Another day, another potentially disruptive technology called out by conservative and fear-mongering industry groups. Paul Aiken, director of the Author’s Guild, is calling the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech system a form of copyright transgression in that it essentially creates an audiobook, albeit automatically. From the WSJ:
“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”
An Amazon spokesman noted the text-reading feature depends on text-to-speech technology, and that listeners won’t confuse it with the audiobook experience. Amazon owns Audible, a leading audiobook provider.
Note the last part: Amazon, as Aiken sees it, is basically stealing from itself. What we’re really dealing with here is an example of copyright being extrapolated onto disparate actions. Reading a book into a microphone in a calm measured tone in a recording booth or going to a stadium and reading your latest novel to thousands of cheering fans (wouldn’t that be nice, authors? We can dream) are both “performances,” actions which should protected. If I charge you $5 for my homebrew reading of Harry Potter and the Tenuous Plot Device, I’m breaking copyright. Concurrently, if I charge you $5 for my Kindle text-to-speech version of The Ladies’ Detective Agency Enters Menopause I am also breaking copyright. But if I sit in a room and read Gravity’s Rainbow to myself from a copy of the book I own, it’s not infringement.
Tools exist to infringe on anything, physical or digital – just ask Rolex and Prada. You can react to real issues, Mr. Aiken, like wholesale book piracy in China, or you can keep kicking the shins of a company that has made the most money for authors since the invention of the printing press.
“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud”
I’m glad they told me that. Now I have new excuse to not read stories to my brother’s kids!
Tell this dufus Paul Aiken to go to law school before he starts opining.
And if he already did go to law school, then he should go back again.
Right, like there isn’t speech to text on every PC already, which people can use to read online books and PDFs anytime they want — FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS AT LEAST !
I think I need to hire a team of lawyers to protect my Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of text-to-speech rights. Do I understand it correctly that the Author’s Guild does not want its authors benefiting materially from Amazon sales of Kindle2 devices, and the resulting book sales it will bring? If I were an author, I would buy a Kindle2, compose an ALL CAPS letter to Mr. Aiken asking for a refund of my yearly guild dues, load it up and ship it to him so he can clearly hear the message.
Whay I don’t get is the difference between a software tool and myself.
If I read to myself, is ok, but if I have a computer to read to me is illegal, but is legal to hire someone to read the book to me?
I still can’t get the copyright transgression
I still can’t get why is a copyright infringement
Lo que Kindle 2 necesita es una pantalla mas grande y menos botones! Esa tecnologia e-ink es espectacular.
Yeah, I don’t know why they waste so much space having a full keyboard with lots of space between keys, when the device is really not intended for content creation. If you’re only spending 1% of the time typing, why should you have to look at the ugly keyboard 100% of the time?
Lo que ellos necesitan en un aparato mas barato
“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud.” The copyright witchhunt is a parody of itself.
LOL, exactly.
And I think they are right…
If speech-to-text is illegal, the blind are screwed. Seriously: are they even aware of the Americans with Disabilities Act? Or did they just never learn to read?
I’m glad I’m not the only one to think of that.
Amen to that!! This type of thinking is actually really scary. I am legally blind, but also very heavily into tecnology – and I see print moving more and more to eBook llke formats. Audio books are great, but the potential of being able to buy *any* book and having a venue to read it on easily is staggering to me. I functionally stopped regular reading a few years back and was looking forward to the capbilitoes of the kindle2 to give me access to a broad range of text again. To think that I might have to worry about a lawsuit from the authors guild for doing so, or them killing the technology for reasons of “rights” is unacceptable. What about my rights? I’m happy to pay the fee for a book I want, but to not have it delivered via technology in the modality that works best for me, because of “rights law” is unimaginable.
PLEASE tell me we don’t live in a world where thinking like this will prevail!
(btw hun, if you are reading this would love a Kindle2 for my bday :) )
Yup. I see fine, but am very dyslexic. Reading this article is the first I’ve heard of what could be a really useful feature for me and LOTs of others in my or your or similar situations.
