techmanAmazon Kindle 2 Illegal
March 22nd 2009 15:06
Amazon Kindle 2
Did you know that using the text-to-speech feature of your shiny new Amazon Kindle 2 is a violation of copyrights?
No? Well, guess what? It is, says the Author’s Guild.
On Thursday, The Authors Guild released a memo warning its members that the new feature may in fact violate the rights of authors.
Now, why would that be? Well, it seems that authors negotiate digital book sales separately from audiobook sales, and the Guild feels that audiobook sales will be cannibalized by this new feature.
Paul Aiken, executive director of The Authors Guild told the Wall Street Journal:
“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud. That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”
The thing is, no one would confuse an electronically read book with an audiobook. It’s clear, however, that as technology improves, in the future this may not be the case.
In other words, let’s start dickering over fees now so we don’t have to do it later when it really makes sense.
Update: In a "reading to your kids" footnote at the end of its statement, the Authors Guild says that its perfectly fine to verbally read a book out loud, provided it's not for a public performance. The Guild says it also doesn't have an issue with the Kindle 2's text-to-speech, as long as it is being read from "from an authorized audio copy."
(Daily Tech)
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