Digital Media

Update 2:49 p.m. PST: to include comment from Amazon.

Paul Aiken and the Authors Guild aren't gloating.

The executive director of the 9,000-member guild isn't taking all or even most of the credit for Amazon's abrupt about-face on Friday. The retailer announced that it would allow publishers to disable the Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature on any titles of their choosing.

He says while Authors Guild managers were "vocal" with their objections to the Kindle's speech technology, including publishing an op-ed piece in The New York Times, much more powerful entities were leaning on Amazon to make changes: large book publishers.

There was one more reason Amazon was prompted to make changes, according to Aiken.

"Amazon realized the magnitude of the contractual problem," Aiken said Monday morning. "Many of the author's publishing contracts give publishers the right to publish e-books, but only without enhancing audio. A reasonable reading of those contracts shows that publishers didn't have the authority to sell e-books for use in a Kindle device with audio enhancement."

An Amazon spokesman denied being pushed into Friday's decision. As for whether contractual issues played a part, the spokesman repeated what the company said Friday: "Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal."

Aiken began criticizing Amazon soon after the Kindle 2's debut last month. He argued that the retailer was violating the author's copyright and was cutting them out of a potentially new and lucrative market.

Jeff Bezos and staff should have seen the text-to-speech controversy coming.

(Credit: David Carnoy/CBS Interactive)

Amazon chose to keep secret from much of the publishing sector the text-to-speech feature built into the Kindle 2.

Instead, Amazon sprung the feature on publishers and the retailer is now taking public-relations hits that it might have avoided if it hadn't been so tight lipped.

Following the debut of the Kindle 2, the 9,000-member Authors Guild claimed text-to-speech created a derivative work and violated copyright. Paul Aiken, the guild's executive director said many publishers were also angered over the speech function, adding that Amazon never consulted beforehand with either of those groups. Amazon responded Friday by handing publishers the ability to disable the text-to-speech feature on any title they choose.

Amazon's response has disappointed some customers, who are left with the impression that the retailer is unwilling to go to bat for them.

This is exactly the kind of public relations blunder that Amazon can ill afford as it attempts to breathe life into the digital-book market. In this endeavor, who can argue that Amazon isn't off to a great start?

The Kindle is a hit. The e-reader has been blessed by the doyenne of publishing herself: Oprah. A Citigroup analyst recently estimated that Amazon sold 500,000 units last year. He also predicted that the Kindle would generate $1.2 billion by 2010. That number didn't include book sales.

Amazon might have avoided the controversy, had the company enlisted the counsel from important constituents in the publishing industry before launch. This way they could have a) learned about the objections quietly; b) done any haggling there and maybe come to a financial arrangement; c) scrapped the whole idea of text-to-speech if there was too much push back.

Hindsight is 20/20, sure. It's easy to tweak Amazon for failing to see the problem coming. But how are execs handling the controversy now?

"Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal," Amazon said in a press release issued on Friday, announcing the company would give publishers the option of disabling text-to-speech on any title. "No copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given."

If Amazon believes those things, some will argue (certainly those in the anticopyright crowd) that the company should take a stand--if not for its own sake than on behalf of customers.

Fighting a potentially expensive and prolonged legal battle with suppliers is a lot to ask of Amazon or any other company. Perhaps if text-to-speech were a vital or much-loved feature, then Amazon would be more apt to hold the line. But it's not.

Text-to-speech isn't going to threaten audio books for a long time. That's not my opinion. That's the opinion of Andy Aaron, an IBM expert on text-to-speech and a self described "booster" of the technology.

"I don't think at this point, or for the foreseeable future, (text-to-speech) is going to compete meaningfully with a professional book reader," Aaron said last week. "Am I going to sit down and put my feet up and listen to text-to-speech read 'War And Peace' or 'Harry Potter' for six to eight hours? For someone who has the choice, I think they would rather get an audio book."

For Amazon to be taking heat over this issue is silly. There's not that much in it for the company. Next time, they should take a few more risks with media leaks and get some guidance.

Apparently, Amazon won't fight the publishing industry on the issue of whether the Kindle 2's text-to-speech function violates copyright.

The retailer, which makes the popular Kindle electronic-book reader, announced late Friday that the company is modifying systems to allow authors and publishers to decide whether to enable Kindle's text-to-speech function on a per-title basis.

Amazon began its press release with tough talk. "Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal," Amazon wrote. "No copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given."

But then the company says: "We strongly believe many rights holders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat."

There is no mistaking what happened here. Amazon caved. For Kindle owners interested in the text-to-speech feature, the device just lost value.

The Authors Guild, a trade group representing 9,000 authors, began criticizing Amazon shortly after the Kindle 2 debuted earlier this month. The guild's president, Paul Aiken, told CNET this week that Amazon was taking a hard-line position in discussions between the guild and the company. He also said there was a possibility that the guild could sue over the issue.

"Anytime you have a new means of accessing content," Aiken said, "there's always some sort of aggregator that wants to control it and keep the value for themselves."

Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocate group for the rights of Web users and technology companies, said he was grateful that Amazon went out of its way to make the point that the company didn't believe text-to-speech technology violated copyright.

