[il-talk] Fw: [Chapter-presidents] Baltimore Sun Op-Ed Piece from Dr. Maurer onKindle

[Robert Gardner]

FYI
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
To: <david.andrews at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:36 AM
Subject: [Chapter-presidents] Baltimore Sun Op-Ed Piece from Dr. Maurer 
onKindle


> FYI.  from the Baltimore Sun
>
>
> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.blind14apr14,0,2676842.story
>
> Bias against blind book lovers
> 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.
>
>
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