Bitchin' Blog Posts
Kindle Swindle, Schmindle
by Candy | February 26, 2009 | Thursday at 9:53 pm | 105 CommentsI didn’t pay much attention to the release of the Kindle 2 until I got wind that many people—especially the Author’s Guild—are up in arms over its Text to Speech capability. Words are being slung into the aether, words like “derivative works” and “royalties.” And then I read Roy Blount, Jr.‘s NYT op-ed piece, “Kindle Swindle”, and boy howdy, that thing just needs to be torn into.
First of all, some background information for those of you who aren’t familiar with the legalese: the right that’s at dispute is the exclusive right, granted by Section 106(2) of the U.S. Copyright Act, of an author to “prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work.” But what does derivative work mean? To the Section 101-mobile, Robin! Because that’s where all the definitions are for the Act. It says, in sum:
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”.
The way I read the statute, there are two bars, one more stringent than the other, for derivative works. The lower bar merely requires recasting, transformation or adaptation—language that’s pretty ambiguous, and the definitions over which we can bitchfight all day. The higher bar applies even to works that transform the original so much that they in themselves qualify as “original work[s] of authorship”—Congress seemed to be trying to catch a wide variety of things in this net, so that people who attempt to claim both major and minor transformative uses are caught.
I’d argue that the Kindle fails on both counts. Fails pretty spectacularly, even, and not just because of statutory language, but because there’s really no principled way to separate the kind of reading aloud for private purposes that the Author’s Guild says is OK vs. what it says is actionable. The Author’s Guild says “Because it’s a machine, stupid!” and I say “So the fuck what?” My argument (which I’ll expand on in just a bit) is that this is a nifty new tool that makes books more usable, and it’s something to be embraced. The sky isn’t going to fall. It’s like the VCR all over again.
More legal analysis follows. And I do mean more. Also more profanity.
So what are the standards of what qualifies for derivative works? The standards, my friends, are kind of a clusterfuck, not unlike the Copyright Act is in general (author’s life plus 70, Congress? And the term extensions applied retroactively? REALLY? What the hell?). There’s a pretty clear circuit split over how much change you need to wreak on something to sufficiently “recast, transform or adapt” it so that it falls under the derivative works umbrella, as opposed to making a direct copy, or redistributing a copy you’ve already bought.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers California, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Washington and Oregon) ruled in Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co. that some schmuck cutting Nagel’s artwork out of the pages of art books, gluing ‘em on tile and selling them individually was an infringement of the derivative works right. The court isn’t entirely clear on why exactly this is enough to qualify as a derivative work; it concludes that “appellant has certainly recast or transformed the individual images by incorporating them into its tile-preparing process.” Additionally, it rules that the first sale doctrine doesn’t apply, because Section 109, which covers first sale, explicitly addresses the author’s distribution right and ONLY the distribution right, not the derivative works right. The court, again in rather conclusory terms, dismisses the first sale concern by saying “[T]he right to transfer applies only to the particular copy of the book which appellant has purchased and nothing else.”
Which, by the way, what? It makes sense, sort of, but where does the line lie with that? What happens when I buy a buncha Jen Lobo prints and stick them in tacky frames, and then sell them as-is a few years later at a garage sale. Derivative work? What about the person who buys those prints from me, and decides to chuck the frames because the light reflecting off the fake gold leaf is kind of blinding, but she can’t afford new frames and just glues the prints to some stiff posterboard before mounting them on the walls. Derivative work then? I think the Ninth Circuit, if Mirage Editions is to be binding precedent, would have to rule “yes” in the latter, but almost definitely “no” in the former, because, if for no other reason, every person who’s ever custom-framed artwork would suddenly become an infringer; notice how Section 106 doesn’t even require a sale of a work—it just requires that the work be recast, transformed or adapted.
The standard, as announced by the Ninth Circuit, is unworkable, especially given the property rights regime in America, where there’s a really strong sense of personal property—once you buy the tangible embodiment of something, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, including reselling it.
(This case, by the way, is the target of much scathing criticism. Many legal scholars hate it. Hates it, preciousss.)
And what do you know, in 1997, another case pops up involving almost exactly the same facts (the artist is Annie Lee, and instead of pages cut out of a book, it’s postcards and lithographs). It even has the same defendant, and the case is brought in the Seventh Circuit (which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin). The judge (it’s an Easterbrook opinion, to all you legal wonks out there, so you can guess how this case is going to come out) says, though not quite in these words “What the hell kind of moral rights bullshit are you trying to pull here?” and rules that it’s not enough of a transformation to infringe. And, God help me, I agree with Easterbrook. (This is almost as traumatic as the first time I found myself agreeing with Scalia.)
Lee’s works were not “recast” or “adapted”. “Transformed” comes closer and gives the ninth circuit some purchase for its view that the permanence of the bond between art and base matters. Yet the copyrighted note cards and lithographs were not “transformed” in the slightest. The art was bonded to a slab of ceramic, but it . . . still depicts exactly what it depicted when it left Lee’s studio. [. . .] No one believes that a museum violates § 106(2) every time it changes the frame of a painting that is still under copyright, although the choice of frame or glazing affects the impression the art conveys, and many artists specify frames (or pedestals for sculptures) in detail. Munoz and Mirage Editions acknowledge that framing and other traditional means of mounting and displaying art do not infringe authors’ exclusive right to make derivative works. Nonetheless, the ninth circuit held, what A.R.T. does creates a derivative work because the epoxy resin bonds the art to the tile. [. . .] If Lee (and the ninth circuit) are right about what counts as a derivative work, then the United States has established through the back door an extraordinarily broad version of authors’ moral rights, under which artists may block any modification of their works of which they disapprove. . . . Until recently it was accepted wisdom that the United States did not enforce any claim of moral rights; even bowdlerization of a work was permitted unless the modifications produced a new work so different that it infringed the exclusive right under § 106(2).
So fine—under Ninth Circuit standards, the “transformation” wrought by the Text to Speech feature on the Kindle might qualify as enough of a change to create a “derivative work,” but the Seventh Circuit standards are different, and probably wouldn’t see Text to Speech as transformative. But that’s not the last word. In Mirage and Annie Lee, the works were fixed and resold, and let’s be frank here: it’s that commercial exploitation that makes a difference, because I think even the Mirage court would have hesitated to rule that my one-time art-print-glued-to-posterboard example a derivative work. But reselling aspects aside, what happens when the changes are more transitory and used completely in private? Because the Text to Speech function reads the book on the fly, and it’s aimed at private users. Nobody is seriously suggesting that the Kindle is going to encourage mass infringement by allowing people to, say, record Nora Roberts’ latest opus and then sell them on the Kindle Crappy Ad Hoc Audiobook Black Market. (Blount, bless his soul, damns with faint praise in “Kindle Swindle” by saying that the speech synthesizer in the Kindle is “quite listenable.”)
The Ninth Circuit had something to say about that, too. For all you nerds out there, it’s a case about the Game Genie. That’s right, Nintendo tried to sue the Game Genie for preparing unauthorized derivative works. The Court is very pointed about how derivative works don’t require fixation (which makes sense, when you think about it—if I publicly perform my one-woman solo extemporaneous re-enactment of Lord of Scoundrels, I’d still be infringing on Loretta Chase’s derivative works right, even if nothing was ever fixed in permanent form; that would be a public performance, though, and not a private use). However, the court ultimately acknowledges that “[t]he Game Genie is useless by itself, it can only enhance, and cannot duplicate or recaste [sic], a Nintendo game’s output. It does not contain or produce a Nintendo game’s output in some concrete or permanent form, nor does it supplant demand for Nintendo game cartridges,” and analogizes it to a spell-checker. Like the Game Genie, the Kindle’s Text to Speech function doesn’t actually change or transform a book, it merely provides an enhancement. At the very most, it creates a duplication.
Aha, so duplication—what if it’s an infringement of the reproduction right? That’s not going to fly, either—because the definition of “copies” does have a fixation requirement.
So now all that legal malarkey is done with, I’m finally addressing the whole “machines reading out loud not OK, people reading out loud OK” distinction that the Author’s Guild has tried to make over and over again. My question is: what’s the difference? What makes the machine reading a derivative work, but not the human reading? Blount doesn’t make any kind of principled distinction. He says:
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.
So the Kindle has a built-in ability to read aloud, and that’s not kosher because Amazon hasn’t paid authors for the audio rights? You know, I have that built-in ability, too. So does almost everybody I know. It’s called literacy and a functional larynx.
But let’s assume for the moment that there is some sort of reasonable distinction between reading aloud in private as performed by a speech synthesizer vs. reading aloud in private as performed by a human. If Kindle’s speech synthesizer is covered, are ALL speech synthesizers covered? What happens if Stephen Hawking wants to read something out loud to his family? What about speech synthesizers for the blind? What sorts of messy exceptions would we need to carve out?
And here’s what really gets to me: this feature makes books more useful. It actually adds value to the books, and adding value to your books tends to, oh, I don’t know, SELL MORE BOOKS because hey, all of a sudden, your readers can listen to books in the car or while they’re doing dishes, even those books that don’t have an official audiobook edition out (and the vast, vast majority of books don’t), which means they’re going through your books even faster. Negotiating audio rights individually for the Kindle like the Author’s Guild wants to do is all well and good, but sweet mother of Pete, can you imagine the transaction costs of that? And guess who’s going to ultimately pay for it? Sure as shit not Amazon.
Another sticking point seems to be the distinction between “private use” and “commercial use.” And yeah, the Kindle is a commercial product, whereas parents reading out loud to their children constitutes a completely private act. But it’s a commercial product for private use. As long as somebody isn’t podcasting the Kindle reading Born in Ice, or selling a Kindle recording on the Kindle Crappy Ad Hoc Audiobook Black Market, I don’t see a problem. Yes, authors have a chance for a bigger slice of the pie by negotiating for audio rights, because all of a sudden you can negotiate with a discrete entity instead of every damn person who wants to read a book out loud, but is it worth it, especially since it’s ultimately going to ding the readers?
Blount also brings up the specter of improved technology. Oh no, says he, IBM is coming up with incredibly human voices that are able to mimic human speech patterns with eerie accuracy.
You know what? He’s right. It’s getting better, and it’s getting better all the time. But the analysis doesn’t change. I genuinely don’t think there’s a difference whether it’s your mom, or a cheap tinny speech synth, or freaking HAL or GLaDOS that’s reading out loud to us.
I think I’d respect their positions a lot more if they came right out and said “Yes, we DO think that reading aloud is a derivative work, and yes, all of you are infringers, but you’re probably covered under fair use.” That, at least, would expose some of the absurdities that crop up when we attempt to use copyright to control every motherfucking use, all the goddamn time.
