Authors Guild Discourages Using Text-To-Speech On The Kindle 2

In February, 2009 Amazon released Kindle 2, its new electronic book reader. The device was able to use text-to-speech to read books aloud. Due to pressure from the Author's Guild, Amazon allows authors to disable this functionality, thus taking away information from millions of people who live with a disability.

The Authors Guild claims that it is a copyright infringement to read books aloud in public without permission. While this statement might be right in general, one of the easiest ways for many people to read books is by using speech. These people include those who are blind or dyslexic, have difficulties reading regular books, or are altogether not able to read these books.

Today, there are several devices on the market which allow people to read books aloud. There are book reader devices, specifically developed for this purpose, but most of us could use this technology either on an iPod or on a computer where the operating system by default comes with a text-to-speech engine. It has never been claimed before that these devices are copyright infringements.

In addition to these devices, people who cannot read print are legally permitted to convert books into electronic format in order to gain access to the content. Based on this legislation, one of the biggest electronic libraries providing such services is BookShare, which collects electronic books scanned by individuals and distributes them to those who are not able to read print, provided that they can certify their disabilities.

So, let's see what happened here in reality:

The Authors Guild

At this point, the Authors Guild is putting a barrier in front of the natural development of technology, and companies, who are willing to incorporate technology into their products which helps people with disabilities. In order to avoid false representation, I have to mention that this is of course, not the purpose of the Authors Guild, rather, they want to protect authors' copyrights. However, as we will see what they stand for currently does not make any books inaccessible to people who cannot read print, rather, makes access much more difficult, which at the end is achievable.

Amazon

Amazon recognizes that at this age it is necessary to provide information to the most people, including those who live with a disability, which is not only great business sense, but the right thing to do. However, for the request of the Authors Guild, without any court decisions, Amazon chose to allow authors to disable text-to-speech for their books.

The Kindle 2 itself, is not necessarily a break-through in technology for those who are not able to read print. While the system is not fully accessible to those who are totally blind, and also to people with other disabilities, it can only be a solution for a certain, but large group of people with disabilities, who are able to use the device, but it is easier for them to listen to books instead of reading them. However, the Kindle 2 is a wonderful gesture even towards those, who are not able to use it. A company, which took the effort of making a device accessible to many people with disabilities, is more likely to involve more people in future releases.