[nfb-talk] The Kindle Swindle

Thu Mar 5 16:46:36 UTC 2009

Welcome to the 21st century.  Been here long?

What difference does it make that you don't get a copy of the audio book 
when you buy a print book? For one thing, you're not buying the print book. 
you're buying an e-book.

More importantly though, the fact is that times change. The Author's Guild 
is going to have to get used to the fact that the way it used to do business 
isn't going to work in the 21st century.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel Zimba" <jzimba at cavtel.net>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] The Kindle Swindle

> Actually, it is different.
> Have you noticed that you don't get a free copy of the audio book when you 
> buy the print book?
> I think the guild is correct in seeing synthetic speech as potentially 
> destroying the audio book market.  Not this year, but in 5 years, I think 
> it is perfectly reasonable.
>
> If you read the actual statements from the Author's Guild, rather than the 
> news headlines and NFB statements taken out of context, you will see that 
> they understand the implications for the livlihood of authors and want to 
> protect that.
> There is even a very eloquent response to the NFB statement on the 
> subject, showing just  how a few sentences were taken out of context.
>
> Joel
>
>
> Brian Miller wrote:
>> How in the world can the Writer's Guilde make the case that a syntehsized
>> speech program constitutes a performance that would in essence require a
>> mechanical reproduction lisence to play?
>> This is really taking royalty protection to an absurd level.  One should 
>> pay
>> for the access to the content, not the format of that content.  Is this
>> really any different than someone taking a written copy and reading it
>> aloud?
>> Brian M
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of Michael Bullis
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 6:18 AM
>> To: 'NFB Talk Mailing List'
>> Subject: [nfb-talk] The Kindle Swindle
>>
>> This from today's New York Times.
>> Mike Bullis
>>
>> OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR. The Kindle Swindle?. By ROY BLOUNT Jr.. Roy Blount Jr. 
>> is the author, most recently, of 'Alphabet
>> Juice. BEING president of too many well-meaning organizations put my 
>> father
>> into an early grave. The lesson in this was not lost on me. But now I am
>> president of the Authors Guild, whose mission is to sustain book-writing 
>> as
>> a viable occupation. This borders on quixotic, given all the new ways of 
>> not
>> getting paid that new technology affords authors. A case in point: 
>> Amazon's
>> Kindle 2, which was released yesterday. The Kindle 2 is a portable, 
>> wireless, paperback-size device onto which
>> people can download a virtual library of digitalized titles. Amazon sells
>> these downloads, and where the books are under copyright, it pays 
>> royalties
>> to the authors and publishers. Serves readers, pays writers: so far, so 
>> good. But there's another thing
>> about Kindle 2 -- its heavily marketed text-to-speech function. Kindle 2 
>> can
>> read books aloud. And Kindle 2 is not paying anyone for audio rights. 
>> True, you can already get software that will read aloud whatever is on 
>> your
>> computer. But Kindle 2 is being sold specifically as a new, improved,
>> multimedia version of books -- every title is an e-book and an audio book
>> rolled into one. And whereas e-books have yet to win mainstream 
>> enthusiasm,
>> audio books are a billion-dollar market, and growing. Audio rights are 
>> not
>> generally packaged with e-book rights. They are more valuable than e-book
>> rights.
>> Income
>> from audio books helps not inconsiderably to keep authors, and 
>> publishers,
>> afloat. You may be thinking that no automated read-aloud function can 
>> compete with
>> the dulcet resonance of Jim Dale reading 'Harry Potter' or of authors, 
>> ahem,
>> reading themselves. But the voices of Kindle 2 are quite listenable. 
>> There's
>> even a male version and a female version. (A book by, say, Norman Mailer 
>> on
>> Kindle 2 might do a brisk business among people wondering how his prose
>> would sound in measured feminine tones.) And that sort of technology is 
>> improving all the time. I.B.M. has patented a
>> computerized voice that is said to be almost indistinguishable from human
>> ones.
>> This voice is programmed to include 'ums,' 'ers' and sighs, to cough for
>> attention, even to 'shhh' when interrupted. According to Andy Aaron, of
>> I.B.M.'s Thomas J. Watson research group speech team: 'These sounds can 
>> be
>> incredibly subtle, even unnoticeable, but have a profound psychological
>> effect. It can be extremely reassuring to have a more attentive-sounding
>> voice. When I read that quotation, it hit me: Hey, I know Andy Aaron. 
>> Years ago, he
>> said he was working on some sort of voice simulation, and asked to work 
>> my
>> Southern accent into the mix. I don't remember whether we got around to 
>> that
>> or not, and this new I.B.M. software is designed, at any rate, not for 
>> audio
>> books but for computer help lines. So no part of my voice is competing 
>> with
>> my own audio books yet. But people who want to keep on doing creative 
>> things
>> for a living must be duly vigilant about any new means of transmitting 
>> their
>> work. What the guild is asserting is that authors have a right to a fair 
>> share of
>> the value that audio adds to Kindle 2's version of books. For this, the
>> guild is being assailed. On the National Federation of the Blind's Web 
>> site,
>> the guild is accused of arguing that it is illegal for blind people to 
>> use
>> 'readers, either human or machine, to access books that are not available 
>> in
>> alternative formats like Braille or audio. In fact, publishers, authors 
>> and American copyright laws have long provided
>> for free audio availability to the blind and the guild is all for
>> technologies that expand that availability. (The federation, though, 
>> points
>> out that blind readers can't independently use the Kindle 2's visual,
>> on-screen
>> controls.)
>> But that doesn't mean Amazon should be able, without copyright-holders'
>> participation, to pass that service on to everyone. The guild is also 
>> accused of wanting to profiteer off family bedtime
>> rituals. A lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation sarcastically 
>> warned
>> that 'parents everywhere should be on the lookout for legal papers haling
>> them into court for reading to their kids. For the record: no, the 
>> Authors Guild does not expect royalties from anybody
>> doing non-commercial performances of 'Goodnight Moon. If parents want to
>> send their children off to bed with the voice of Kindle 2, however, it's
>> another matter. _______________________________________________
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