[il-talk] FW: [LBPH] Kindle2 Editorial

Wed Apr 15 00:24:03 UTC 2009

  _____  

From: Ruda, Sharon [mailto:SRuda at ILSOS.NET] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 1:21 PM
To: Barry Levine (E-mail); Camille Caferrelli; Dave Meyer; Dave Porter
(E-mail); Mary Kozy (E-mail); Sharon Hawkinson; Sharon Ruda; Thomas D.
Bledsoe (E-mail); Tina Diveley (E-mail); William A. Bogdan (E-mail)
Subject: FW: [LBPH] Kindle2 Editorial

fyi
Sharon
-----Original Message-----
From: lbph-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us
[mailto:lbph-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us]On Behalf Of Marlin. Mike
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 12:53 PM
To: lbph at listsmart.osl.state.or.us; lssps at ala.org; ascla-l at ala.org
Subject: [LBPH] Kindle2 Editorial

>From the Baltimore Sun 
Bias against blind book lovers
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.blind14apr14,0,2676842
.story> 
By Marc Maurer 
April 14, 2009 

I love to read, and I've been doing it ever since I was able. My wife is
also an avid reader. But my wife and I are blind, and because I lead the
Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind, we have many blind
friends. And although many of us read everything we can get our hands on, we
can't get our hands on very much to read.

There are services for us, of course. Government entities and nonprofit
organizations convert books into Braille, audio, or digital form for our
use. But only 5 percent of all books published undergo such a conversion. A
few more are available as commercial audio books, but these are often
abridged, and those that are unabridged are quite expensive.

Nowadays, a solution to the problem of reading material is tantalizingly
within our reach: the e-book. When Amazon released its new Kindle 2 e-book
reader earlier this year, it announced that the device now includes
text-to-speech software and can read e-books aloud. Those of us who are
blind were filled with joy at this news. For the first time in history, it
would now be possible, we hoped, for the blind to do something that everyone
else takes for granted: purchase a brand new book and start reading it right
away.

Our hope quickly turned to despair, however - and then to anger. The Authors
Guild doesn't want the Kindle 2 to be able to read books aloud. They say
this new capability violates authors' copyrights. This argument has
absolutely no basis in copyright law. Reading a print book aloud or having
it read aloud to you in the privacy of your home is not a copyright
violation; the only difference with the Kindle 2 is that a machine rather
than a human being is doing the reading.

In the face of this specious attack from the Authors Guild, Amazon initially
took the legally and morally correct position that the text-to-speech
feature of the Kindle 2 did not violate copyright law. But then the company
backed down, saying it would allow authors and publishers to decide which
books they would permit to be read aloud by the device. Dismayed, we
contacted the Authors Guild. It claimed it did not oppose having e-books
read aloud to the blind, as long as there was a national registry of blind
people who would then be allowed to unlock the text-to-speech feature.

This is wrong. The Authors Guild has no right to discriminate against
disabled readers by segregating us into a separate and unequal class. If our
sighted friends don't have to "sign up" to be permitted to read, then blind
people shouldn't either. And once we buy a book, how we read it is nobody's
business but ours. When we told the Authors Guild this, they added insult to
injury by telling us that, if we wouldn't sign up for a registry, we would
just have to pay extra in order to use text-to-speech. Needless to say, this
is outrageous and reprehensible behavior from an organization of people who
claim to support equal access to literature by all Americans. Instead of
facilitating the free flow of information, the Authors Guild is making
itself the arbiter of who is worthy of access to the printed word.

The Authors Guild isn't just discriminating against blind people. People
with other disabilities - especially brain injuries and conditions like
dyslexia - would also benefit from the ability to have books read aloud to
them electronically. Groups representing many of these people are joining us
to protest the position of the Authors Guild and Amazon's craven response to
it.

At present, very few of us buy books in any form. If we could have e-books
read aloud to us, however, we would happily pay for them. We are an untapped
market consisting of some 15 million people to which authors and publishers
have never before had direct access. For this reason, the position of the
Authors Guild is not only morally repugnant but also bad business.
Prohibiting the blind and others from reading commercially available e-books
just means that authors and publishers won't get our money. The guild's
position hurts both authors and people with print disabilities.

In an age when how we get information is constantly and rapidly changing,
it's important that people with disabilities have access to it in the same
way that it is important for us to have access to physical structures, goods
and services. Amazon took an important step in the right direction by
including a read-aloud feature on the Kindle 2, but the Authors Guild is now
trying to set us back. We are not going to allow them to stand in the
doorway of the virtual bookstore to keep us out.

Marc Maurer is president of the National Federation of the Blind. His e-mail
is officeofthepresident at nfb.org.

Mike L. Marlin, Manager
Braille and Talking Book Library
California State Library
900 N Street, Suite 110
Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: mmarlin at library.ca.gov
Phone: (916) 651-0812
Toll FREE in CA: 1-800-952-5666

Fax:     (916) 654-1119   
Web site: www.btbl.ca.gov <http://www.btbl.ca.gov/> 

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