We have this “OH JESUS THE SKY IS FALLING” brouhaha every time a new technology comes along that might result in some people maybe infringing some kind of exclusive right under the Copyright Act. Photocopying machines, VCRs, CD burners, and now the Kindle. Some copyright owners get really het up—why? Because they want to retain control. As much of it as they can, all the time. And intellectual property doesn’t really work that way. Once you sell a book, it’s out there, in the wild, wiggling its way into our minds. We’re inspired by them, we talk about them, we write about them, and we read them out loud. It enters the public discourse. It’s yours, but not really, because parts of it are ours, too. I think we’re in danger of forgetting, especially after the insane extensions of terms and the trend towards stronger and stronger protections for content creators, that the rights embodied in copyright law are meant to secure progress in knowledge—that they should be used as incentives to create and promote progress, not to clamp down on innovation. (We have patent law for that. AH HA HA HA ZING.) Copyright owners have rights—but users and consumers have rights, too. My copyright professor thinks people nowadays tend to quickly dismiss works as infringing, because hey, there’s fair use, right? But fair use is a defense. And some uses don’t, and shouldn’t, require defenses. Reading out loud in private is one of them—whether you’re using your own larynx, or a speech synthesizer.
Filed: General Bitching
Tagged: kindle
Laura K. Curtis said on 02.26.09 at 10:25 PM • [comment link]
Halle-flipping-luljah. Neil Gaiman said it best, I think, in his short post on the topic, which I will shorten even further by excerpting only one sentence: “any authors’ societies or publishers who are thinking of spending money on fighting a fundamentally pointless legal case would be much better off taking that money and advertising and promoting what audio books are and what’s good about them with it.”
MaryKate said on 02.26.09 at 10:43 PM • [comment link]
It’s CANDY! Hi Candy!
Um, that’s all, I have nothing to add to the discussion of legal matters way over my head!
Courtney Milan said on 02.26.09 at 10:52 PM • [comment link]
Hey, I just posted about this earlier today!
http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2009/02/26/kindle-read-a-loud/
To sum up: It looks a bit hypocritical to get up in arms about a technology that might obsolete an author’s rights, when you have tacitly condoned technology that has infringed on reader’s rights, especially fair use rights, for years.
(Incidentally, I wonder whether CA9’s interpretation of the right of first sale in Mirage Editions survives the somewhat more expansive view of the doctrine of first sale espoused by the Supreme Court in Quanta v. LG Electronics this last term. Which was a patent case, of course, but the two doctrines are based on the same common-law principles. I wouldn’t want to have to rely on the argument before CA9, because I doubt it would be successful, but I sure as heck would make it. And before any circuit that hadn’t ruled on the question, I would certainly jump up and down on the point.)
theo said on 02.26.09 at 10:53 PM • [comment link]
I’m curious here because I really don’t know. This isn’t a comment on the ability of the Kindle to read aloud as either good or bad.
But I want to clarify…I have an audiobook that I purchased. I was under the impression that the author of the printed book gets a percentage of the sale from the audiobook as well?
So, if that’s the case, is that what this argument really centers over?
And isn’t this a little silly since my desktop and laptop both have text to speech recognition and the desktop is almost 10 years old? This is nothing new. I’ve had the ability to listen to an ebook that way for several years. Nobody’s said anything about that.
That’s why I’m wondering.
Courtney Milan said on 02.26.09 at 11:12 PM • [comment link]
Theo,
Yes, you are completely right. It is entirely about AG wanting to capture audio rights revenue from a printed copy of a book. As for why nobody has said anything about it on a desktop versus the Kindle, well, the argument is even more specious on a desktop.
The truth goes like this. Let’s assume that the Author’s Guild is right in their claim that computers reading aloud violate a distribution right. Not something I think, but let’s say they’re right.
The Kindle with text-to-speech capability in and of itself cannot infringe copyright. It is a machine. It does not, in and of itself, infringe on copyright—anymore than a VCR does. It just sits there. Up and until the point when someone loads the machine with a book that is copyrighted, and then instructs the Kindle to read the book aloud, no violation of copyright occurs.
If reading aloud is a violation, the violation of copyright occurs when the user instructs the machine to read aloud. The user is then guilty of copyright infringement. All you can get Amazon for at this point is vicarious copyright infringement—that is, they made a device, the point of which was to enable copyright infringement.
(In that sense, the Kindle looks much like a VCR—you can easily, easily use a VCR to infringe on copyright, but the machine itself does not infringe.)
But just like the VCR, you can’t get a read-aloud machine if there are substantial noninfringing uses. On a desktop computer, there is just no chance that anyone would say there are substantial noninfringing uses—there are too many things that can be read aloud, aside from copyrighted works.
Even on a Kindle, there are a number of noninfringing uses. For instance, you could read works in the public domain. I’m not sure they’d count as substantial, not having bothered to tally them.
But there is a reason they’re going after the Kindle instead of computers—the claim on a computer is just batshit lunatic. For the Kindle itself, it’s just batshit. :)
Courtney Milan said on 02.26.09 at 11:14 PM • [comment link]
Oops. Sorry about the un-closed italics.
Sybil said on 02.26.09 at 11:14 PM • [comment link]
no clue what the fuck you just said
but holy hell you are alive
YAY
that is all hi ;)
Goblin said on 02.26.09 at 11:17 PM • [comment link]
Everything you said, Amen.
And wow, having an e-book reader that actually reads to you would be awesome for the blind! To those of you who own Kindles, Sony readers, etc, is the interface anything a blind person could easily use?
theo said on 02.26.09 at 11:24 PM • [comment link]
You know, that’s one of the things the AG brought up the other day. What a boon for the blind, they said. How can you discriminate against them?
I think it’s perfectly fair to let them use the text to speech thing, however, that said, when audiobooks are done for the blind, again, are the authors not getting royalties since the books are specifically made for them?
I guess what I’m trying to work through here is why hasn’t the AG gone after everything else and why just pick on a Kindle? I don’t have one, really don’t intend to have one. I’m just not an electronic reader. If I had my druthers though, I’d take the Sony anyway since the ability to download from a variety of places, for me, far outweighs the machine reading to me.
And thanks, Courtney, and I do understand. I suppose I was being a bit snarky to the AG with my question since really, if they want to cry foul or awesome (either way) on this one thing, why not on everything? Just seems silly to me.
And I’m NOT saying the authors don’t deserve their royalties! I’d be shooting myself in the foot if I did. There has to be a better way though, than singling out one thing when there are so many others that can be included.
And if anyone can make sense of what I just wrote…
*I hate being sick*
Lori said on 02.26.09 at 11:29 PM • [comment link]
Candy! (Read that like the gang at Cheers greeting Norm because that’s how it sounds in my head).
My grasp of the legal issues is fairly limited so a different thing strikes me about this kerfuffle. Have any of these people actually used the text-to-speech function on the Kindle? How is the quality? Because it it’s like other text-to-speech I’ve dealt with then no one is going to use it as a substitute for produced audio books. Frankly, if the quality of your audio books is such that your target audience will give them up in favor of having the Kindle read to them then the device really isn’t your biggest problem.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve done a fair amount of recording for the visually impaired. Pretty much all the clients have access to text-to-speech technology. None of them want to use it for all or even most of their reading.
Courtney Milan said on 02.26.09 at 11:35 PM • [comment link]
Yes. Audiobooks done specifically for the visually impaired are done without royalty payment to the author. It’s written into the copyright statute—and not to be tooting my own horn to much here, but I posted about this on my blog, too. :)
http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2009/02/18/copyright-and-the-blind-reader/
Amazon could have made the Kindle a beautifully blind-accessible device if they had extended their read-aloud feature to the menus. They didn’t.
Shiloh Walker said on 02.26.09 at 11:43 PM • [comment link]
Here’s my viewpoint on it…
If somebody wants to plunk out the cash for a kindle, then plunk out the cash for my books, then have the kindle READ the book to them, I’m fine with it.
It’s not like they are taking print books, making them into audiobooks and then selling/benefiting off the sale without the author getting her rightful pay.
The book was purchased, by a reader, who wants the kindle to read it to them. I’m not going to fight over that. I’d rather the author’s guild do something about piracy. If they’d dive into that fight, maybe I’d be interested. But not because the kindle will read a book outloud.
Maybe I have a simplisitic view. I dunno.
Lori said on 02.26.09 at 11:51 PM • [comment link]
I found a YouTube clip of the demo of the Kindle reading.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgxSR72TWrY
Having listened to it I stand by my earlier statement. If this is going to keep your target audience for buying your professionally produced audio books then the Kindle is not your real problem.
It’s good text-to-speech, but it’s a machine reading. It’s good for short things, but I don’t think that large numbers of people are going to want to listen to a whole book read that way. IME it’s the audio version of the “uncanny valley”. After a while it’s just creepy & strange. I don’t think AG is being at all realistic about that.
theo said on 02.27.09 at 12:09 AM • [comment link]
That coupled with the fact that books for the blind give no royalty to the author makes the blind argument the AG is tossing around rather moot then. *sigh*
Shiloh, I don’t think your view is too simplistic. It makes sense to me. The buyer has spent the money, who cares how they reap the benefits, as long as they keep it personal to them.
But yes, the piracy issue is one that, though another subject, to me is way more important than whether the Kindle can read to you or not. The whole argument then from them just seems silly at this point.
rebyj said on 02.27.09 at 12:10 AM • [comment link]
*Waves at Candy too!!*
You can’t share ebooks so if you get one more lil feature then hooray. I LOVE audio books and yet I can’t see enjoying text to speech for anything other than maybe hearing a pronunciation of an unfamiliar word. IF the computerized voice can even pronounce things correctly.
Questions: In the video link above the reading is very fast, can it be slowed down? If the authors get rights , realistically who is going to PAY for text to speech as a seperate format? Enough people to justify a lawsuit and technical changes to the e-readers?
Carrie Lofty said on 02.27.09 at 01:00 AM • [comment link]
Candy!! You’re hella sexy with all these new lawyer smerts.
Marie Brennan said on 02.27.09 at 01:05 AM • [comment link]
Posts like this prove beyond a shadow of a doubt your right to call yourself a Smart Bitch. Very awesome.