"Nevertheless, Amazon decided to allow copyright owners to make the decisions themselves whether to use the feature," von Lohmann said. "They are entitled to do that. The issue of text-to-speech will have to wait for another innovator."

One point that von Lohmann noted was that there are plenty of PCs that offer text-to-speech, and the Authors Guild hasn't objected to those. "Maybe Apple should be looking over their shoulder," he said.

It's easy to understand why Amazon may have back-pedaled. Even the staunchest supporters of text-to-speech say that it won't replace audio books any time soon. Computers can sound like humans but they can't insert emphasis or offer much of a dramatic rendering because they don't yet understand what they're reading--and likely won't for a very long time, say the experts.

Executives at the Authors Guild say the text-to-speech feature in Amazon's Kindle 2 could hurt sales of audio books. Not all of the experts agree, including the guild's.

Andy Aaron, an IBM text-to-speech expert, says synthetic voices don't know when to add emphasis or inflection when reading.

(Credit: Andy Aaron)

Andy Aaron, an expert on text-to-speech technology, recently commented in an interview about how much such systems have advanced. In an op-ed piece published Tuesday in the The New York Times titled "The Kindle Swindle?" Roy Blount Jr., president of the Authors Guild, used Aaron's quotes to support his argument that the Kindle's voice feature could threaten the future of audio books.

But when asked to elaborate, Aaron told CNET News on Wednesday that the audio-book market has little to fear from "synthetic voices."

"I'm a big believer in (text-to-speech) and a booster of it," said Aaron, who is with IBM's Watson Research Center. "But I don't think at this point, or for the foreseeable future, it's going to compete meaningfully with a professional book reader...Am I going to sit down and put my feet up and listen to text-to-speech read 'War And Peace' or Harry Potter for six to eight hours? For someone who has the choice, I think they would rather get an audio book."

Amazon appears headed towards a showdown with the Authors Guild over text-to-speech technology. This enables computers to read text in a lifelike voice. Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, a trade group representing 9,000 authors, argues that Amazon isn't compensating authors for Kindle's text-to-speech feature. He claims authors' copyrights are being violated.

Amazon representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Aiken generated a lot of attention when he first raised concerns about the Kindle following the debut earlier this month of the e-book reader. On Wednesday, Aiken said Amazon never informed the guild--or book publishers for that matter--of the retailer's plan to include the feature.

In the weeks since the Kindle debut, the guild has had discussions with Amazon and the online retailer is taking a "hard-line position," Aiken said. All this doesn't bode well for finding an amicable resolution.

Aiken wouldn't say what the guild's plans are but confirmed that guild administrators won't rule out filing a lawsuit.

"Anytime you have a new means of accessing content," said Aiken, "there's always some sort of aggregator that wants to control it and keep the value for themselves."

As for Aaron's assertions that text-to-speech systems won't threaten audio books for a long time, Aiken says nobody knows the future.

"Things move quickly," Aiken said. "I think the technology has made a generational leap in just the last few years."

To prove the point, the guild has posted demonstrations of text-to-speech technologies offered by Apple four years ago (the video posted above). The voice is monotone and unintelligible in places. It sounds like it was lifted from a bad sci-fi film.

The next clip is a recording of Kindle's text-to-speech offering. (At right, I've included a humorous demonstration of Kindle text-to-speech function posted to YouTube by a user called Kindlejunkie). The differences are sharp. The Kindle's voice pronounces words clearly and sounds far more lifelike. There is however, no inflection or emphasis. The thing drones on.

It's not that the technology can't create dramatic effects. Aaron says the technology has advanced to a point where synthetic voices can be made to sound happy or apologetic. The major roadblock for these systems, however, is that they don't know when to insert these effects or choose the effect that is most appropriate.

What's missing in computers is the ability to understand what they're reading, said Aaron.

"Even a mediocre human reader is interacting with the text and understands every word that he or she is reading," Aaron said. "Text-to-speech doesn't. It can be really good. It can be really smooth. It can sound very lifelike. But it doesn't understand what it's reading. Do you want to listen to a reader that doesn't understand what they're reading?"

The obvious question here is if text-to-speech systems can read something with a specific emotional tone, couldn't a publisher go into a digital book and mark where they want to insert a specific effect?

They could, says Aaron, but that would take an enormous of amount of time and expense. At that point it's easier to hire a human reader and create an audio book.

Here's a little bit about how they create a voice for text-to-speech. First, a professional reader is hired to read text created for its "phonemic diversity." The sentences are designed to cover a wide range of word sounds. The process takes more than 60 hours to complete, Aaron said.

Algorithms are used to help figure out how to manipulate the sounds correctly.

Aiken concedes that text-to-speech systems can't provide many of the dramatic effects that a human can. But he does think they're good enough to erode sales of audio books.

One thing to remember is that the potential to compete with audio books is only one part of the guild's complaint. Aiken argues that Kindle's voice feature should be considered a separate derivative and authors should share in its revenues.

What's for certain is guild managers don't believe Amazon should give text-to-speech away for free just to help market Kindles.

"This should be considered a legitimate new market for publishers and authors," Aiken said. "It's a technology that should be used for incremental revenue. With all the squeezing that's going on in publishing, you just can't let this one go."