Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Authors Guild object to Kindle 2 read aloud feature

From the WSJ:
"Some publishers and agents expressed concern over a new, experimental feature that reads text aloud with a computer-generated voice.

"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."

This reminds me of the license which came with the 1st edition e-book version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (a book in the public domain) which read:
"This book cannot be read aloud."
(No, I'm not making it up.).

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