Advocates for blind protest loss of Kindle's voice function

Supporters of the blind protest the Authors Guild for objecting to the Kindle 2's text-to-speech function.

(Credit: Michael Adolph)

The controversy regarding the text-to-speech function offered by Amazon.com's Kindle 2 digital book reader appears to be heating up again.

Groups advocating for the blind and reading disabled on Tuesday held a protest at the Manhattan offices of the Authors Guild. The guild was very vocal in opposing the text-to-speech technology in the Kindle. The group, which represents 4,000 authors, argued that the Kindle infringes on copyright and could hurt audio book sales.

The whole debate seemed to be over in February when . The Web's largest retailer said it had decided to enable publishers with the power to disable Kindle's text-to-speech function on a per-title basis.

Text-to-speech enables computers to read text in a lifelike voice.

The protest of 150 and 250 participants, according to reports, was held "in hopes to reverse the Guild's threat to disable text-to-speech from e-books for the Kindle 2," according to a statement from the National Federation of the Blind (NFB).

Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, said his organization came up with a plan that would have given the blind and visually impaired access to the Kindle's voice function regardless of whether publishers chose to disable the technology.

"Authors want everyone to read their books," Aiken said. "We've been strongly supportive of the rights of the blind and disabled to obtain books...We know how to balance the interests, to make sure there is special access to books for people who need it but still protect markets that authors depend on. Audio-books is one of those markets."

The NFB rejected the guild's proposal calling it "burdensome" for the blind to prove their disability or "pay extra for the text-to-speech version."

[chuchucuhi]

Well I wonder if it will end up in the supreme court with a chellenge of DMCA vs. ADA

[inachu1]

ADA should win this. Pretty stupid to remove something. I am sure it will be placed back as most devices have to comply anyway. Authors guild was barking up the wrong tree.

[chrisfrary]

I agree with both sides generally. Granted the voice technology is no where near of what could be considered an audiobook. Since that is the case and especially for the blind they should no way in hell have to prove or pay additional to obtain the same capability as the seeing people can. This is clearly a violation of the constitution and probably several disability acts.

[Maccess]

Audiobooks are a niche market, and very vulnerable to piracy as they can be easily converted to an MP3 file. At least the Kindle has some protection. The Author's guild is locking out a major market.

Should we ask Congress to criminalize reading a favorite book to grandparents by the fireside? That's also text-to-speech.

[malynj]

Definitely this should be left enabled in the Kindle. It's a computer generated voice, so it's not that sales would be significantly impacted for audio books, which usually have a professional voice actor. Chances are it might draw a bigger market, add a prompt to download a professional audio version when you start the computer generated audio, after some people nibble on audio books, they might want to go for the whole professional-read version.

[Quispy]

As a legally blind person and needing to use large text or audio, I find this all a bunch of crap. Blind people are still having to use audio tapes with tape recorder/players to listen to books. Yes we can go buy CD audio books, or download audiobooks, but we are still limited to what is available. If we want a book that is not available it can take months and even then might not ever happen. And if we have to get something made special, let's say for a job or school, all that stuff will come on a casset tape.

I'll show proof of blindness, but I guess that will take months also. I'll probable have to pay extra too for some filing fee or something, or pay extra for a "blind kindle" that will I'm sure let the world know I'm blind when I go to use it.

Thank God I didn't have to pay extra, or have to get a doctors prescription for the zoom function on my keyboard, or do I have to pay the Authors Guild for that too, since it's a large text version.

Now if someone would make a cell phone for blind people we might get to enjoy the 21st century.

[MrBoomshadow]

The Authors' Guild is just wrong here--not just because of the effect on the blind of crippling Kindle's text-to-speech, but because of their insistence of enforcing creators' rights at the expense of everyone else's.

[BOTNET]

There are tons of audio books out there - I have simplyaudiobooks.com subscription for years (it's not expensive service and works the same way netflix does). Please stop saying that there are no books. I do not read books, I only listen to them - I never felt that there is a lack of books for reasonable price to listen to.


Reading "robot" on kindle is not as good as human voice, but let's be honest - it will be in next few years.

Personally, I think there should be 2 pricing levels - with and without added audio. How hard is that?

[TV James]

I still think that the guild should have been smarter, but these are probably cousins of the RIAA idiots, so that wasn't going to happen.

I thought they should have worked with Amazon -- always play the first chapter of every book in audiobook format (where audiobook exists for sale), remaining chapters in regular Kindle voice. Probably sell a lot of audiobooks.

[reyes89]

who buys audio tapes anyways? I thought those things became popular in the 80s when people still didnt know how to read well.

If you want to ead a book read it, dont listen to a tape. If ur blind lern braile or brail or brale whatever it is youll have a much better experience by interpreting the words in your mind, than by listening to someone reading it.

[JadedGamer]

You would not have written that if you ever had listened to a properly read audio book, e.g. Stephen Fry's reading of "THe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Audiobooks transform the book into a different medium, but with greater success than e.g. most movie adaptations do.

And they are not only bought by and listened to by the blind.

Why beat a horse, when you can ride one. I like listening to audio books; however, kindle 2 text-to speech is good, but BORING and really not entertaining like audio books. Let us buy audio books on the Kindle, I am a new user, can we?? They are easy to listen to for long periods of time. Sell a package deal book and audio at a cost higher than the book, but lower than book and audio, or just over the audio.

[kristianek]

The Reading Rights Coalition has set up an on-line petition to urge the Authors Guild and Amazon to reverse course. Please read, sign, and pass along the petition below to all your friends and family: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read