I make the web talk ( http://www.textic.com ) so that sites can offer their content, accessibly, to a wider audience. Is that illegal too if that site is showing third party content (e.g. RSS news feeds)?
Forrest, if you are part of any organization for blind people, you would do well to forward this article to them. In fact, if I was in PR at Amazon, I would find a prominent interest group for blind people, send them this statement by the Author’s Guild, and pledge to support them to fight this kind of discrimination.
Let’s see how good the Author’s Guild appears once they are fighting against the blind instead of a “big evil money-making corporation” like Amazon.
Q: Are they even aware of the Americans with Disabilities Act?
A: Seems not, because there’s no mention of it on their Website. Also no Braille, or text-to-speech.
http://www.authorsguild.org/
BTW, it’s not just blind people who might want text-to-speech, I can see me using this as I get old.
Excellent point!
Not sure of the legality of Kindle2 and ADA but it sure seems like the Author’s Guild hasn’t put much thought into whether or not they want to make it easy for visually impaired folks to enjoy their works.
@Dave L you made quite a statement here friend… I totally agree with you…
The blind have used text to speech devices to read non-braille books for over 20 years.
As I understand the tenets of law, if a so-called abuse has been going unchallenged for a number of years (e.g. referring to all tissues as “Kleenex,”) the claimaint loses the case. Not acting immediately to remedy the situation is as good as telling the offender that it’s okay to continue.
So does this mean I can’t read Harry Potter to my daughter at night anymore? What if I had a robot that could read the paper version? What if I had a robot that could read the version that was on the Kindle? What if I could plug the kindle into the robot? What if I could take the optics from the robot and put them into the Kindle so it could read it that way? And what if I just skipped the optics and fed the data right into the robot?
It’s a slippery slope argument and I’m not an IP lawyer, but I find the statement, “They don’t have the rights to read the book out loud” to be a bit ridiculous. Isn’t that what you do with books?
Please gimme bedtime reading robot
blah blah blah… talk here with my hand!
Pathetic bunch of whiners.
There! Now we know that thinking is NOT a requirement to be the Director of the Author’s Guild.
Ignorance is.
I have always wondered abt the future of audio books. If text to speech works the way its supposed to, I dont see why I would ever buy an audible book.
That’s like saying “who needs the audio track for this movie, I have the subtitles!”
Even very pretty fonts don’t convey the same depth.
They don’t have the right? Ok. Then GRANT them the right. Or kiss your potential sales goodbye. Tell your writers not to sell ebooks. You have a point, but you’re not seeing the big picture.
author’s guild?
never heard of them till now. guess their little ploy worked!
otherwise, i call BS. i’ve listened to many, many audio books. there is no replacement to an actor’s performance of a reading. fiction or non. but having a device read a book to you if you’re blind, or learning to read is something you can’t put a price on.
these guys need to back off. (to put it politely).
HAHA. This is hilarious.
Not only is John’s comment about performances spot-on, but the Amazon spokesman’s comment here:
“…and that listeners won’t confuse it with the audiobook experience.”
is a major point as well.
If I wanted an audiobook, I’d buy an audiobook. I seriously don’t think anyone would confuse the crappy text-to-voice “noise” with a trained audiobook reader’s work.
I was going to read the comments above out loud to my wife that basically call Paul Aiken, director of the Author’s Guild, a moron, but I was afraid of being sued…
Such BS. T to S is not the same as paying readers or actors to make an audio book. I think it is a reason for the audio book makers to step up their game.
Since it isn’t reproducing audio or distributing audio I’m not sure how they claim this is illegal. There may be terms in publishers text distribution agreements but it wouldn’t appear to be a copyright problem.
This is in the tool category where there is a lot more variation in the legal interpretation. I’m sure Amazon have crawled all over this issue so hopefully it won’t lead anywhere.
Is it OK to move your lips when you read?
