Why Print-Disabled People Should THANK the Authors Guild, Not Picket It
By Paul Biba
Editor’s Note: The following post from The Center for Accessible Publishing has been reprinted in full with the author’s permission. Paul
When Amazon revealed that the Kindle 2 included text-to-speech, it created a ripple of interest in the disability community. I remember thinking, it’s cool that they added that, not a bad first step. My next thought was, I wonder how they got permission from all those publishers and authors? Turns out, they hadn’t sought permission, they just did it – how Nike of them. By itself, this new feature was hardly headline news, nor was it a breakthrough in assistive technology. After all, the Kindle was clearly not designed to be accessible to the visually-impaired.
But then the Authors Guild cried foul, pointing out that the Kindle was now capable of infringing on audio rights which authors may have sold separately, and suddenly text-to-speech (or TTS, or T2S) was a hot topic. The most vocal critics of the Authors Guild position have been disability-related groups, who quickly formed the Reading Rights Coalition to demonstrate solidarity in opposition to any curtailment of the Kindle’s TTS function, and in general to protest the lack of books and other materials published in formats accessible to people with disabilities that impair their ability to use print to read (thus the term ‘print-disabled’). The Coalition has announced an ‘informational picket’ of the Authors Guild office on April 7, and an additional appearance at the LA Times Book Fair in Los Angeles later in the month.
The problem with the Coalition’s position, and much of the righteous rhetoric issued by bloggers, pundits, and posters about this topic, is that it’s wrong. The Authors Guild is not going to change their ‘stance’ because their position is logical, consistent, and correct. For Amazon to enable spoken output of ebooks without permission is the same infringement as if they had enabled speech recognition for audio books and displayed text derived from audio. The Reading Rights Coalition may dislike or deny this reality (call it ‘writers rights’), but it is the way things are and it is not going to change – managing rights is how these folks make a living.
Here are two articles with a different perspective than what is mostly being bandied about:
Read It (Aloud) and Weep: Controversy Surrounds Text-To-Speech Feature of Amazon’s Kindle Reader
…the law offers some support for the Authors Guild’s contention that the text-to-speech feature encroaches on the exclusive right of copyright holders to prepare derivative works… the Authors Guild has a plausible argument that the Kindle 2 creates unauthorized reproductions of copyrighted e-books in violation of the Copyright Act.
Why All the Fuss About Kindle 2 Text-to-Speech Rights?
…The Authors Guild argued that TTS was an unauthorized right, and the organization had the quiet support of most publishers. Aiken said publishers generally agreed that a text-to-speech right is a separate right that needs approval of the author.
So if the Authors Guild is not the bad guy, keeping books out of the hands of print-disabled readers, who is? Amazon makes a tempting target. After all, the Kindle is an expensive, DRM-laden, closed system that is not accessible (oh right, they are ‘working on it’ – nice promise). But Amazon will have a hard time holding on to such a monopolistic position in the digital media world, where competitors can spring up in unlikely places.
Really, its not through the machinations of any specific group that this problem persists in to the 21st century. It boils down to economics. Until digital, it was simply too expensive to publish in a format that would only be needed by a small percentage of the population. Thus, ‘specialized’ formats for the disabled had to be subsidized, or else they simply wouldn’t exist. But with digital composition, promotion, distribution, and display, mass accessibility really is a possibility, as was pointed out several years ago in an essay entitled ‘The Sound-Proof Book’. And why the economics have not shifted faster in favor of disabled people is partly due to the very copyright exemptions designed to increase access (see E-Books and the Disabled: Catch-22?).
But with all this digitizing going on, there is a creative role that becomes even more essential, if often under-valued: that of the author, who has the skill, the motivation, and the time to compose and commit to ‘tangible form’ the articles, essays, short stories, novels, and non-fiction works that give us all something worth reading in the first place. If print-disabled people could only have one partner in their struggle for accessibility, they should pick authors. Not publishers, not Amazon or Google, but the people who write what we all enjoy reading.
So the Reading Rights Coalition may want to take time before or after their protest to thank the Authors Guild for bringing this issue to national attention, for fighting for writers rights, for supporting the exemption to copyright law that enables RFB&D and Bookshare to operate, and they may also want to thank the members of the Authors Guild for all the great books written so far and those yet to come. And on top of that, do you really want to be messing with Judy Blume??
April 4th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
This entire discusssion is pretty much moot. Every Windows machine has been able to read books aloud since 2005, at no cost to the owner. MS Reader introduced TTS years ago. The Authors’ Guild is 4 years and a few hundred million computers too late. I doubt a court, presented with the facts would give them much of a hearing.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
April 4th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Hi Jack,
How do you know audio rights were not included with the earlier ebook editions? (check out The Soundproof Book article) Many ebooks had TTS turned off. Amazon’s innovation was to enable TTS without bothering to tell anyone first, and they got their wrist slapped.
