Amazon Kindle Bows to Idiotic Author’s Guild on Text-to-Speech

Sure, the Kindle 2 eBook reader from Amazon is over-priced and the eBooks themselves are over-priced but its a device who’s time has come and one that will be with us in some form or another well into the future – or at least until our eyeballs become part of a hard-wired internal computing service…

Much like you can do on your own Mac or PC pretty simply, the Kindle 2 offered the option of having a rather digitized and un-emotive voice “read” to you.  This caused a flare-up from some authors who felt this was stepping on their ancillary audiobook rights.  It sounded so absurd that I never imagined Amazon would actually back down.  I was wrong:

The only significant change to the experimental section in the Kindle 2 was the addition of a text-to-speech capability that allowed the Kindle to read content to its users in one of two synthesized voices. Following an extended outcry from some in the publishing business, however, Amazon has backed down and will allow publishers to retain control over whether to expose their texts to this capability.

While there is nothing especially wrong with letting publishers opt out of this feature, none of their logic makes much sense.  First, these synthisized voices are far from what one gets with a true audiobook read by a trained professional.  it’s the difference between hearing a symphony recording of Ode to Joy or listening to a synthisized ringtone version.

They would argue that the voices might not be “real” yet but they could be someday.  They’re right but it still doesn’t justify their complaints.  The truth is that the authors will never stop this process and they are better off understanding that the abilty to listen to a book I bought presumably to read is an added value that can increase sales overall.

I wish Amazon had stood up to the author’s guild but it’s just a matter of time before technology settles the matter for all parties.

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