Aiken may have a point, but he isn’t communicating clearly about the law, and like all good advocates, he’s really stretching definitions. (but unlike a good advocate, his definitions would separate what the law says is legal form what common sense does.)
There are two rights which could possibly be infringed by the text-to-speech capabilities of the kindle. The derivative work right and the public performance right.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000101—-000-.html
__________________________________
A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.
To perform or display a work “publicly” means—
(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or
(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.
__________________________________
Given those definitions, the Kindle’s text-to-speech right really doesn’t rise to a public performance unless you, say, broadcast the sound over an amp with lots of random people around.
The question of whether using text-to-speech creates a derivative work is open to interpretation, but I’d say the following: it’s unlikely that the kindle stores a copy of the ‘audio’ of the speech, so nothing copyrightable is created–copyright law only applies to “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” The key there is fixation: no fixation, no ‘work’ under copyright law, so the question of ‘derivativeness’ (for lack of a better word) is moot.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000102—-000-.html
(Disclosuse: I am a lawyer, but the above comment is in no way legal advice for anyone.)
Thanks Tim for the non-hysterical answer.
Whilst I don’t agree with the way the AG has articulated this (even though I am an author) I can see where the response comes from. Authors barely make a living as it is (and many don’t make a living at all) and the possibility that another line of revenue in the form of audiobook royalties might disappear has to worry people. Hence the somewhat poorly articulated, knee-jerk reaction.
It seems to me that the e-book file is fixed. Any digital file is not “fixed” in the sense that it has to be “read” by whatever technology. The fact that the e-book file was designed for recreating a visible rather than audible version of the book, doesn’t seem to affect whether it’s fixed or not. For example the kindle doesn’t store a copy of the “image” of the pages either. It recreates it by reading the file every time. The fact that text-to-speech technology can recreate audio from the same code doesn’t change the fact that the audible recreation of the book is an adaptation or transformation (i.e. a derivative) of the text version.
Text to speech is in no way derivative.
It’s transient and exists only for the time the words are “spoken”.
If the text to speech output were to be recorded or broadcast, THEN it would be a derivative work.
The Author’s Guild are making themselves look like total fools.
It’s exactly the same concept as me reading a book out loud to myself. To suggest anything else is utter lunacy.
I agree with all above (most?). Audio books are about performance. That’s like saying the same thing about something that reads lyrics. “It’s copyright infringement on music since it’s audible!” No, recorded music is a perfomance using professional talent and creativity. It is not the emotionless reading of words. It’s the same for audio books vs. Kindle reader. One’s just data, one’s a performance by a human using professional talent.
So there.
just because they are different things doesn’t mean copyright law is suspended. you can’t record yourself reading every beatles lyric ever written in a monotone and sell it. and you can’t publish your own book of beatles lyrics either, despite the fact that neither are “music”. your argument is that the emotionless reading of words sucks, and therefore you shouldn’t need to license the copyright to produce it. if it sucks so much, nobody would want their kindle to have this capability.
Well, think about the people who make their living writing those books. Shouldn’t they be able to profit from doing so? Writers have to pay the mortgage and electricity bills and put food on the table just like everyone else.
It’s called copyright law, folks. This is nothing new. You write it, you own it. And you can decide who gets to profit from it.
Kathy, those authors are already making money from the text of the book–both in print and kindle form. That is copyright law–nothing new there.
Where you get into trouble is asserting “You write it, you own it. And you can decide who gets to profit from it.”
That’s not copyright law. Never has been, never will be.
See my comment above for a brief discussion of how the law might look at the Kindle’s text-to-speech capability.
Sure they do. That’s why when somebody uses the text to speech function on their kindle, they will have already paid for the (e)book. It’s not as if they are stealing/pirating the book.
If you’re going to drop all that money on a kindle 2, you are obviously a lover of books, and of reading. I can’t imagine anyone who loves reading, using the text to speech function, when they can read the book more quickly, accurately and with more feeling than the digitised text to speech functionality.
