked version of the texts available to individuals who register  
as text impaired.  Understandably this method would have several  
problems that would have to be negotiated between all concerned parties.

Just my two cents,
Everett

On 28-Mar-09, at 4:36 AM, <ckrugman at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> If the legislative alert system previously discussed on this list  
> hade been implemented members from all over the country could  
> respond with emails or faxes to the Authors Guild to address this  
> issue. This would be much more effective then to expect Federations  
> spending hundreds of dollars on plain fare and hotel accommodations  
> for this cause. While the information definitely needs to be  
> provided there are much more effective ways for this to be done.
> Charles L. Krugman, M.S.W., ParalegalPresident,
> NFB of California Central Valley Chapter
> 1237 P Street
> Fresno ca 93721
> 559-266-9237
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
> To: <david.andrews at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 1:40 PM
> Subject: [blindlaw] Informational Picketing Against Authors Guild in  
> NewYork City
>
>
>
> >From Chris Danielson:
>
> Dear Fellow Federationists:
>
> As you may already know, Amazon, Inc. released the newest version of  
> its
>
> e-book reader, the Kindle, on February 9 of this year.  The Kindle 2
>
> includes a feature that allows e-books downloaded to it to be read  
> aloud.
>
> The Authors Guild has objected to this feature because it believes  
> these
>
> e-books are licensed only for visual display, and under pressure  
> from the
>
> Guild, Amazon has decided to allow authors and publishers to decide  
> which
>
> books can be read aloud by this device.  Naturally, this is a blow  
> to blind
>
> people and others with print disabilities who can benefit from the
>
> text-to-speech feature and who would love to be able to purchase  
> books and
>
> start reading them immediately for the first time in history.  For  
> this
>
> reason the National Federation of the Blind has joined with other
>
> organizations representing people who cannot use print effectively  
> to fight
>
> the Authors Guild.
>
> We plan to kick off our public education campaign to increase public
>
> pressure on the Authors Guild to reverse its stance with an  
> informational
>
> protest in front of the Guild's headquarters in New York City.  This  
> picket
>
> will take place on Tuesday, April 7, from noon until 2:00 p.m.  I am  
> writing
>
> to you in hopes that you can organize members to come to this  
> protest.  A
>
> number of Federationists from Maryland are coming and we expect
>
> participation from other organizations in the coalition, but it  
> would be
>
> very helpful if those of you with easy access to New York City would  
> help us
>
> by providing more picketers.  It is extremely important that we make a
>
> strong impression on the Authors Guild and the media so that our  
> message
>
> will be heard.
>
> In the next few days you will receive more communications with  
> additional
>
> logistical details, as well as more information about our position and
>
> suggestions on how to respond to questions from the media.  In the  
> meantime,
>
> if you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact  
> me.  As
>
> soon as you have an idea of how many people may be able to come to  
> this
>
> event, please provide that information to John Paré by calling  
> 410-659-9314,
>
> ext. 2227, or by e-mailing jpare at nfb.org.  Thank you for your  
> assistance in
>
> this important matter.
>
> Sincerely:
>
> Chris Danielsen
>
> Christopher S. Danielsen
>
> Director of Public Relations
>
> NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
>
>
> David Andrews and white cane Harry.
>
>
>
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