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Authors Guild Digs Itself In Deeper Concerning Kindle Text-To-Speech
from the stop-digging dept
We were among many different sites that laughed at the ridiculous assertions by Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken's attempt to rewrite copyright law concerning the "right" for people with a legally purchased ebook to have a Kindle ebook reader with text-to-speech read the book aloud. Aiken said:
First, the Authors Guild isn't backing down -- but says it's "studying this matter closely." Instead, it recommends that authors who haven't already made ebook agreements avoid doing so. Because, you know, when you're an author the best possible thing is to make it more difficult for people who want to read your book to get it. That doesn't seem very smart. All because someone might listen to their Kindle read it aloud? I would think that the potential of lost readers would be a much bigger concern.
Furthermore, in clarifying that, yes, indeed, reading to your kids is legal, the Guild claims:
"They don't have the right to read a book out loud. That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law."This is, of course, incorrect. To demonstrate how incorrect it was, we applied it to other scenarios: such as reading to your kids at night. This wasn't to suggest that we actually thought Aiken meant you couldn't read to your kids at night, but to show how wrong the original comment was. Amusingly, the Authors Guild seems to have thought we actually believed this, and has issued an attempted clarification, which only serves to make things worse.
First, the Authors Guild isn't backing down -- but says it's "studying this matter closely." Instead, it recommends that authors who haven't already made ebook agreements avoid doing so. Because, you know, when you're an author the best possible thing is to make it more difficult for people who want to read your book to get it. That doesn't seem very smart. All because someone might listen to their Kindle read it aloud? I would think that the potential of lost readers would be a much bigger concern.
Furthermore, in clarifying that, yes, indeed, reading to your kids is legal, the Guild claims:
The remarks have been interpreted by some as suggesting that the Guild believes that private out-loud reading is protected by copyright. It isn't, unless the reading is being done by a machine. And even out-loud reading by a machine is fine, of course, if it's from an authorized audio copy.I'm having trouble seeing how that's correct, though, it would be great if the usual assortment of IP lawyers chimed in on this one. Having a machine read to you in the privacy of your own home isn't a performance, so there's no performance rights issues. Then if you go down the whole list of rights covered by copyright, none of them seem to apply. It seems that the Authors Guild is making up a new right (watch out, now the lobbyists will try to get it added): the "you can't do anything innovative unless you pay extra" right.
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Edge cases...
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/11/know-your-rights-does-the-kindle-2s-text-to-speech-infringe-a u/
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Her [Agent's] point of view: The Kindle reading you the book-you-just-bought infringes the copyright (or at least, the rights) to the audiobook. We've sold audiobook rights and print book rights as separate things. We must stop this.
My [Gaiman's] point of view: When you buy a book, you're also buying the right to read it aloud, have it read to you by anyone, read it to your children on long car trips, record yourself reading it and send that to your girlfriend etc. This is the same kind of thing, only without the ability to do the voices properly, and no-one's going to confuse it with an audiobook. And that 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.
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Re:
Must be kind of hard to be taken seriously when even the people you are suppose to be "representing" and "protecting" think you are full of crap.
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Ever notice
The internet is here, deal with it and stop screwing over the public.
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The Author's Guild is out of their minds.
Eric
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Explained...
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/11/know-your-rights-does-the-kindle-2s-text-to-speech-infr inge-au/
I think this whole thing is stupid, I would assume that if the software is just reading text and not creating an audio file then there's no violation.
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Re: Explained...
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Re: Explained...
I read his explanation, and I think he's wrong. The EFF (also copyright attorneys) explanation is much more compelling.
The biggest problem is that the TTS is not a *fixed copy* and its not a *public performance* so it's not a violation.
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Actually...
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Re: Actually...
That seems absurd. I'm not sure how this device works, but it sound like mechanical speech to me. If people were happy with mechanical speech, they wouldn't hire actual people to do audiobooks. Just as certain authors are successful because of their writing style, certain people are used for audio books because of their narrating style. HOW people speak, can sometimes be more powerful than what they are saying.
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I still don't get it...
If I have a pianola, and I make it play a music roll in public, I'm breaking copyright law.
But if I have a pianola and I make it play a music roll in the privacy of my own home, I should be ok. Right?
What's the difference between a pianola and a kindle then?
--GJ--
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Reading to your kids
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Re: Reading to your kids
>"clarification" - does reading to
>your kids become a copyright violation
>when you have more than 3.4 kids?
And what about story time at the public library?
Do I need to add The WGA to my DEATH TO THE RIAA bumper sticker? Or Richard the Third improved
FIRST WE KILL ALL THE ^COPYRIGHT LAWYERS
Bumpersticker.
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Two Things
First, what are the standards in music? Buying sheet music of a song is not the same as buying a CD of a musician playing the song. But you certainly have the right to play the sheet music at home on a piano. Do you also have the right to have a synthesizer play back the song? I think so. Is that really viable competition to (and infringement of) the professionally produced and artist performed version? I wouldn't think so.
Second, what if there was an automatic writing machine that could create works of text with virtually no human input? Would it put human authors out of business or would the Writer's Guild assert that human authors brought something more to the table than machines could?
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the audio books are performances of written material. They're also selling the source material which is essentially instructions for creating private performances, whether human or not. If they're upset about losing some income, the Writers Guild should be focusing on value they could add rather than trying to limit the options of its customers.
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Blinded by greed
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Contract issue (not copyright)
The dispute arises because the actual contract is probably less clear that "audio" is excluded from the rights that Amazon purchased.
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Free Publicity
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Blind People
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Readers for the blind?
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Umm wait a moment
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Readers for the Blind
They would have, but due to potential copyright violations, all text readers for the blind have been temporarily disabled until this is resolved.....
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Text-To-Speech, illegal?
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Does this apply to music as well?
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we're all in trouble
Preachers for reading the gospel to the masses.
Lawyers for quoting lawbooks in courts.
actors for reading books for the library for the blind.
just boils down to greed.
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Author's Guild and Kindle
I think the Author's Guild is trying the time-worn old "throw it up against the wall" trick - if it "sticks", they get more money, if it doesn't "stick", everyone just says "Aw, heck!" and "goes home".
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Buch of hooey...
Even if any of this did happen, it would be Kindle OWNER, not Amazon doing it. And, that means that Amazon would only be liable for selling a device used to circumvent copyright. But, under the Betamax case, as long as that ability had "substantial noninfringing uses," Amazon isn't liable. And, there are several substantial noninfringing uses -- playing public domain books, playing audio of books which do not have audio versions for blind people, etc....
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Hey, they are a GUILD
These guys don't change that impression at all!
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Public Libraries
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Won't hurt audio book sales
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Luddites
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25blount.html?_r=1
this time by the guild's president, roy blount.
bullet points...
first mr. blount sets up his straw man
"given all the new ways of not getting paid that new technology affords authors"
to protect his inability to deal with and adapt to technological innovation, as well as establish his victim status.
then, as mike pointed out above, he goes for the "It seems that the Authors Guild is making up a new right ...: the "you can't do anything innovative unless you pay extra" right. " by stating quite openly
"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."
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Kindle fuss
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