[nfb-talk] Fw: Disabled Group Protests Removal of Kindle's Text-to-Speech

[Ed Meskys]

----- Original Message ----- 
To: Edmund R. Meskys
Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 1:44 AM
Subject: Disabled Group Protests Removal of Kindle's Text-to-Speech


Disabled Group Protests Removal of Kindle's Text-to-Speech




By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 4/7/2009 1:49:00 PM



Some 200 people with print disabilities--physical impairments that restrict 
their ability to read print--protested in front of the Authors Guild 
headquarters in New York today, rallying against the Guild's attempt to get 
Amazon to disable the Kindle 2's text-to-speech function. The protestors, 
led by the National Federation of the Blind, chanted “We want e-books!” 
“Literacy for all of us!” and “Two, four, six, eight, the Authors Guild 
discriminates!”

The demonstration follows Amazon's announcement that it plans to give 
authors and publishers the ability to disable the text-to-speech function on 
any of their e-books available for the Kindle 2. Protestors carried signs 
reading “Don’t Disable the Kindle,” “Throw the E-Book at the Authors Guild,” 
“Give Kindle the Freedom of Speech” and other slogans, while members of the 
Reading Rights Coalition spoke in front of the crowd through microphones and 
bullhorns.

“We’re extremely pleased with the turnout today,” said Chris Danielsen, 
director of public relations for the National Federation of the Blind. The 
group brought two busloads of people to the protest from Baltimore, where 
the federation is based, and other protesters came from Virginia, 
Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey. Danielsen said he did not own a 
Kindle, but would if its text-to-speech function were enabled for all 
e-books—"as would 15 million other Americans who have print disabilities.” 
Amazon will enable the Kindle's text-to-speech function if it has the 
permission of the rightsholder. Diane Grant, a blind student who traveled to 
New York from Baltimore for the protest, said she owns other devices to read 
books but has to scan titles in order to read them. Grant said she, too, 
would buy a Kindle if its text-to-speech function were enabled. Christy 
Lynch, who teaches braille in New Jersey, said she came to "celebrate a 
cause. Visually impaired people have the same rights as other people."

Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, released an official 
statement in which he proposed taking advantage of an exception to the 
Copyright Act known as the Chafee Amendment, which permits the blind and 
others with certified physical print disabilities access to special 
versions, including audio versions, of copyrighted books. “Technology makes 
this step easy,” he said, although fliers distributed by protestors today 
called the system “burdensome.” Aiken also encouraged Amazon and other 
e-book device manufacturers to make devices with voice output capability 
that would include a braille keyboard and audible menu commands, and 
encouraged publishers to amend existing book contracts to allow voice-output 
access to others, including those with learning disabilities, that don’t 
qualify for special treatment under the Chafee Amendment. “Today’s protest 
is unfortunate and unnecessary,” Aiken said. “We stand by our offer, first 
made to the federation’s lawyer a month ago and repeated several times 
since, to negotiate in good faith to reach a solution for making in-print 
e-books accessible to everyone.”