April 4th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I’m still trying to figure out how it is that Amazon being forced to grant publishers the ability to disable text-to-speech on their books is a good thing for the disabled. This article hems and haws but never really comes to any point other than “the authors and publishers are right, Amazon is wrong, fie on you silly disabled people.”
Where’s the argument that’s supposed to be convincing in this?
April 4th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Chris,
To see what I am getting at, please (re)read my previous post on Teleread (http://www.teleread.org/2009/03/03/e-books-and-the-disabled-catch-22/ ). The Authors Guild position on TTS has nothing to do with the disabled. In fact, they see themselves as champions of disabled peoples right to read.
So why is Amazon’s action a good thing for the disabled? True, in the short run it curbs access to some ebooks, but the Kindle is not really accessible anyhow. In the medium run, it may prompt publishers to donate more books to Bookshare, like Hachette did ( http://www.benetech.org/about/press_releases/PR_2009-02-25_Hachette.shtml ), and in the long run it lays the groundwork for equal and equitable access for everyone: authors get paid and readers can access those works in the way that suits them best.
April 4th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
The “Read It (Aloud) and Weep” article is quite good, and I firmly believe the EFF is quite correct: an automatically prepared version that is not stored does not qualify as a derivative work. There is not copyright infringement going on here.
That doesn’t mean that Amazon shouldn’t be careful. If members of the Authors Guild start preparing clauses that prevent publishers from selling through electronic firms without control of audio-rights then the publishers are going to demand that Amazon change their ways. Of course, it may never get to that point, but it is a concern.
In the end, though, authors with anti-TTS attitudes are simply hurting themselves. They are removing value from their books in trade for the right to control an automated preparation that, in all likelihood, cannot be monetized.
Since everyone loves analogies, this situation is like food manufacturers dictating that grocery stores not offer carts unless the store had been purchased the rights to offer carts. Most people aren’t going to pay for carts because there is no perceived cost for offering the service and people will buy less food because the experience of shopping is less convenient. Everyone loses because the producing group had more power than sense.
April 4th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Logan,
I too love analogies, so to work with yours, Congress passed a law in 1996 (the Chafee amendment) providing an exemption so that disabled people can get their specialized carts from ‘authorized entities’, ie, non-profits and government. While the Authors Guild is exerting influence over who gets TTS-enabled carts, they have said they support the right of disabled people to get them and want to work out a deal, like a cart registry for people with disabilities.
Ok, enough about carts.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I’m not sure I understand your reasoning, Bob. Ignoring the Kindle, which we can agree is not accessible to certain disabled groups, your argument that electronic books should not be offered in an accessible format to the general public because it may encourage publishers to donate titles to an accessible library. That sounds a bit like segregating out the disabled because they shouldn’t be allowed to frequent the same stores as everyone else.
Oh, and the authors already get paid. What you are encouraging is a shop-by-rights store which I can guarantee you will fail.
You have elected to buy Programming In Python. Would you like:
[*] Colored-syntax code ($1)
[*] Ability to print (10|25|50) pages ($1|$2|$4)
[*] Text-to-speech ($1)
[*] Multiple device support ($5)
[*] Synchronized bookmarks ($1)
[*] Extra-large font support ($1)
[*] Dictionary lookup ($1)
(I should probably stop typing now before I give the Authors Guild too many ideas.)
The key point is that while such features do increase the value of the book, they do not do so in a discrete manner that works for the market. If I were to guess at the mindset of those responsible at the Guild, I would presume that they are just now waking up to the fact that ebooks are for more dynamic than paper books and, rather than see an increase in market prices that reflect those advantages, they are using that fact as leverage to argue for higher royalties.
Not that higher royalties for the author are a bad thing. I am strongly for them in most cases. However, there is the right way to go about seeing that increase, and this current method is not it.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
You are very quick, Bob.
I encourage the Authors Guild’s support of accessible libraries, but that is ignoring the larger point. The creation of ‘authorized entities’ providing support for the disabled does not mean that we should discourage support for disabled people by non-authorized entities.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Hi Logan,
Well, if the Authors Guild and its members are perceived as the bully, the market has ways of punishing them. Just look at what is happening to Amazon, on their own site!
http://electroniccottage.net/post/91965691/kindle
April 4th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
It’s probably about time for me to shut up, but I’ll add one more thing. It seems that our ideas aren’t really at odds (from the “Catch-22″ article and response):
“The problem is that publishers and authors feel that allowing the [copyright] exemption relieves them of the obligation to publish in accessible formats in the first place.”
