[Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question

Lynn Evans evans-lynn at comcast.net
Sun May 16 12:51:23 UTC 2010 

hello Greg:

Some NLS patrons, not me have expressed a desire to play NLS books 
downloaded from the BARD site on their laptop or desktop.

Would this be included in what you are proposing?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Greg Kearney" <gkearney at gmail.com>
To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2010 8:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question


>I guess I should explain a bit more what we are asking and thinking  about 
>here.
>
> Daisy Bookworm and Olearia  were written primarily to support books  from 
> our library at ABWA as well as Vision Australia and RNZFB. They  will read 
> any non encrypted DAISY book. As it happens this means every  book from 
> every other library for the blind in the world. The sole  exceptions are 
> RFB&D, who we are working with to provide playback, and  the NLS system.
>
> What we are looking into is to have the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch  hardware 
> authorised as playback device in the same way that the  VictorReader 
> Stream is authorised. That is to say that the hardware  itself would be 
> identified as belonging to an authorised user. In the  case of the 
> VictorReader Stream this is done by serial number and an  authorisation 
> key tied to that number. A similar thing could be done  with the 
> iPhone/iPad/iPod there by providing proof that the owner of  such was an 
> authorised user. In effect the iPhone/iPad/iPod is nothing  more than a 
> playback device like the Stream and could be treated the  same way.
>
> I must admit that the status of all of this in U.S. Copyright law has  be 
> a bit confused to say the least. Let take a look at two  organisations 
> both producing copyrighted works under U.S. law:
>
> The NLS seems to be saying that it is a requirment under the law that 
> books be in an encrypted format playable only on special authorised 
> devices.
>
> Bookshare on the other hand says that it can provide, in many cases  the 
> text of the same books, in clear text requiring only that the user  have a 
> user name and password to download and unpack the same. Once a  Bookshare 
> title has been unzipped all of the text is in a human  readable for and 
> can be simply transformed into any number of formats  in much the same way 
> Braille can be back translated.
>
> So who is in the right here? it is the same book and if anything the 
> Bookshare version would be even more valuable to pirates as it has the 
> text of the book and not simply a recording. Both these claims can not  at 
> the same time be true the law either requires encryption and  special 
> devices or it does not.
>
> In any event there are many technical issues to solve, most notably  the 
> issues surrounding the playback of the audio in the NLS format and  we may 
> never be able to do that and preserve battery life.
>
> So to be clear here we are not asking the NLS to change the format of 
> their books and we are clearly not asking or suggesting that anyone 
> "share" the book with unauthorised users. Right now we are only asking 
> what the process is to get a device authorised for NLS playback as  other 
> devices have been in the past and to what extent if any there is  interest 
> in the print disabled community in having such playback on  the 
> iPhone/iPad/iPod.
>
>
>
> Gregory Kearney
> Manager - Accessible Media
> Association for the Blind of Western Australia
> 61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
> Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
>
> Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
> Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
> Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
> Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
> Email: gkearney at gmail.com
>
> On 16/05/2010, at 7:09 PM, Fr. John Sheehan wrote:
>
>> You have to remember that NLS is governed by the publishers. As long  as 
>> their material is in a proprietary format, they can issue the  materials 
>> without worrying about copyright. Braille is a proprietary  format - and 
>> when they went to audio, NLS devised its own unique  system first for 
>> tape, now digital. If they open it up for wider  use, they will be 
>> required to get individual copyright permission  for each work, or pay. 
>> Either would cripple the service. But in  terms of "sharing" with more 
>> popular devices, they don't really have  much choice. Remember how the 
>> publishers and then authors reacted  when the Kindle 2 was released with 
>> its text to speech feature? Same  issue.
>> Fr. John R. Sheehan, SJ
>> Chairman
>>
>>
>> Xavier Society for the Blind
>> 154 East 23rd St
>> New York, NY 10010
>> (212) 473-7800
>> Help us raise money for the Xavier Society for the Blind just by 
>> searching the Internet or shopping online with GoodSearch - 
>> www.goodsearch.com - powered by Yahoo! Free for you - and money for us! 
>> Thank you.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Lynn Evans <evans-lynn at comcast.net>
>> To: Discussion of Digital Talking Books <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Sat, May 15, 2010 2:46:22 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>
>> Just being a smart ass here:
>>
>> With all the emails flying back and forth here, we haven't yet  convinced 
>> NLS
>> to release their proprietary format?
>>
>> hmmmmm
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Flint Million" <fmillion at gmail.com>
>> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 1:50 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>
>>
>> I think another possible issue is that the iPod has an AAC/MP3 decoder
>> in hardware, but not an AMR-WB+ decoder. I may be completely wrong on
>> that since the iPhone is probably using some kind of AMR audio for the
>> phone component, but I have never read any specs on it. Also it'd  be
>> logical that the iPod touch would lack such a decoder even if one is
>> in the iPhone. (And it could also be that the iPhone's decoder, if
>> any, is part of the GSM hardware itself and not part of the media
>> playback chipset.) This would mean we'd be reduced to decoding the
>> book content in software, which would potentially reduce battery life.
>> One of the selling points of the iPod touch is its seriously long
>> playback time - they rate it at about 30 hours for music, which
>> matches our big tabletop NLS players - but they achieve this by doing
>> as much as they can in hardware using specialized very-low-power
>> chips. Anything done in software on the device eats the battery life
>> away, because the main processor, while efficient, can't compete with
>> a specialized low-power decoding chip for media content.
>>
>> And of course, the issue still stands with how to get the book content
>> on to the device. I may be wrong, but I think Apple disapproves of
>> methods of loading content that involve simple drag-and-drop. All of
>> the apps I've seen available on the app store for content consumption
>> require you to either use WebDAV or FTP or a traditional web server
>> style upload mechanism. This adds yet another complexity to the
>> process. Apple's App Store policies seem to include some unwritten
>> rules about things like this (I'm sure some have heard the stories of
>> apps being rejected for no apparent reason), so this is just another
>> thing to worry about.
>>
>> FM
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Mike Freeman <k7uij at panix.com>  wrote:
>>> Besides, multi-use devices do each of their functions with equal
>>> mediocrity!
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Burke, Dan (DSS)" <burke at mso.umt.edu
>>> >
>>> To: "Discussion of Digital Talking Books" <dtb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 10:35 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>>
>>>
>>>> It's logical - everybody is searching for a single multi-use  device. I
>>>> would love to be able to use my smart phone to read Daisy and NLS.
>>>>
>>>> But htis is not a world that always makes sense, is it?
>>>> (grin)
>>>> Dan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dan Burke
>>>> Assistant Director/Assistive Technology Coordinator
>>>>
>>>> Disability Services for Studentstss
>>>> The University of Montana
>>>> Emma B. Lommasson Center 154
>>>> Missoula, MT 59812
>>>>
>>>> 406.24.4424
>>>> 406.243.5330 FAX
>>>>
>>>> www.umt.edu/disability
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org ]
>>>> On Behalf Of Eric SS
>>>> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 4:21 AM
>>>> To: 'Discussion of Digital Talking Books'
>>>> Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] iPhone/iPad/iPod touch NLS Playback question
>>>>
>>>> I would think anyone who currently uses one of the dedicated NLS- 
>>>> capable
>>>> devices and has an Iphone/Touch/Pad, would be very happy to be  able to
>>>> use
>>>> just one device. I know a couple of folks who don't use the NLS 
>>>> digital
>>>> service because they do not want to deal with another device, but 
>>>> would
>>>> become enthusiastic users if they could listen on their Iphone, etc.
>>>>
>>>> Eric SS
>>>>
>>>>
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