If you are a lover of audio books, you will buy the audio book. You won’t buy an eBook so the kindle can read it to you in a horrible voice with no expression or feeling.
So what demographic do you have left? People who for whatever reason, cannot physically read.
First its the music industry and now its the publishing industry. Fuck all these fucking pricks that try to stop people from doing the most natural things with their media. Once someone fucking buys it, they can do whatever they want with it, even if its music, a book, a car or anything else. “They don’t have the right to read a book out loud.” Why dont you go fuck yourself Mr Aiken.
These same pricks would also prevent people from every talking to each other in order to prevent copyright infringement if there was a way to do it.
FUCK ALL THESE COMPANIES CLAIMING SHIT AFFECTS THEIR COPYRIGHT. NOOBS.
I wonder if the current Director of the Author’s Guild know apple computers come with text to speech functionality ? Text to speech is not new technology. It only take’s common sense to realize there is a difference between Kindle reader and audio books.
Its a bit ridiculous to have to pay for the same book TWICE, just because I want the data therein presented in different ways.
We have copyrights and patents because granting monopolies enables people to produce things that we can enjoy. We do it because it benefits us to do it.
Frankly, I don’t see how paying two or three times for the same thing benefits society.
It’s like asking me not to remove sausage from its casing and have the mince!
This looks more like a question of perception than reality. It seems to make more sense for regulators and lawyers. Beyond that, arguments build up
MM
I think their claim is ridiculous, but are they a conservative group? I like how that word was used as a condescending adjective. Those damn conservative authors!
Paul Aiken spews fertilizer. It’s time for the Author’s Guild to get a new director.
Someone please serve that guy a big steaming cup of STFU. Please.
“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud”. Look at that. Again. That’s all I have to say.
The only argument I can imagine that would work to the Author’s Guild benefit is the narrow focus of the Kindle machine. Yes, speech-to-text is commonplace and used by visually impaired/disabled people but that is mostly for general use purposes. The Kindle is not a general use device. It is made explicitly for the distribution and consumption of books. It’s a flimsy argument though.
Many people have made valid points about why we, as readers, should be able to use text-to-speech technology, and why authors and publishers should encourage the development of these kinds of tools. This is generally a separate question, though, from whether Amazon has the right to provide this “use” without ever entering into an agreement with the author (or rightsholder).
It’s fine to disparage Mr. Aiken for wanting to discourage the development of technology that will ultimately benefit readers, if that is in fact his position. Or for focusing on minor issues and missing the big picture, if you have reason to believe that’s the case (not that he wrote the wsj article).
Let’s agree that the argument that Amazon can do as it pleases because it’s a lovable, benevolent friend to authors does not hold a lot of water. Nor does the argument that Amazon should be allowed to do this because the audio the Kindle will be producing will be “crappy” (for example, nobody mistakes an old bootleg movie for the original either). Lastly, don’t confuse the claim that what Amazon is doing is “illegal” with an argument that nobody should be doing it–it’s not wrong to provide text-to-speech capability, but it might be wrong to do so if the right to provide text-to-speech capability to a book belongs to someone else and you never got permission.
Consider this: speech-to-text technology also exists. If you buy an audio book, should Amazon be allowed to let Kindle owners convert this to text which they can display and read on their Kindle? Does it matter that rather than doing this conversion themselves, and then illegally distributing electronic text, they give you the software for free so you can “do it yourself”?
Perhaps the ideal situation is that customers can simply buy a book one time, and have access to every format (print, electronic, audio, etc.) and translated perfectly into every language. But given a system where each format and language may be licensed separately by an author to a different company, it’s not right for one of those companies to start providing all formats/languages to its customers without ever compensating the author.
I think that you are confusing a technological capability with a copyright issue. If I buy a book, I have the right to
1. Read it aloud to anyone I feel like read it to.
2. Read it aloud in any language (automatic translation, go figure).
And in the case of many books,
3. Use the pages as toilet paper.
1. Ok, sure, and Amazon can read it aloud to themselves too. But they can’t organize a public reading of it, and charge people admission, for example. You do not have a limitless right to share a book with others. In any event, there is a difference between personal use, and providing a service to customers and profiting from it.