(Also, you earn geek points for the GLaDOS reference. ^_^)
Copyright law, and IP more generally, is a big hobbyhorse of mine, but I’ll spare you the wandering rant I have on the subject. On a more limited note: speaking as an author, the text-to-speech feature on the Kindle 2 doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I found out recently there’s a special arrangement with the Library of Congress for them to do audio adaptations of works for the blind, without having to jump through the hoops of purchasing audio rights—but in order to make that fly, they have to use special kinds of tapes that only work on special machines, etc, etc. (The reader for Midnight Never Come has promised to send me a CD copy for my own use—they’re allowed to do that—on the promise that I don’t distribute it.)
So there’s already a free, non-audio-rights setup in place to assist the blind . . . but it can’t cover all novels, any more than normal audiobooks do. That setup probably cuts into audiobook sales more than the Kindle will, since at least it’s a proper dramatic reading by a human being. I do not feel threatened by a mechanized voice.
she_reads said on 02.27.09 at 01:05 AM • [comment link]
This is a really interesting discussion, and honestly the author guild take on it chaps my hide! Being in a creative/artistic field myself I understand all too well about having to protect your materials and ideas and such, but this is just crazy.
I’m one of those on the fence about getting a kindle, and knowing I could ‘play’ my book to listen while I do some housekeeping or something then switch back to reading at my leisure would be a HUGE selling point to me. I also know if I had one I’d buy more books, and that = more sales for authors and publishers.
Oh, but giving me more reason to spend more on books is a bad thing, right? (rolling eyes at A.G. here)
angelwings said on 02.27.09 at 01:15 AM • [comment link]
I agree with Laura…Halle-flipping-lujah! That was good!
Lori said on 02.27.09 at 01:21 AM • [comment link]
@rebyj
All the text-to-speech I’ve dealt with has had variable speed. It’s a critical feature for the blind. I assume that the Kindle is the same, although I don’t have one so I may be wrong. IME changing the reading speed also changes some of the tonal quality so getting much faster or slower makes it sound even weirder.
That’s a problem with some human speech, but not all. I’ve been told that my voice “scales” well. Something about my accent & pitch allows it to remain understandable at a wide range of speeds. My observation is that a lot of people are understandable when you slow them down, but not when you speed them up.
rebyj said on 02.27.09 at 01:25 AM • [comment link]
Thanks Lori. If tts variable speed is available on other electronics I’m sure it probably is on the Kindle too.
Cee said on 02.27.09 at 01:39 AM • [comment link]
I miss when this site actually talked about romance novels.
Lori said on 02.27.09 at 02:03 AM • [comment link]
@rebyj
This isn’t necessarily true. Pretty much all my experience with text-to-speech is with equipment for the visually impaired. As Marie Brennen noted above, the specialized equipment has special features because of the copyright issue. I don’t know if the variable speed is part of that. Someone who actually has a Kindle would need to weigh in.
DS said on 02.27.09 at 02:11 AM • [comment link]
Good round up on case law.
I’m disappointed in Roy Blount, Jr.‘s op ed piece, but not enough to deny myself the pleasure of listening to him read his books aloud. I have a Kindle 2 and (as I said elsewhere) the text to voice is ok for nonfiction—sucks for fiction. Plus things like lists (without punctuation to separate the items) just all run together in a weird way. It is possible to change the speed—I haven’t tried. But I can promise that the text to speech function is not one I will be using much.
I wonder how much the AG things the right to turn text into crappy speech is worth?
Teresa said on 02.27.09 at 02:15 AM • [comment link]
Good analysis. This is a complicated legal issue and I’m not honestly sure where I come out. I do think the conversation is worth having and I appreciate the Author’s Guild’s diligence.
In my lifetime, author’s have seen how technology can drastically change our rights. Before e-books were in common use, authors did not foresee a problem with the concept of “in print”. Let’s face it, publishers tried to take advantage of that changing technology by essentially keeping books “in print” forever and not allowing rights to revert to authors.
That experience may explain why the Author’s Guild takes a conservative, rights-preserving stance on any new technology. Sure, current text-to-speech technology is not going to replace an audiobook experience, but that will change. Paying some token fee (or even no fee) for the audiobook rights now, when purchasing books for Kindle, will preserve the concept of text-to-speech as a distinct right in future when Audiobooks might easily be replaced by text to speech technology.
When that day comes, of course, it will be the performers who will be up in arms about losing their jobs to machines. But that is a topic for another day.
SAS said on 02.27.09 at 03:51 AM • [comment link]
As the mom of a severely dyslexic child I’ve run into this sort of crap before. It pisses me off that Amazon might be forced to remove the text-to-speech feature on the Kindle 2 because the publishing industry is seeing a “threat” where none exists. My child gets books on tape/CD through two organizations – one national and one run by our state department of education. The books are recorded in the organization’s studios by volunteer readers. Both organizations require special equipment in order to play the tapes/CDs. Part of the reason for that is that they use special long format tapes that require a special player, but part of the reason is to keep the publishing companies from going into copyright histrionics. The ironic thing is that my child asks me to purchase the actual “real” audio books on CD (the ones anyone can purchase at the book store) of the books he wants to read for pleasure. While I appreciate the organizations and love the volunteers to bits they aren’t professional voice actors like the ones who record the “real” CDs for the publishing companies and you can hear it. While they are fine for textbooks listening to them read some of the fiction books can be quite tiring and not very interesting (imagine your Grandmother reading some of the saucy passages in a romance novel to you!). I cannot imagine anyone trying to tape and sell the “Stephen Hawking” like voice of the Kindle, but I really cannot imagine anyone actually purchasing such a recording! On the other hand I can imagine the electronic voice feature being a wonderful thing for people in the blind and dyslexic community especially those on the go. It does take a couple of weeks for the books on tape/CD to arrive from the volunteer organizations (if they have the title available) and then you have to haul along the special tape player/CD player to listen to them. So I think there is a case to be made that the text-to-speech feature on the Kindle 2 is actually an accommodation for the special needs community!
Colleen Gleason said on 02.27.09 at 05:09 AM • [comment link]
I have my Kindle 2 right in front of me, and yes, you can adjust the speed of the text-to-speech. You can also change it from male to female.
We just recently had this very same discussion on one of the RWA author loops, and the consensus seemed to be pretty much what it’s looking like here.
As for me, I’m with Shiloh: spend money and effort on piracy, thankyouverymuch, Authors Guild.
Not on this robotic speech-to-text capability that really only comes into play when someone’s already bought my book and I’m already going to get royalties for it—and because it’s an ebook, can’t even loan it out to someone else….
rebyj said on 02.27.09 at 05:55 AM • [comment link]
Thanks for the info on the tts features Colleen!
Tae said on 02.27.09 at 06:52 AM • [comment link]
LK Curtis> I was going to make the same post from Gaiman.
personally I can’t imagine wanting to listen to a text-to-speech conversion of any fictional works. Audio books vs. text-to-speech, no contest, they’re really not the same thing at all.
kirsten saell said on 02.27.09 at 08:40 AM • [comment link]
Well, then maybe they should integrate audiobook/performance rights royalties into every Dr. Suess book in print, because you can be damn sure it’s going to be read aloud. Lots. Maybe they should go after all those evil libraries that do “storytime” on Monday afternoons for local kids.
Dude. I see no difference between having a person sitting next to me reading aloud, and having my Kindle or computer do it. I’ve already spent my money on the book—and if it’s an ebook, I can’t share or sell or give it away, so the author and publisher are already benefiting in other ways from the technology. Why the fuck aren’t the AG focussing on something important—like maybe educating their authors that a 6% royalty on an ebook is the equivalent of being bent over a desk and cornholed by your publisher?
Suz said on 02.27.09 at 08:47 AM • [comment link]
Wow, this may not be easy to explain, but here goes. As a professional writer—the creator of those text-to-speech words—rights taken by Amazon, rather than paid for in addition to print or ebook rights, as traditional audiobook rights are, is unauthorized use. Thus a violation of copyright law.
Mr. Blount is not even suggesting a prohibition on recorded materials for the blind or any other type of disability. In fact, the Authors Guild has for decades sponsored and provided recorded books free of charge to the blind and disabled.
It is, as usual, the writers who are being taken advantage of and quite frankly, ripped off by Kindle’s text-to-speech function. Publishers, too, but bottom line here is the writer is the creator of the material. It is his/her right to determine whether permissions to that creation are granted or denied. And if granted, receive compensation for its use. Or choose to not be compensated.
Amazon argues that rights’ permissions to print format and/or electronic print format is sufficient to include text-to-speech. Which is much the same as a large NY publishing house recently declaring that print format, including that of books contracted years before ebooks were invented, is the same as electronic book format. Therefore, no permission from the author, much less compensation for conversion from print to electronic is necessary. AG sued to halt that unfair, unlawful use, too. And won—rightly so.
It’s hard to explain to readers who love books and many of their writers who wrote them and who would never violate Fair Use themselves. Books are expensive. It’s your hard-earned money spent for them. The slippery slope here is a for-profit entity like Amazon glomming onto rights and permissions not granted it, on a technological technicality. If allowed, the bar will shift a little more, and a little more at the expense of the authors. Few of us are rolling in six-figure advances. We aren’t greedy and neither is AG. We just aren’t keen on losing what few protections we have left under copyright law.
And believe me, it’s no accident that Kindle 2’s text-to-speech capability was kept secret until its debut. Mr. Bezos knew it was in violation of copyright. The tactic and gamble here is “Okay, so try putting that genie back in the bottle after the fact.” And it’s flat-out wrong.
kirsten saell said on 02.27.09 at 09:16 AM • [comment link]
Then hasn’t Adobe been in violation of copyright for years and years? I guess I’m just not seeing it. If the genie’s out of the bottle, it’s been dancing around out here for a loonnnnng time already.
Suz said on 02.27.09 at 09:27 AM • [comment link]
Other than public domain material, Adobe’s content is restricted within the realm of Fair Use. For example, lots of Google searches take you to an book excerpt (nonfiction in particular) in Adobe format. You can scroll up pages or down, but cannot access/read the entire book.
Much like Amazon’s and others’ “Look Inside” feature. A peek, maybe even a peruse, but not the whole shebang. And still in print format, by the by . . ..
kirsten saell said on 02.27.09 at 09:33 AM • [comment link]
Except Adobe has a read-aloud function. My daughter and I had some giggles just today listening to it try to pronounce some of the Welsh names in one of my ebooks.
suz said on 02.27.09 at 10:13 AM • [comment link]
And I’ll bet Adobe secured audio rights or rights were legally waived to allow it.
Hey, I love this site and have told a bazillion others to sign up because y’all are the funniest, smartest, most loyal bunch of readers on the planet. But on this one issue, please, please, can you take a veteran fiction and nonfiction writer’s word on this? What a difference you could make with your support of content creators and AG in protesting Amazon’s sneaky Pete technicality.