“So Hachette outsourced their disabled customers to Bookshare – umm, isn’t that discrimination? Why didn’t they pay Bookshare to convert their e-books to accessible formats so they could sell them along side their ‘regular’ e-books for ‘regular’ customers?”
So what do you think the real goal of the Authors Guild is, Bob? Where do envision the market going with respect to authors’ payments and the marketplace? Do the publishers care at all about the “rights” issue or are they merely caught in the middle?
April 4th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Logan,
I am so glad you asked those questions. My answers will be in a paper I am preparing for this here thing:
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-6637.htm
I will post my comments at http://www.accessiblepublishing.org when they are ready for their close-up.
April 5th, 2009 at 7:59 am
“How do you know audio rights were not included with the earlier ebook editions? (check out The Soundproof Book article) Many ebooks had TTS turned off.”
Since I had no clear answer to this question, I did a little research. I had never encountered a Reader ebook without TTS. As usual with MS, the story is more complicated. With Reader, the TTS system can’t work with DRM for some technical reasons (according to MS). Since I never buy DRMed ebooks, all of my books work with TTS whether the author likes it or not. So for MS Reader DRM=no TTS, not for legal resons, but for technical ones.
MS’s Reader website has some weasel words on copyright, but the bottom line is that they have no plan to fix this. It looks like Amazon is better at software design than MS, but MS is luckier in avoiding potential litigation, by incompetence.
Sadly,
Jack Tingle
April 5th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I completely agree. Colored people should be thankful that they had their own colored water fountains. If white people didn’t wanted to keep them oppressed and thirsty, they wouldn’t even give them their own damn water fountains.
White people are not going to change their ‘stance’ because their position to discriminate is logical, consistent, and correct. Black people may dislike or deny this reality (call it ‘black people rights’), but it is the way things are and it is not going to change – managing who gets to drink out of what water fountains is how white people continue to rule the world.
[Moderator's note---just to be on the safe side: Ross obviously intended this as satire, comparing the access-challenged to those discriminated against by race. - D.R.]
April 5th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
A point I have not seen made is that the Author’s Guide position requires DRM, and not the “social” kind either but the encrypted and impossible to read on unauthorized devices kind. Moreover, since there are no mainstream ebook DRM schemes left that have not been circumvented, the Author’s Guild should logically advise their members not to sell ebooks at all.
What I expect to happen on the Kindle is that all major publishers will disable read-aloud on all their ebooks, because they have no explicit language in their contracts with authors that allow it. Kindle owners will then be much more likely to strip the DRM from Kindle ebooks, just so they can exercise the right than Amazon agrees they have (disabled or not) for their Kindle to read aloud to them. So, creating a new class of DRM strippers is the only way I see the Authors Guild advancing the cause. I think such circumvention would be legal in the US if ever tested in court, but the odds of this ending up in court are vanishingly small.
April 5th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Your article is wrong on two counts. First, reading text aloud is not a “reproduction” because the audio version is never “fixed in a tangible medium of expression,” which is required under Copyright Act.
Second, the Authors Guild claims that reading the text out loud is a “public performance,” which is also wrong. If that were true, anyone playing a radio in their car with the windows rolled down, or having a musical ringtone on their phone, would also be a copyright infringer.
As usual, copyright owners and others take an absolutist view of what they think copyright law should be versus what it is.
April 5th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
As an author with multiple Kindle books ‘in print’, I can tell you that I am not in favor of disabling Text To Speech. As an avid listener of audiobooks, I can also tell you that not every book made available in print is also made available in audiobook form.
If publishers and the Authors Guild want to get TTS disabled on books they are already planning to release in audiobook form that would be fine, but whether they realize it or not they’re working toward having TTS disabled on ALL ebook content, on ALL devices. Publishers’ and the AG’s claim that all they want is the right to disable TTS on a book-by-book basis is specious, because it’s a lot cheaper and easier for hardware and software developers to disable TTS entirely than it would be to invest the time and money in developing and administering a tracking mechanism to distinguish TTS-disabled books from TTS-enabled books. Simply disabling TTS altogether carries the added benefit of pre-empting any future legal battles over the issue as well. In this economy, I could hardly blame tech companies for choosing to bow out of the battle.
The argument that TTS cannibalizes book sales is also specious, for two reasons.
First, who do they think would buy *both* an ebook edition and an audiobook edition of the same book? If you want to hear it (and it’s available) you buy the audiobook, if you want to read it you buy the print edition. In order to get the “free” TTS reading on a Kindle 2, print-disabled customers have to buy the Kindle book.