2. Again, you don’t have the right to sell your translation.
We’ve seen many times that you cannot provide an illegal service, using technology you’ve developed, and then say, I didn’t provide the illegal service, the technology did it. It’s a complicated matter, and there needs to be system to address it. These are not altruistic companies giving out free things to deserving readers.
Actually, I see it differently. I paid for the kindle, and got this text to speech capability. Analogous to buying a mac/pc and getting the same.
Now, I bought an e-book. Are you saying I didnt buy the right to vocalize the e-book? I understand this is more complicated because Amazon sells both books and electronics, but I do see these are separate issues.
I agree with you that this is not a cut and dry copyright issue. My initial comments were in response to the general opinion that this was a cut and dry technology issue. I’m not sure that you can separate the two.
And I think this is supported by the fact that Amazon itself seems to imply that if their text-to-speech technology got too good, and that you might mistake it for an audiobook experience (or find it an adequate replacement at the right price), then they would in fact be doing something improper. If this is purely a technology issue, there should be no limit to the experience their text-to-speech software provides, yes?
I think if you buy an e-book, you personally do have the right to vocalize the e-book. But this seems to imply that the natural state of a book is in some kind of open source, digital format, that anyone is free to manipulate however they see fit, and that’s simply not the case. If authors wanted, they could make their work available only in some bizarrely encrypted format that could be displayed electronically, but resisted capture and could not be accurately photographed. They could print their books on paper that dissolved upon a single reading.
The fact of the matter is that copyright law is inadequate in predicting and addressing every possible usage of a book. If twenty years ago, you were a publisher, and an author told you, well look, this contract does not seem to address the possibility the millions of people will one day have portable telephones, and will want to read my novel on the phone’s miniature screen, what would you have said? And yet it would be inappropriate, twenty years later, for a publisher to say, well, basically we don’t have to pay you for any of those sales. In the case of Amazon, publishers make files available for the purpose of electronic display on the Kindle. Theoretically, those files do not have to be compatible with Amazon’s technology for any other purpose, and could in fact resist any other use. The fact that no such protection exists is not a tacit agreement that the files can be used in any manner whatsoever.
Authors, publishers, retailers, software developers, electronics manufactureres, etc., should have an agreement that accurate reflects the value that consumers are receiving and benefits the producers of that value appropriately. Nobody simply enjoys witnessing digital text transformed into speech (or not for $9.99 anyway). The value is in being able to conveniently receive a book in an audio format. If copyright law does not adequately address text-to-speech capability, then that needs to be revisited. It doesn’t mean it’s ok for one party to unfairly exploit that (alleged) loophole.
I’m not trying to paint Amazon as some evil corporation either. But they are a self-interested company, obviously, so I disagree with the sentiment that other members of the publishing world, such as the Author’s Guild, etc., who might take issue with Amazon’s attitude that they can do whatever they want, are obviously incompetent idiots. That’s just a strange position to take, as far as I’m concerned.
Let’s consider the economics of this.
Consumer buys e-book. Consumer has device read e-book to him. Publisher and author receive payment for purchase of e-book.
Alternative. Consumer is not allowed to let device read book to him. Consumer does not buy e-book. Publisher and author make no money.
It’s as simple as that.
> It’s as simple as that.
Obviously false.
Company A licenses rights to distribute book in electronic text format. Company B licenses rights to distribute book in audio format.
Company A provides customers with free ability to translate electronic text format to audio. Company B goes out of business. Company A triples prices.
Not that it’s as simple as that either…
Huh?
So you think that people buy a book in text and audio format? Doubtful.
Comapny A triples prices? What????
Triple price on a book and guess what happens? That’s right, NO ONE buys it. There are lots of books around and very few (if any) that are “Must haves”. I maintain that it is a very simple proposition.