I ask you, what if Amazon had outright used a human to record these books illegally? Would that be a violation of the writer’s audio rights? Assuming it’s yes, it would be, then somehow, by incorporating an electronic, simulated, gender-chooseable “voice” it isn’t a violation?
Marie Brennan said on 02.27.09 at 10:35 AM • [comment link]
But on this one issue, please, please, can you take a veteran fiction and nonfiction writer’s word on this?
But you are not the only professional writer chiming in on this, and some of us disagree with you about the threat level of the situation.
If someone buys an audiobook of my novel, they’re buying a performance of the text. There’s a big difference between that and a flat mechanical translation.
If they hear it via text-to-speech, does that mean I’m not getting paid? Of course not—because I get royalties on Kindle sales, too. I also find it highly unlikely that a consumer who wants to purchase an audio version would choose the Kindle mechanisation over a proper audiobook (assuming that’s even available), so I don’t see this cutting into those sales, either.
I honestly think there are much bigger and better things for AG and other concerned entities (myself included) to spend their time, money, and effort on.
Zaslony said on 02.27.09 at 10:35 AM • [comment link]
Oh come on! Who’s going to say that text to speech is breaking any laws? It’s completely ridiculous!
Shiloh Walker said on 02.27.09 at 11:49 AM • [comment link]
I dunno that I’d call myself a veteran fiction writer, but I’m honestly NOT concerned about the text to speech function. I’m sorry, but those who love audiobooks are NOT going to get real enthused over having a machine read a book. Machines are not people, they can not imitate people well enough for this function to have audiobook appeal.
Again, I’d much rather the AG worry about piracy than this mess.
Nora Roberts said on 02.27.09 at 02:17 PM • [comment link]
I can’t get into the legal stuff mostly because I don’t understand the legal stuff.
Candy, welcome back—even if I didn’t understand most of what you said.
The new audio feature on Kindle makes me nervous because it feels as though—once again—the content and the creators of that content are being devalued and ignored. Maybe it’s legal, maybe it’s not, but I can only go by the feel.
As far as I know, neither the creators nor the publishers were asked how they felt about this new feature. We’re paid a fee for audio rights—when a machine is used to vocalize our work.
I get that at this point this Kindle feature sounds (I assume) like Star Trek’s Data. But technology will improve, and eventually this feature may sound considerably more realistic.
What then? Audio books could see a downturn as more readers come to prefer that one-stop shopping, and who could blame them? If that happens, writers and publishers will not be compensated for their work or their investment as the makers of Kindle (or whatever electronic reader may follow) has not been required to pay for those rights.
I don’t want to piss off readers. I want readers to be able to read what and how and when they please. I’d hope readers don’t get pissed off at those of us who just want to make sure our rights and our work are protected and valued.
Courtney Milan said on 02.27.09 at 04:45 PM • [comment link]
Suz,
I just want to remind you that it is not possible for the Kindle to infringe on copyright. The Kindle is a device with features. As a general rule, devices do not infringe on copyright. People do.
In order for a copyright infringement to take place, someone would have to preload a copyrighted file on the device and then tell the Kindle to read it aloud.
At that point, the Kindle has not infringed on copyright (assuming that the TTS features do infringe on copyright). The user who has told the Kindle to read the book aloud has infringed on copyright. The Kindle, at best, has vicariously or contributorily infringed on copyright—that is, it has helped someone to infringe on copyright.
I know this may sound like an arcane distinction, but in order to say that the Kindle contributes to copyright infringement, what you need to say as a preliminary matter to finding the Kindle liable of copyright infringement, is that a user who uses a computer to read copyrighted work aloud in a private setting infringes on copyright.
And that’s what seems so problematic here. Because I think everyone takes it for granted that a user who reads copyrighted work aloud, using his or her mouth, in a private setting, does not infringe on copyright, anymore than a user who watches Princess Bride thirty times until the script has been worn into her memory infringes on copyright, or anymore than a user who has dreams about a book infringes on copyright. When you sell a book to someone, you implicitly give them rights to do things with your book in a private setting.
And this is what Candy is getting at in her last paragraph: What’s the difference between reading a book aloud, with their mouth, or having a machine do it for them? And why should copyright law care about that difference?
Courtney Milan said on 02.27.09 at 04:48 PM • [comment link]
Uh. Amazon would have to be moronic to believe that the TTS features constituted copyright infringement and release the device anyway. If Amazon willfully infringes on copyright, it could potentially be forced to pay statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement—e.g., EVERY single time someone has a copyrighted work read aloud on their Kindle, Amazon would have to cough up 150K. That would add up to a bazillion dollars very, very quickly. It is much more likely that Amazon thought, “Gee, TTS features have been around for decades. Let’s put them on this device.” There is just no way on earth that Amazon would jeopardize their business model over this. My guess is that right now Amazon is feeling a heck of a lot of whiplash, because it never, ever occurred to them that anyone would object to what they thought was a cool new feature.
kirsten saell said on 02.27.09 at 08:02 PM • [comment link]
If all authors were getting a proper (25-40%) royalty on ebooks, Would this even be an issue? Even if TTS eventually become nearly indistinguishable from a proper audiobook? And I’m not sure if Adobe secured those rights—I’d have to ask Angela James or someone—because I’m not sure if it would have occured to epublishers to bother with them. But you can be damn sure epubs have long been aware of the Adobe TTS function, and they tend to pay an appropriate royalty percentage on ebooks.
Again, I don’t think TTS is costing authors royalties. What does it matter if I get $2.00 from the sale of one ebook, or $2.00 from the sale of one audiobook? Either way, I’m making money. And because there’s no used book option for ebooks, I’m making more sales per read than I would with either print or audio.
Authors would be better served if the AG picked their battles: deal with NY’s pathetic royalty percentages on ebooks, and try to figure out ways to minimize piracy. This TTS thing is just pointless and stupid.
kirsten saell said on 02.27.09 at 08:05 PM • [comment link]
Let me just say that as a reader, I’d be pissed if I had to pay a higher price for ebooks because they were forced to include audiobook/performance rights that I, for one, never intend to use…
Jessica said on 02.27.09 at 08:14 PM • [comment link]
Nora Roberts wrote:
I am an avid audiobook listener, and a new Kindle 2.0 owner. I have tremendous respect for audiobook performers, and as things stand, there is no way the Kindle vocalizations will tempt me away from audiobooks.
That said, the Kindle voice is not *that* bad. I would compare it to my GPS, actually. I am taking a road trip this weekend, and you bet I have considered listening to the great book I am currently reading on my Kindle, if just for a little while.
As an audiobook listener, I would be happy to pay extra for a bundle that includes the audiobook and the Kindle book—but only if I could transfer the audio to my ipod for those times when lugging the Kindle around doesn’t make sense.
MichelleR said on 02.27.09 at 09:35 PM • [comment link]
When it was announced as a feature, I shrugged. It might be new to Kindle, but text to speech is not new. I took it as Bezos trying to plump up the advantages of the new version, rather than it really being a real advancement.
I have pretensions of being a writer. I’m all for writers getting everything coming to them. I donated money during the WGA strike specifically because writers deserve money made by new media. As much as I am also a reader, the scales of my loyalty are weighted strongly toward creators.
An audio book and a feature someone turns on for the two minutes they can’t be staring at the screen are separate entities. The Kindle is technology that will help writers in the long run, if it’s not smothered in its crib.
People are not thrilled with the prices of books on Kindle, and the focus should be on people understanding the advantages and the importance of fair compensation on written material. I don’t believe this is a time for writers to act as if they want to take more value from the reader, not over a cheesy ancillary feature.
Kindle allows the reader to see talk on SB for the latest book and have it in a minute, rather than going to Borders and not being able to remember the author or title. It allows them to read while the enthusiasm is still there, and it allows them to instantly buy more from that author.
That’s huge!
Huge and worth preserving.
The concern is that readers will get a double-dip—text and audio—but the truth as I go to message boards is that people are re-buying their favorite books so their keepers are always with them—or to have a complete series in one place when the next book is released.
I own or have owned 4 copies of Stephen King’s On Writing, including the audio book, and now a Kindle copy. A mechanical voice is not a substitute for King’s voice, and this is on a non-fiction book.
I used the text to speech for less than a minute, and just because my husband wanted to hear it. I don’t care about it. I have no desire to use it for anything other than perhaps the morning paper as I wipe the sleep from my eyes. It would never stop me from buying an audio book. Fiction demands to be interpreted by a human being who can imbue emotions into the words.
There are better battles and bigger opportunities!
Denise said on 02.27.09 at 11:13 PM • [comment link]
Here’s the thing that gets me about this. Text to speech has been around for a while. Heck, it’s on your computers right now if you own a MAC or Windows O/S. Kindle did not invent this, they just leveraged something that would allow more people to “read” a story, people who may not be able to do so on a normal basis.
People who have poor eyesight or are not as good at reading use text to speech tools so that they can read or have the text read to them.
A few weeks ago, I met a young girl who was considered legally blind, and whenever she needed to see anything she had to tilt her head at a certain angle to get a glimpse.
So, would you rather worry about rights or have someone who may not normally get a chance to read your story be able to enjoy it?
Marie Brennan said on 02.27.09 at 11:18 PM • [comment link]
A couple of other good responses on the topic:
Neil Gaiman says more and
John Scalzi dissects the notion that “someday” the computerized reading will be good enough to actually compete with a human performance.
Andrea M. said on 02.28.09 at 12:28 AM • [comment link]
I’ve gotta admit, I’m pretty disappointed over the petty money grubbing over a ages old feature that is, let’s face it folks, closed captioning for books.
I’m even more disappointed that so many of you are ignorantly spreading the myth that Books for the Blind, regional libraries, and the handful of non-profits out there could ever possibly provide fair and equal access—spreading this myth in order to bolster a flagging argument that it’s just not fair that you don’t get more money for a feature that has 1) been available on computers for ages and 2) you are not spending a pretty penny on!
Do you really want to be the ones levying a “Blind Tax” for your books?
I mean, you are already, you know. Making a fuss about computer reading programs just makes it oh, so much worse.
Providing half the selection at twice the price (often MUCH more) is not equal access. “Magnanimously allowing” non-profits and government programs to use volunteer labor to record library books without paying extra fees, well, isn’t. It isn’t the over-the-top generous gesture Blount (and others) have made it out to be, and it doesn’t provide anything like equality. Don’t get me wrong, as a legally blind reader, I am very grateful for the time those volunteers have spent, and it’s good to see that the AG isn’t currently interested in denying access to the patrons of our public libraries, but a device like this could mean so much to so many, is it really worth the minimal amount of profit you MIGHT get if the courts actually decide in your favor?