Secondly, as anyone who regularly listens to audiobooks knows, flat narration can ruin the listening experience. If you doubt it, check out some of the (many) reviews at Audible in which an audiobook was panned not for the content of the book, but the quality of the narration.
I have little doubt that given the choice, the print-disabled would much prefer to buy the professionally-produced audiobook that’s being performed by a professional actor. But if the book in question isn’t offered in audiobook format, TTS is a better alternative to refusing to sell them a ‘readable’ book at all, isn’t it?
Author and publisher objections based on TTS voice quality are ridiculous as well. If your book is offered in an audiobook edition, the print-impaired who want the book will buy that edition. And if your book *isn’t* offered in audiobook edition, it’s impossible for TTS to cannibalize your audiobook sales anyway. Nobody who opts to listen to a book via TTS expects a full audiobook experience, they know it’s a stopgap, but it’s better than nothing. None of my books have been released in audiobook format, and I’m glad TTS is there to make my work accessible to the print-impaired.
All this brouhaha over audio rights is really just a curtain being drawn shut in front of what publishers and the AG are really driving at, and that’s DRM. As a group, they’re (needlessly) worried about the theft of digital copies, whether in audio or print form. It’s a pity the needs of the print-disabled are being sacrificed on the altar of bulletproof DRM, especially since bulletproof DRM will never exist so long as there’s one guy in the world with a lot of time, sharp hacking skills, and a desire to get free content.
Studies have shown that the illegal peer-to-peer music file sharing that was rampant a few years ago actually drove *more* sales of the legal files. Consumers are willing to pay for digital content, so long as it’s easy to do so and the digital content doesn’t place excessive demands or restrictions on them.
The AG and publishers don’t seem to realize it but they’re working very hard at cutting off their noses to spite ALL our faces—publishers, authors and readers alike—, the end result of which will surely be reduced sales and reader alienation. And despite the fact that the Guild and big publishers are driving these demands, when their demands are finally met, individual authors will end up paying the price—and not just in terms of lost sales.
When consumers feel their rights to free use of content they’ve legitimately purchased are being denied, or severely limited, their attention naturally turns to the public face of that content: the author. When publishers and the Guild have succeeded in imposing Draconian DRM measures on digital books, *they* are not the ones who will end up looking greedy and insensitive to readers: authors will take that hit. The Reading Rights coalition addresses its ‘open letter’ of protest to *authors*, not publishers or the AG.
As an indie author, I strongly object to publishers and the AG taking a position that will almost certainly force developers to abandon TTS, because now they’re infringing on MY right as an free agent to make my work available to whomever I want in whatever form I want.
Part of my motivation for choosing the indie path was freeing myself from outside control over my work, but it seems that the gatekeepers of publishing are bound and determined to drag all authors everywhere down with them. With TTS disabled the potential audience for my books will instantly go down, and while I’d very much like to make audio versions available, I lack the time and skills to produce my own audiobooks or podcasts.
Way to go, AG and publishers. With mainstream publishing in crisis, I’d expect you to be working on ways to attract readership, not reduce it.
April 5th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Many of the uses of text to speech are clearly fair use, especially those uses by disabled individuals or the illiterate. The public interest benefits strongly weighs in favor of fair use. What troubles me the most about DRMing the books is that it criminalizes attempts to break DRM and use one’s first amendment fair use rights.
Does the authors guild really want to criminalize people with dyslexia? They are quickly moving down the path of the to join the RIAA as one of the most hated professional organizations.
Brian Rowe
3L Seattle University Law
Soon to be dyslexic IP lawyer, who is more then willing to fight this type of abuse of copyright law.
PS I agree with Michael Scott’s comments also.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Your friend reads aloud to you from a Kindle. Is that Text to Speech? Is your friend in violation of copyright law?
April 6th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
The Association of Blind Citizens, ABC, will produce a live webcast of the Reading Rights Coalition, RRC, protest being held at The Authors Guild in New York City. The webcast will begin on Tuesday April 7th between 11:45 A.M. and 12:00 P.M. EDT
Listeners around the world can access the web page:
http://blindcitizens.org/live
which has information and links for listening to the live event. It is recommended that you access this web page prior to the event so that you can install the Talking Communities conference web browser component in advance. A flash based and mp3 stream may also be available at the above web address.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:32 am
For anyone who doesn’t think text-to-speech could compete with audio books someday, well, leave it to the Japanese to invent the future…
http://www.physorg.com/news158259748.html
NEC Corporation announced today the development of two new technologies that evaluate an author’s feelings based on text data in order to automatically generate entertaining blog content. The technologies produce a variety of text decorations and feature an entertaining text-to-speech function that generates synthesized speech based on the positive or negative emotions expressed in a body of text.