If that doesn’t convince you, listen to a book read to you with text to speach technology and one with a voice-over artist (or the author) reading it and tell me if you think the kidle will really steal sales from someone who wants a book-on tape.
It really is very simple if you consider what really happens.
My point is that the issue isn’t really about what the consumer wants or gets. It’s about who has the rights to provide it to the consumer. If I invent a machine that will take an ordinary book, scan the pages, and create an audio copy of the book (albeit a crappy one), that doesn’t mean that I have the right to use it and charge customers for the audio copies. The right to create and distribute audio versions of the book (crappy or not) is owned by the author, who is likely to have licensed that right to a Publisher, who is likely to have sublicensed that right to another Publisher who specializes in creating audio books.
The fact that Amazon has invested anything at all in developing this capability for the kindle, means that there is some value to it, regardless of whether it impacts sales of traditional books-on-tape. And the fact that the exclusive rights to create audio versions of the work are owned by someone else, means that Amazon should be paying someone. In any event, there’s no point in speculating about the value of text-to-speech stuff. I wouldn’t have thought anyone would pay to have unbelievably bad 5-second versions of pop songs play on their cellphones. oops.
As well, Amazon is competing with other companies that produce e-readers. It’s not really a great idea to turn a blind eye if it seems like Amazon might be willing to disregard copyright law in its efforts to dominate the e-reader market. Please don’t think that will be good for consumers.
I wonder if they’re anything like the magician’s guild…
IANAL, but I think this could be turned into a class action suit.
Maybe the Guild has been gulled, and their attorneys are the only ones who are trying to make this an issue, looking to create a fee-effectuating fracas.
Maybe Aiken ain’t an ass-hat after all.
CRAZY!
So some union has the “job” of reading books, so we can’t have technology do it?
this is he same old union vs technology and productivity war… that is why it takes (by contract) 50% more people to take the cargo off a ship then needs to, because you are not allowed to automate it! (since the union will loose jobs…)
Unions are EVIL!
The old war of union Vs technology and innovation.
The union will loose money since its workers will be needed less to d a job that can be done by a computer.. so they will fight it.
Same as the reason you need 30% more workers to off load a container.. they can prevent the shipyard from using the latest technology if that means less demand for union workers
Unions are EVIL!
The Kindle 2nd generation should be one of the greatest releases in the new technological age of electronic items orientated around wireless reading.
I’m sorry, but that is just stupid. Sorry to use the S word, but the book sale is made. I bought your silly book. Now let me read it how I’d like.
And nobody is going to confuse a machine generated reading of text with an audio book. Believe me, as an audio book buyer, no sales will be lost.
~jon
I’m not sure that I fully comprehend the copyright issues here. To me the argument is about the display. Does it really matter whether the display is an audio display or a video display. Why should the technology of the display make a difference. Would anyone argue that the display of a page printed on paper raise a copyright issue different that that same page displayed on a TFT screen?
The audio book experience is completely different from that of a device reading text out loud. Unless the Kindle 2 sounds like James Earl Jones, there should be no perceivable comparison.
Reading aloud is protected free speech. For the Kindle 2 to read aloud, I’m not sure would be considered protected free speech.
The text-to-speech function makes no “fixed” recorded derivative of the work.
The text-to-speech is arguably not a “dramatic” presentation of the book, so no performance license is needed.
The Kindle 2 does not broadcast the speech unless it goes in front of a microphone. (maybe the next gen Kindle 3 Megaphone will need an ASCAP license?)
This smells like a land grab to me.
Why is the guild not using this technology to ENHANCE the book instead? Imagine the author adding non-visible markup, which the Kindle reader can use to yell, whisper, etc. And so, they charge $14.99 instead of $9.99 for “ehanced reader” versions.
Sounds like a great money maker to me!
Copyrights should not be present in this planet. Period.
Author’s Guild doesn’t represent the majority of professional authors in states. Nobody does.
Putty dumb… Authors guild is locking out the largest and fastest demographic – the illiterate!