Steven Harper Piziks said on 02.28.09 at 03:26 AM • [comment link]
I’m not sure if it’s worth it to wade in here, but here goes.
I’ve written a dozen novels. I’m not a big name. I’m a struggling mid-lister. I see the new Kindle’s audio feature as a problem.
I love my readers. I love that they buy my books. I worked hard on them. They’re mine. And I rented my publisher the temporary right to print them in certain formats. My agreement with them didn’t include audio rights. Those rights belong to me. I created the material, and I get to decide what happens to it, just like someone who built a house gets to decide what happens to it.
If I want to let the audio rights go for nothing, that’s my choice. If I want to keep them and do nothing with them, that’s also my choice. If I want to sell them (assuming somene is interested), that’s my choice, too.
People who read my books aloud to their children aren’t infringing on the ownership of my words because they aren’t creating a mechanical reproduction of them. A recording is a mechanical reproduction. A machine that says my words aloud is a mechanical reproduction. Mechanical reproduction rights are still mine. I didn’t agree to let Amazon have them. They never asked it was okay with me. It’s as if I built that house, and Jeff Bezos decided to move in for a couple of weeks without calling first.
I don’t worry about recordings for the blind or the otherwise handicapped as infringement. I don’t think anyone seriously believes I or my fellow authors do worry about it. My middle son is autistic, and I know what it’s like to deal with a handicap.
I really feel awful when people call me money-grubbing for saying I’d like to be paid for what I created. I have a house payment, and my car has 178,000 miles on it. I have three sons in middle and elementary school. I adopted two of those sons from Ukraine, and it was really hard, and it was really expensive, and I had to go into debt to do it. I’m very glad I did it because I love them, and I tell all three of my sons this every day. But if I say I want to be paid for the hard work I put into my writing, I’m greedy or cruel or uncaring. That hurts a lot.
Courtney Milan said on 02.28.09 at 03:40 AM • [comment link]
Steven, I don’t want you to feel like I am picking on you, but you’re making an assertion that I’ve seen from Author’s Guild, and it’s one I honestly don’t understand. So I want to ask you questions, not because I want to prove you wrong, but because I just don’t understand what you’re trying to say.
This is a list of conclusions; it’s not an argument. I would really, really like to understand where you’re coming from—I hate feeling like someone is saying something that just baffles me.
So what do you mean by “mechanical”?
And what do you mean by “reproduction”?
And clearly, you need more limiting adjectives than “mechanical” in front of reproduction. You must mean that it is more than “mechanical reproduction” because when you grant someone the right to make an e-book, you’re giving them the right to mechanically reproduce your words—but, say, on a computer screen.
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 04:01 AM • [comment link]
I don’t see how having TTS is depriving any author of royalties. Because the person is still buying the book. In fact ebooks, in all their non-resellable, non-giftable, non-sharable glory have the potential to one day make WAY more money for authors than print and audio combined.
Steve, dude, if you demanded a 25-40% royalty on ebooks from your publisher, I wouldn’t call you money-grubbing. I’d call you more educated than the typical NY/print-published author. And again, I ask, if all authors were making the kinds of percentages epublished authors make on their ebooks, would we even be discussing this?
The TTS function, which has been available for AdobePDF files for years with nary a blink, hiccup or huh? from AG, does NOT produce a recording of an ebook. It does NOT reproduce an ebook. It reads it. That’s all. No different from having a person sit next to me and read the book. I honestly don’t know how the two concepts can remain distinct from each other in anyone’s mind.
TTS is not a reproduction. It’s not a violation of copyright. It’s a reading tool for ebooks.
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 04:07 AM • [comment link]
I also find it interesting that, from what I’ve seen so far, most of the authors in favor of the AG’s stand in this debate make the majority of their money from traditional publishing, whereas those in favor of leaving TTS as it is tend to be authors who make most of their money from, or got their start in—you guessed it—ebooks.
At this point, every dime I’ve made on my books has been through digital sales. And I have no problem whatsoever with text to speech.
Steven Harper Piziks said on 02.28.09 at 04:29 AM • [comment link]
Courtney, I can tell you don’t like the Author’s Guild. I’m not associated with them—I haven’t even read their position—and I’m not sure why you mention them in your question. I want to ask you, not to try to disprove your argument, but to truly understand what you’re trying to say. I hate feeling like someone is saying something that just baffles me.
To answer your question, a “mechanical reproduction” is a reproduction, or a copy, made by a mechanical, or non-human, process. A machine, such as a printing press, CD player, or computer. When it comes to words, this process usually refers to some form of print or sound.
I rented my publisher the right to mechanically reproduce my words in certain ways. I didn’t rent my publisher (or anyone else) the right to mechanically reproduce my words using sound. The Kindle can mechanically reproduce my words with sound, and Amazon didn’t ask if that was okay with me. That’s a problem.
Steven Harper Piziks said on 02.28.09 at 04:37 AM • [comment link]
“It does NOT reproduce an ebook. It reads it. That’s all. No different from having a person sit next to me and read the book. I honestly don’t know how the two concepts can remain distinct from each other in anyone’s mind.”
Kristen, I very much disagree with you. Having a little computer that will reproduce a book’s words to you whenever you want is very different from having a living person do it! I listen to audiobooks quite a lot when I drive or when I cook. I’m trying to imagine persuading my wife to read them aloud to me instead. I rather doubt she’d be up for it.
Sound =is= a reprodution of words. If you produce a play (i.e., change the written form of the play to a sound version), you have to ask the playwright’s permission because you’re reproducing the playwright’s words.
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 04:42 AM • [comment link]
So blind people should have to either nag a loved one into spending hours reading to them, or wait on the less than adequate charity of audio for the vision impaired?
If you produce a play, you’re paying for performance rights. Are we going to go after libraries that put on a weekly storytime, now?
Courtney Milan said on 02.28.09 at 04:43 AM • [comment link]
Steven, I apologize for mentioning Author’s Guild. I didn’t mean to imply any affiliation, or spokesmanship, on your part, just that I saw some similarities. Let’s assume you’re speaking for you.
I think I see how you’re parsing things. Here’s my question for you: You didn’t rent to anyone else the right to produce sound using human voice, either. At least, if your contract is anything like mine, it is as silent on the question of human voice as it is on the question of mechanical voice.
Why can someone read your book aloud to a friend on a car trip? Or do you not think that they have the right to do so?
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 04:48 AM • [comment link]
I still don’t see the distinction between the computer’s voice, and the human one.
Heh, for all you Trekkies out there, would Commander Data be in violation of copyright by reading aloud to his cat, simply because he’s a machine?
Suz said on 02.28.09 at 05:07 AM • [comment link]
Steven, just so you know, I wholeheartedly agree with you, as I and Nora Roberts also posted and tried to explain earlier. Hard as we’ve all tried to show the difference, to explain what’s at stake, the consensus is:
it’s fine for Amazon to take and profit by unassigned copyrights to anyone’s intellectual property-with or without payment.
It is *not* acceptable for writers to retain or assign copyrights to intellectual property they created—with or without payment.
Steven Harper Piziks said on 02.28.09 at 05:15 AM • [comment link]
Humans reading aloud to each other never been a rights issue unless someone charges admission to a large crowd. Humans reading aloud to each other is a fine and wonderful tradition so ingrained into our society that no one worries about it.
To read aloud, you need a reader, a copy of the book, and an audience. It also requires considerable effort from the reader. The reader has to work to engage the listener, has to read clearly, and has to stay within earshot of the listener. The reader will eventually grow tired or bored or realize she has other things to do.
A mechanical reproduction like one Kindle produces is very different from a human who reads aloud. The Kindle is there whenever the listener wants. Three a.m. at the airport, no problem. In a taxi in Newark, no problem. While you’re painting the family room, no problem. A human reader won’t do for this for you. The experiences are simply not comparable.
Steven Harper Piziks said on 02.28.09 at 05:19 AM • [comment link]
Kristen, copyright law already makes an exception to reproduce copyrighted material in other forms the handicapped can sense without having to get author permission. In other words, the blind already have the right to get audio versions of any book they want for free. So that’s a non-issue.
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 05:41 AM • [comment link]
Um, yeah, they have the right. But right and reality do not always coincide. I’ve talked to a few vision-impaired people, and I can tell you, the number of books issued in audio for the blind represents a minuscule fraction of the books available to sighted people. And I know several vision-impaired readers who use TTS software because it’s the only way they have to read the books THEY want.
As for the other argument: You seem to be saying having a person read aloud is okay because it’s a hassle. Well, if I decide I’m going to scan a Nora Roberts print book, make multiple physical copies of it and give them away (not for profit), this also takes considerable effort. I have to work to keep the pages aligned in the scanner, I have to maintain the proper toner levels so the text is clear, I have to physically staple the book together and deliver it to the people I want to give it to. I will probably eventually grow tired or bored or realize I have other things to do. I can’t do this at 3 AM at the airport, or while I’m painting the family room. Does this make it okay?
No. Because I’m copying the book.
Reading a book is not the same as copying it, no matter whether the voice is mine, or my daughter’s, or my neighbor’s or my computer’s.
John C. Bunnell said on 02.28.09 at 05:51 AM • [comment link]
It seems to me that there are at least three distinct issues tangled in the larger discussion: (1) whether a user’s invocation of the Kindle’s (or any other device’s) text-to-speech (TTS) feature on a purchased ebook constitutes an exercise of audio-reproduction rights, (2) whether (and to what degree) the value and status of an author’s rights to license audio adaptations are affected by TTS usage in general (and by the Kindle’s implementation in particular), and (3) whether Amazon should have secured audio-reproduction rights to works it distributes for use on the Kindle.
My immediate take on #1 is that consumer use of TTS probably is not an exercise of audio rights. This is as much a matter of instinct as it is of legal insight. As I understand TTS, the audio performances it generates are ephemeral—that is, a synthetic voice reads the text “live”, just as a human would, and no separate recorded version of the text is created. That looks to me like a clear “fair use” exercise, subject to the same restrictions on size-of-audience, scope of copying, etc., that govern other ways in which fair use does and doesn’t occur.
#2 is a good deal stickier. The problem here is that there’s a lot of value—or at least, perceived value—in the exclusivity of a given set or subset of rights in a literary work. Novelists license publication rights exclusively to a specific publisher, options to develop film or TV shows are usually granted on an exclusive basis, and it’s generally believed that someone buying the exclusive right to distribute a work should pay more than someone buying a non-exclusive right to distribute that same work.
Exclusivity was generally easy to administer and police in the pre-Web universe—with some exceptions. The advent of e-rights began to complicate that equation, and the explosion of Web-publishing has made exclusivity even more of a bugbear. This, I think, is what’s worrying the AG (and Nora and Steven above); if the Kindle is offering readers the functional equivalent of an on-the-fly audiobook, then someone who’s already licensed “exclusive” audio rights elsewhere may find themselves in a contractual double-bind. And someone who hasn’t licensed audio rights may find it difficult to market “exclusive” audio rights if audio-capable Kindle versions of their texts are out there in the marketplace. [I have a dog in this hunt, in fact, given that I’ve got two ebooks available on Kindle.]
I think it’s going to take some time for an answer to the #2 question to shake out of the marketplace—and that either judicial or legislative refinement of copyright doctrine may need to be a part of that solution. [I’m waiting for C. E. Petit at Scrivener’s Error to weigh in on the legal aspects; he’s by far the most perceptive author-centric legal commentator I’ve found on the Web to date.]
As to #3: Oddly enough, this one seems easy to me—Amazon, I think, is getting a bad rap. Amazon is selling books, and it’s selling ebook readers, but as far as I can tell, it is not acting in the role of publisher in this situation. Ergo, it isn’t Amazon’s job to acquire or police publication rights in works it distributes via Kindle, any more than B&N or Powell’s are obligated to ensure that the publishers of the books they sell are honoring the terms of the contracts with the authors of those books. Even if one believes that TTS is an illegal exercise of audio rights (and I respect that opinion even if I don’t agree with it), it seems to me that redress for any infringement should look to the publishers and not to Amazon.
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 06:03 AM • [comment link]
One thought. Because I’ve listened to TTS and could only tolerate it for about two minutes, so I can’t imagine it’s going to be replacing actual audiobooks for sighted people anytime soon.
But it is a useful tool for the blind. Vision-impaired people have access to a limited number of audiobooks made especially for them, and for which (if I’m not mistaken) no royalty is paid to the author. If TTS-enabled ebooks are now a viable option for vision-impaired readers (of whom I know a few), then the author is actually making money off those ebook sales that they otherwise wouldn’t off the sale a charity audiobook. How is this cutting into an author’s royalties? One would think the more people who have access to a royalty paying format of your book would be a good thing, no?
And point 3 above is very apt. All through this debate I kept thinking to myself, do makers of VCRs have to pay production companies a percentage of their sales based on the mere fact that VCRs can make recordings? How would that even be done, legally, since there’s no contract?
Courtney Milan said on 02.28.09 at 06:10 AM • [comment link]
John, I think you are dead on—and I like the way you’ve dissected it. I see that #2 is a much stickier problem than the copyright problem, and I can see why people are unhappy about it—even though it’s not copyright infringement, it creates problems.
It seems to me that in the morass of #2, there is a very simple fix. If there is no copyright problem (and I do not think there is), and yet there is an erosion of value to audio rights from the Kindle, authors (and their agents) have a really simple solution: Tell your publishers that you will not authorize distribution for the Kindle for any future works. If you are Nora Roberts (and I am not, but Nora is), you might even be able to win that battle. :)
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 06:15 AM • [comment link]
Or you could try to negotiate a decent royalty on your ebooks, to offset the potential loss. Say, bump the standard 6% NY offers to the standard 35-40% epublishers pay? Just saying…
SonomaLass said on 02.28.09 at 06:37 AM • [comment link]
Here’s a light-hearted but interesting take on this issue:
Wil Wheaton
I’ve had text-to-speech on my computer for years; never occurred to me to use it with e-books. I really think audiobooks and text books are different markets; I seriously doubt that’s going to change.
FD said on 02.28.09 at 06:42 AM • [comment link]
H’mmmm.
I’ve had text-speech facilities available on every computer I’ve had for at least the last decade. Currently, I have it on a mac, an xp pc, a laptop, an asus eee, and a cellphone. This is not new technology, it’s bundled with every new pc.
But, oddly, the market for audiobooks hasn’t bottomed out yet. That’s because an audiobook is a recording of a performance - text to speech is merely the written characters in an audible format. I don’t think they are the same thing.
All Amazon is doing is selling a device with software that has that capacity. The Authors Guild going to take on Adobe too? Microsoft? The myriad of small vendors?
Colour me baffled by this.
Computer Geek who donates to the EFF said on 02.28.09 at 07:05 AM • [comment link]
@Steve:
What you do with your money is your business. But that you have put yourself into debt has nothing to do with your arguments about copyright infringement of TTS. In a nutshell, you are spouting rhetoric to grab at our heartstrings.
Did you have a VCR recorder in the 80s? Do you have a DVR in your home now? Do you own an MP3 player? If you said yes to any of these questions, then your statements about copyright infringement for your books is hypocritical. From what the EFF says about the Betamax Case (Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984)):
http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/betamax/
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 07:05 AM • [comment link]
See!? I always said that Wesley Crusher dude was the smartest guy on that starship…
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 07:07 AM • [comment link]
Apparently the technology didn’t actually, really and for true exist until the Author’s Guild noticed it or something…
Rosa said on 02.28.09 at 08:33 AM • [comment link]
You know that “what’s the won’t-read line for you” discussion a few weeks ago?
I’m rapidly hitting a new one - authors who make these repeated public statements about new book technology.
It pisses me off to have creators assume their audience is mostly theives, no-taste scum who would put them in the poorhouse without thinking twice about it. Especially artists who I’ve paid for the same work from multiple times - whether in cassette, electronic and CD format, or in hardback and paperback.
Mostly I have just been staying out of these discussions because if my favorite writers are going to act like they think their fans are assholes, I don’t want to know.
Andrea M. said on 02.28.09 at 08:35 AM • [comment link]
Nobody yet has asked that authors stop being paid (at least here).
I only ask that authors stop asking to be paid twice by people who read with their ears instead of their eyes.
Because we ALL have expenses.
I empathize with your personal situation, so I won’t try and one-up you with my own experiences, but please do understand that it is a humiliating experience to need to be read to in public.
I am incredibly frightened that my small amount of computer independence will be stripped away by people lured in by the jingle of phantom coins…
Your bird’s in your hand. I already bought the book, remember? Why go after the blind girl’s bird in the bush?
Nora Roberts said on 02.28.09 at 01:50 PM • [comment link]
~It pisses me off to have creators assume their audience is mostly theives, no-taste scum who would put them in the poorhouse without thinking twice about it~
I honestly don’t know where you’re getting this in this discussion. Some of us have concerns, or have viewpoints that don’t march with the majority of readers here, but no one’s called or intimated that readers are thieves or assholes.
However, money-grubbing was a term used to describe some authors who have objections or concerns.
Computer Geek who donates to the EFF said on 02.28.09 at 07:06 PM • [comment link]
@Steve:
What you do with your money is your business. But that you have put yourself into debt has nothing to do with your arguments about copyright infringement of TTS. In a nutshell, you are spouting rhetoric to grab at our heartstrings.
Did you have a VCR recorder in the 80s? Do you have a DVR in your home now? Do you own an MP3 player? Does your computer have a CD burner? If you said yes to any of these questions, then your statements about copyright infringement for your books is hypocritical. From what the EFF says about the Betamax Case [because they say it better than I can] (Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984)):
http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/betamax/
And there you go. EFF also comments:
Again, the EFF says it better than I do.
theo said on 02.28.09 at 08:20 PM • [comment link]
Just an FYI, from Nathan Bransford’s blog this morning:
His blog post can be found here:
http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/02/breaking-amazon-will-give-authors.html
He does give a link to the article in PW, but unless you’re a paying member, you can’t read it.
theo said on 02.28.09 at 08:22 PM • [comment link]
Sorry!! That should be PM (Publisher’s Marketplace)
my bad…
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 09:43 PM • [comment link]
Well, I suppose that’s something. Vision-impaired people will at least be spared the discomfiture of having to get Granny or a friend or someone to read them MY smoking hot sex scenes and graphic, bloody violence… Hope the fact that TTS is/is not enabled for specific titles is noted before the consumer hits the buy button.
Candy said on 02.28.09 at 09:44 PM • [comment link]
Attempting to quickly respond to some points I’m seeing here (I’m in Eugene for an Environmental Law conference and fucking off on the Internet instead of being a good little networker):
1. “Mechanical reproduction”: Reproduction, as statutorily defined (at least in terms of “copies”) requires fixation. All the examples given by Stephen produce concrete, fixed copies. There’s a different standard for “ephemeral recordings” by organizations that broadcast to the public, but that’s broadcasting to the public. Sensible legal standards recognize the difference between public performance and private use, and ephemerality vs. fixation, because otherwise, you’d have to police people pretty hard in the privacy of their own homes in order for the legislation to have any sort of teeth.
2. Machines becoming so good, they’re capable of mimicking the experience of listening of listening to a human reading aloud: Scalzi said it best, as he often does.
3. Content creator rights being stepped on: Stephen and Nora have brought up the idea that content creators are being bilked somehow by this functionality, and Stephen further made the analogy about his book being akin to a house he’s built.
People resort over and over again to personal property analogies when talking about intellectual property, and those analogies are terrible, because personal property is 1) excludable (I can prevent you from using my car) and 2) rivalrous in consumption (if I use my car, you can’t). Intellectual property is not readily excludable (e-books come really damn close, though, and I know quite a few people who refuse to buy e-book readers because of the DRM), and is non-rivalrous. It really is its own beast, which is why the grant of monopoly is only for a limited term (ignoring the fact that oh sweet Jesus Congress has interpreted “limited” in a way that only Disney or a Tolkien elf could love—Dear Congress: We don’t live in Rivendell. Love, The People) and it’s why we have a strong interest in declaring certain uses non-infringing. I really don’t see how reading aloud in private, whether by TTS or human, is somehow a derivative work—there’s not quite enough transformation, especially if a machine does it (honestly, a human reading it aloud and doing all the little interpretive steps of cadence and different voices for the different characters comes a LOT closer to being a derivative work), and it’s ephemeral, and it’s in private.
Computer Geek’s link and excerpt to the EFF take on why copyright shouldn’t be used as a tool to chill innovations in technology is spot-on, too.
4. Convenience vs. inconvenience being the main article of difference between reading aloud by machine vs. human: I thought I’d addressed that with my “TSS adds value and usability to books and therefore helps people go through your books quicker, which means you’re going to sell more books.” And honestly: do you want a statutory standard turning primarily on convenience vs. inconvenience for the user—i.e., you want something that INCONVENIENCES THE CONSUMER in the use of something they’ve legitimately bought and seek to legitimately use in the privacy of their homes a desirable legal standard?
Oh wait, I’ve forgotten about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. My bad. ZING.
But I’ll throw in something else Scalzi said: very few people buy both an audiobook and a paper book. The vast majority of consumers buy one or the other. By buying a copy of your book and having it read aloud to them, they’ve paid the price of admission, so to speak. Having another sort of regime results in double-dipping at the expense of consumers.
5. Why the visually impaired are right to worry about precedent being set for TTS being declared “infringement”: it’s not just the Kindle, which admittedly isn’t a device for the sight-impaired. If TTS is declared infringement, that means ALL TTS technologies are going to be infringing, AND it’s going to be a clusterfuck for both licensing and enforcement.
6. The idea that this is mostly a fight between money-grubbing authors and thieving users: Sarah and I have a book coming out in April, and I think it’s pretty damn clear where I stand. I am not a disinterested party. (Note: I do not purport to speak for Sarah in this.) However, to be fair, I’m not looking to make a living writing books, so my stake is considerably smaller. But many other authors who do write for a livelihood (including Neil freaking Gaiman) have spoken up, too—they’ve been linked to above, and other authors have posted comments here. This is an issue about the scope of rights afforded us as consumers, and when it comes down to it, we’re ALL passionate consumers of books, otherwise we wouldn’t be hanging out here, doing what we do. Consumers have a stake in intellectual property rights, too, and our stake is often ignored—hell, it’s been downright shredded in the past 30 years. I’m kind of allergic to the idea of consumers being restricted EVEN MORE in the use of legitimately obtained authorized copies of authored works. It honestly saddens me that Amazon has conceded so early in the game. Nobody has explained to me yet any kind of logical, principled distinction yet between TTS reading in private vs. human reading in private, other than “We don’t want it to be TOO convenient for the buyers of our books to read them in the privacy of their own homes after they’ve bought an authorized copy.” Somebody pointed out that it’s the book equivalent of closed captioning, and I couldn’t agree more.
Candy said on 02.28.09 at 10:00 PM • [comment link]
One last thing: I think another distinction people who are against the TTS feature on the Kindle are making is that “Reading aloud by people is a good old-fashioned tradition, and reading aloud by machine isn’t, therefore it’s infringing.” I can understand this gut reaction, but at the same time, it’s not really drawing any kind of use-based or legal difference, but is instead relying on tradition. This is good enough for the Supreme Court when it comes to the Fourteenth Amendment (OH SNAP TAKE THAT SCOTUS), but I want us to craft a more logical, consistent standard.
DS said on 02.28.09 at 10:10 PM • [comment link]
I think the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002 would cover the use of TTS by individuals who meet that definition. But this doesn’t cover others who have disabilities that might affect literacy.
Nora Roberts said on 02.28.09 at 10:22 PM • [comment link]
~6. The idea that this is mostly a fight between money-grubbing authors and thieving users:~
I don’t think the fact that I have concerns about this feature on the Kindle makes me money-grubbing any more than I think readers who like the feature or believe it’s just fine are thieves.
I don’t think this is just about the scope of rights for readers, but the scope of rights for the creators and publishers of the work AND the scope of rights for readers.
I don’t know if this is infringing or not, and suspect it falls into some murky gray area. I can, again, only go by feel. It feels as if by adding this feature on the device, Amazon hasn’t considered my rights or choice as the creator of the work, nor considered the rights of my print and audio publishers.
Apparently, now they are making that consideration.
I’m not asking anyone to buy a book twice. But if the reader wants different forms of the book, then it’s her choice to buy, rent or borrow those different forms.
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 11:01 PM • [comment link]
I think that’s what bothered me the most about Steven’s argument. The idea that it’s okay for blind people to be able to access his work, as long as it’s a pain in the ass for them. Or that they should have to wait on charity and only read the titles that have been deemed worthy by those who provide recordings for the blind. Or that they should have to pay the hefty price of audiobooks if they really want to read something. God forbid, we provide people with handicaps more ways to be independent.
I don’t expect more money to come my way because vision-impaired (or sighted, for that matter) people have access to TTS on my titles. My publisher didn’t ask for audio rights for my work, but the digital rights clause on their boilerplate seems to encompass pretty much everything a computer can now do (and leaves a little wiggle room for future technological advances). When I signed I was fully aware of Adobe’s TTS function (among others available), and never saw a conflict between TTS and audio rights, which I may or may not wish to exploit in the future.
This whole thing just feels like it was brought up now because 1) due to some skeevey behavior on their part of late, it’s easy to cast Amazon as the bad guy, and 2) areas of the industry that have been only vaguely aware of the digital side of publishing are only now catching up to the technology. And, as always seems to be the case, they ignore a perfectly viable, functional business model in favor of clinging to the past.
Being a bright-eyed optimist, I have some small hope that eventually this (like royalty percentages, digital list price, DRM, and a host of other issues NY seems largely clueless about concerning ebooks) will all settle itself in a reasonable fashion.
Because, to be honest, it gives me nightmares just thinking about the legal morass that will be stirred up if some court somewhere decides TTS constitutes infringement. Because, ffs, this is not a new technology.
rebyj said on 02.28.09 at 11:29 PM • [comment link]
So authors get the option of retaining their rights. That’s good for them but at this time they still won’t make money on those rights but if they choose the option of allowing TTS Amazon still does?
kirsten saell said on 02.28.09 at 11:55 PM • [comment link]
Amazon wouldn’t (I hope!) charge more for TTS-enabled titles. Probably the only people who would choose not to buy a specific book because TTS is disabled would be those with disabilities. If they’re forced to wait for a genuine for-the-blind version of the book, neither Amazon nor the author will make a penny on the sale.
And I still feel the concept of TTS is distinct enough from genuine audio rights that, to me, it feels not like authors retaining their rights, but authors depriving consumers of rights they’ve paid for.
Suze said on 02.28.09 at 11:55 PM • [comment link]
I really don’t think my faithful robot servant Roomba2 reading aloud to me is any more of an infringement of the author’s rights than if I had my faithful manservant Edward read aloud to me. (But, you know, he’s kind of busy, so Roomba2 gets the job.)
I am trying to be respectful of authors’ concerns, but I just don’t see it. Reading aloud is not making a copy of the work. If it’s not recorded for sale, it’s not in any way taking money away from the author. Having a machine read to me aloud a book I’ve purchased is no different from my re-reading (maybe even more than once!) a book I’ve purchased.
On a lighter note, the Onion has suggested some other possible features for the Kindle.
Steven Harper Piziks said on 03.01.09 at 12:01 AM • [comment link]
I’m not sure why Kristen keeps bringing up the problem of the blind. It’s been stated several times that current copyright law allows them free access to audio versions. That would include the Kindle’s voice.
I’ve read John Scalzi’s opinion. I was recently at a science fiction convention with him and sat on panels with him. And I very much disagree with his assertion that a computer will never be able to mimic a human voice. I think it will. We’ve all seen technology make enormous, unexpected leaps forward.
I think the solution is, in the future, to make sure that electronic rights and audio rights are bundled together in book contracts. An e-right clause needs to include a clause that defines the status of something like Kindle and boosts the royalty rate for e-books as a result.
See, a big part of what is scary to authors is that the Kindle’s voice has the potential to destroy interest in audiobooks and make them go away completely. This would wipe out a siginificant chunk of author income. Scalzi and Gaiman don’t think this will happen, Roberts and I do. Who’s right? We’ll find out in a decade or so, but remember back when no one thought CDs would catch on? And when everyone said MP3 players were too expensive and complicated for anyone but computer geeks?
And on a completely unrelated note, the code I had to type in to post this was “doing69.” Just thought I’d tell everyone.
kirsten saell said on 03.01.09 at 12:14 AM • [comment link]
Again, I don’t see any problem with that. In fact, as I’ve said before, NY has a functional business model sitting right in front of them, and they choose to ignore it.
My contract has all digital rights bundled together (which basically says anything a computer or other device can do now or in the foreseeable future), and I get paid 40% royalty for digital sales direct from my publisher’s store, and 30% on digital sales from retailers like fictionwise and booksonboard. If traditional publishers doesn’t pay those kinds of royalties on digital, that’s something authors seriously need to take up with them. And I’d happily get behind that particular fight, because man, NY authors are getting the shaft and then some on digital.
Computer Geek who donates to the EFF said on 03.01.09 at 12:15 AM • [comment link]
BTW, even though this is only empirical, myself and a few other people I know only buy the CD or MP3 of a book if we’ve liked it enough reading it via paper. In fact, I only buy audio books that I’ve read on paper beforehand because I’d rather not pay $40 to listen to an audio book and have it be a turkey, versus only paying $7-20 bucks for a paper book if it’s a turkey. For example, it’s quite nice to listen to one of Robert Jordan’s early Wheel of Time books and learn something new because of the way the person spoke during the performance. I understand paying $10-$40 an audio book because I’m paying for performance fees.
Listening to TTS is like listening to a 1st grader just learning how to read. I’d rather chew rocks and hear the screeching of nails on a blackboard. Nobody is going to pay extra for the TTS, unless it’s a person with a seeing disability, but then that’s actually going to harm the person with the disability by penalizing them.
BTW, I like what Scalzi had to say about it:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/02/27/the-panic-about-kindles-text-to-speech-still-silly/
kirsten saell said on 03.01.09 at 12:18 AM • [comment link]
And I keep bringing up the blind because not every vision-impaired person (or dyslexic or otherwise literacy-disabled person) will qualify as “blind” under the guidelines as they stand. And I don’t think people whose eyes become strained while reading, or who have other issues that make TTS useful to them should have to jump through hoops to have access.
Andrea M. said on 03.01.09 at 12:19 AM • [comment link]
Thank you. Yes, I’m sure this is a help for those in the UK, unfortunately for the rest of us…
Yes, actually, you are. You are saying that in order for me to be able to allow my computer to read your book, I should first have to buy the book, THEN have to buy your “rights” to actually be able to read the book. Because, you see, my programs on my computer can’t read the book to me without, you know, actually having the text in front of me.
Basically, what you’re saying is that blind people should have only the options to buy audio books (limited selection, $20-well, the sky’s the limit on audio book prices, isn’t it?) or rely on the charity of others.
Or pay for an e-book twice.
You (you, as in, people supporting this dubious legal claim) are promoting a very scary attitude that blind people DESERVE to be treated like second-class citizens—because if you don’t stop this rampant computer-reading now, your profits off of audio books MIGHT go down.
Leave alone the fact that this would mean your e-books sales MUST go up.
Or the fact that to even be worried about seeing anything like a significant drop in sales you must be assuming that your readers are, at best, a bunch of cheapskates with no taste, or living a hundred years in the future. But hey! Your works MIGHT not have slipped into the public domain by the time computer synthesized speech is good enough to compete, so these pennies could be TOTALLY worth it. Totally.
So, your battle for “rights” that you might not even be legally entitled to comes down to: the possibility that you’ll lose more money from audio book sales than you’ll gain from e-book sales vs. the freedom and independence of disabled people everywhere.
Because if you can bully Amazon in a matter of days, what chance does the little software company who makes my screen reader have?
Suz said on 03.01.09 at 12:24 AM • [comment link]
Money is not primarily at issue.
It is the ownership of and assignment of rights pertinent to an intellectual property. Amazon is threading a needle by “allowing” writers to decide on a title by title basis.
1. Rights granted via U.S. copyright law are not Amazon’s to allow or disallow, or take. Period. With or without payment.
2. Unless a traditionally published writer retained audio rights to a title, that writer *cannot* directly assign audio rights to Amazon or anybody else.
Those rights have already been assigned by contract tothe publisher, and the dispensation thereby controlled by the publisher.
Not the writer.
3. Amazon knows this. The olive branch extended here just sounds oh-so-democratic and generous.
Again—Amazon cannot allow or disallow any right granted the creator or holder (publisher) of an intellectual property via U.S. Copyright law.
The only item of interest in this update is the possible, de facto admission that TTS *is* audio. And it is. I don’t care if TTS sang my books—if human ears can hear the words, it’s *audio.*
Readers: this is not about authorial money-grabbing, disabled book-lovers, library story hours, or a general hate-on for Amazon.
It’s about intellectual property rights.
Computer Geek who donates to the EFF said on 03.01.09 at 12:29 AM • [comment link]
@Steven Harper Piziks
Steven, the VCR/DVR did not ruin the TV industry. See my post about the Betamax case that I was initially replying to you about.
The MP3 player has not ruined the music industry, the music industry itself has put itself into an ugly corner by not embracing technology fast enough. The people at Torrent Freak say it better than I do:
http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-kill-the-music-industry-090227/
Reading the whole article is better, but here is the nutshell.
One could say the same for the book-publishing model.
Stop looking behind in the past and start looking forward at the future. Isn’t that what a SF/F author is supposed to do?
Andrea M. said on 03.01.09 at 12:29 AM • [comment link]
Um… what country, exactly? Because yes, the blind do have free access to libraries, and yes, authors don’t generally insist on charging libraries and non-profits extra to make non-performance recordings of books read aloud, but library books are the only “free” books available.
And if authors refuse to allow Kindle’s TTS feature, I won’t be able to get around it, even with a note from my doctor.
rebyj said on 03.01.09 at 12:34 AM • [comment link]
Not while e-readers cost 300+ they won’t.
Suze.. the onion link was LOL! especially this feature.
Nora Roberts said on 03.01.09 at 12:45 AM • [comment link]
Andrea, first I haven’t bullied anyone or seen any bullying in this thread. I’ve expressed my particular concerns and opinions. I haven’t done anything else. And no, I’m not asking you or anyone to buy more than one form of a book.
I’m sorry, sincerely, that you’re so angry and that you feel so upset by this issue. For me, it’s very simply a matter of my rights and choices on those rights as an author.
I am NOT assuming my readers, or anyone’s readers are cheapskates with no taste. I really feel you’re taking this too far, and much too personally. No one here who’s expressed concerns about this feature has come even close to saying anything of the kind. It’s very specifically about the feature, not about the reader.
The purchase of a Kindle is consumer’s choice, as is the purchase of a book in any of its forms. The granting or sale of my sub-rights is, and should be, my choice. I certainly don’t want to deprive any reader, disabled or otherwise, of the pleasure of reading. I don’t want Amazon or any other entity to decide for me how my books are offered.
Still, I’m not angry about it. I have concerns and I want to find out more about the entire matter. You sound very angry to me, but I think part of that anger must be a simple misunderstanding of those concerns.
Nora Roberts said on 03.01.09 at 12:46 AM • [comment link]
~Streaming functionality allows user to read latest Nora Roberts novel in real-time as the author writes it~
Oh my God! This is priceless. And a little bit terrifying.
Bronwyn Parry said on 03.01.09 at 01:06 AM • [comment link]
While respectful of all the views here, I’m a published author, and I am not concerned about the Kindle’s TTS capability. As others have said TTS has been around for years. E-books are a digital format, designed to used on an electronic device, and the computer programs designed to read them have TTS capability. (Adobe, Microsoft Reader, Preview on the Mac, and probably a gazillion other ones.)
Therefore, my assumption has always been that e-book rights automatically included TTS - ie, if I sell e-book rights, I sell TTS rights, in the same way that a print book incorporates the rights to lend, read aloud, give away, sell, use as a doorstop (in the case of hardbacks), or whatever. I’m not a lawyer, or pretending to be one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the final judgment in this case is that e-rights naturally incorporate TTS.
I’m not concerned about TTS infringing on audio rights. TTS is about as far from an audio book recording as me wiggling my toe is from Sylvie Guillaume dancing. While contemporary TTS are programmed for slight pauses at commas and full stops, that’s the extent of any form of rhythm. The rest is flat, unexpressive, monotonous.
As an author, I spend a lot of time choosing words, constructing the text for flow, rhythm, emphasis, pacing and impact. Not every human reader is going to read it the same way I hear it, and professional performers will interpret those words in different ways, and bring different nuances to the work, enriching it in their own way.
TTS does not enrich or interpret text. If you’ve not heard TTS, you’ve probably already got the capability on your computer right now. Check your pdf readers and e-book reading programs; try it out with a piece of text. I saved a blurb about a book as a pdf, and had Preview read it on my Mac. Even with the Mac’s better-than-average voice rendering, it’s still a flat, unemotional, robotic rendering. (Commander Data is science fiction, folks, and even then it took him a long time to be able to play the violin with emotion rather than technical translation of the musical annotation… )
TTS is a useful tool for some people. There may even be a small minority who will listen to an entire book with it. I sincerely doubt there’d be many, but they’ve already bought the e-book and paid royalties, so I don’t care whether they listen to robotic Rhonda read it, read it aloud to their sick mother, or even have Cousin Charlie read it to a rap beat - as long as Charlie doesn’t record it, I’m happy with that.
kirsten saell said on 03.01.09 at 01:24 AM • [comment link]
Bingo.
“exclusive right to use, adapt or otherwise exploit the Work, or any portion thereof in electronic book form and, in storage and retrieval systems of all kinds, whether now known or
hereafter invented, including but not limited to mechanical, electronic or other technologies, and including but not
limited to micro-processors, computer databases, CD-ROM media, digital media, interactive media, multimedia, whether by screen display, print-out, photo-reproduction, photocopy or otherwise, and whether stored on hard drives, disks, diskettes, punch cards, remote or on-line databases, microfilm, magnetic tape, computer or like processes attaining similar results.” (all emphasis mine)
When I signed those rights to my publisher, TTS had been around for at least ten years. And there is nothing in that clause that limits digital rights to text only.
Is there a “text only” or “screen display only” modifier within the digital rights clause of a standard NY contract?
Shannon C. said on 03.01.09 at 04:09 AM • [comment link]
I think Andrea expressed my concerns beautifully, and further I can understand her anger. It’s not that I, as a blind consumer, want to limit an author’s rights—after all, why would I?—But I absolutely believe it is my right as a consumer to purchase a book and read it whenever I want. Limiting TTS limits my access to ebooks, and I believe it should be my right as a voracious reader to have access to any book my sighted peers are doing.
I’ve long said that the visually impaired have the potential to be huge consumers of ebooks. But aside from the major epublishers, that’s really not possible as it stands. In order to read an ebook published by NY, I have to either find someone who will strip the DRM from it so I can actually have access to it—because I can’t do that myself—or I have to wait for someone from any of the organizations that make ebooks available for the blind to decide that the book I want to read is one they will provide. I want more independence, not less, and I don’t want to always be beholden to anyone else’s charity, and I think the limited stance on TTS definitely has the ability to curtail my independence rather than to increase it.
asli said on 03.01.09 at 07:40 AM • [comment link]
HALLELUJAH AMEN!
Thanking you kindly for your well thought out arguments - seriously people need to get the fuck over it - I don’t understand why they don’t just say - HEY, we found another way to milk people for more moolah and we wanna make it happen - those people happen to be us - readers.
Courtney Milan said on 03.01.09 at 04:40 PM • [comment link]
@Andrea M.
I sincerely hope—and at this point, this is nothing other than an expression of optimism—that Amazon will do something radical like partner with BookShare so that even for books where authors/publishers don’t allow TTS in general, blind readers will be able to use the TTS feature regardless.
Rosa said on 03.02.09 at 09:10 PM • [comment link]
I’m not accusing anybody of being money-grubbing. I’m just saying that when authors take these arguments to the fans instead of keeping it between the lawyers for all the different factions, it is tremendously off-putting. If fans are the problem, we need these lectures…if it’s an abstract future rights issue, we’re not really the audience, right?
Just like the assumption that readers are going to go for pirated e-books like crazy (instead of doing something easy like picking up an entire grocery bag of Nora Robert’s books for $1 at the library book sale), I find the argument that having a book read aloud is copyright infringement really distasteful and the underlying idea that readers are out to steal from authors downright insulting.
I don’t go looking for who supported the Author’s Guild to boycott them. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But when authors pop up on blogs I read with this argument, it hurts my opinion of them.
Suz said on 03.02.09 at 10:04 PM • [comment link]
With all respect due, Rosa, authors did not trigger the debate here. The original post generated responses from authors trying to explain TTS’s legal ramifications.
And absolutely nowhere in this l-o-n-g thread does any writer accuse any reader of theft. Nor is there an accusation or even any allusion whatsoever that any reader here condones piracy or would actively engage in it.
Computer Geek who donates to the EFF said on 03.03.09 at 07:56 PM • [comment link]
Suz, I strongly disagree. It may not have been spelled out in so many words, but part of this discussion is about potential theft. Copyright infringement is considered by many to be theft. The person buying the books and having them read out loud is considered theft by some of the published authors on this thread so far. A rose by any other name…
elisha-Alaska Personal Injury Lawyer said on 03.07.09 at 02:49 PM • [comment link]
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