Know Your Rights: Does the Kindle 2's text-to-speech infringe authors' copyrights?
By Nilay Patel 
posted Feb 11th 2009 2:38PM
posted Feb 11th 2009 2:38PM
Know Your Rights is Engadget's technology law series, written by our own totally punk ex-copyright attorney Nilay Patel. In it we'll try to answer some fundamental tech-law questions to help you stay out of trouble in this brave new world. Disclaimer: this isn't legal advice, but it is best read aloud by a text to speech app.
Hey, so does the Kindle 2's Read to Me text-to-speech feature really infringe on authors' copyrights?
It's nice to be back! It's been a while.
Yeah yeah. Get to it.
Okay, so the issue is that the Kindle 2's Read to Me feature obviously threatens the audiobook market, and while at first blush it seems like the Authors Guild has a pretty weak case when executive director Paul Aiken says things like "They don't have the right to read a book out loud," it's not necessarily as ridiculous as it seems.
Yeah, that's totally ridiculous! Wait, what?
Well, think about it this way -- once you get it on the Kindle 2, an ebook can serve as both a regular book (that you read) and a recording (that you listen to). What the Authors Guild seems to be saying -- in a totally backwards and potentially inaccurate way -- is that while Amazon has the rights to sell you the book, it doesn't have the rights to sell you the recording.
Are you seriously saying that I don't have the right to read a book out loud? Girl, you crazy.
No, you absolutely have the right to read a book out loud -- but you're not allowed to make recordings of yourself and sell them. That's something only authors are allowed to do, and it's hard to have a problem with that. You'd be pretty miffed if someone started selling recorded versions of your blog without compensating you, wouldn't you?
But the Kindle isn't playing back recordings -- it's synthesizing sounds based on the words in the book! Isn't that just a private reading?
Sure, and a MIDI piano isn't playing back song recordings, it's just playing notes from a file that sound exactly like the sound recording, right?
This is actually pretty tough stuff -- as far as edge cases go, this one pushes right up against the boundaries of the current law. On one hand, you definitely have the right to read books that you own out loud using whatever tools you want, and on the other, authors definitely have the right to prevent others from selling audio versions of their works. The Kindle's text-to-speech feature blurs the lines between books and recordings, and that means those two rights are in conflict with each other.
Come on, text-to-speech has been around forever! What's next, suing Apple for MacInTalk?
It's always gotta be Apple, doesn't it?
Answer the question, smartass.
Well, sure, you can buy ebooks and play them back using OS X's text-to-speech voices. But here's the thing -- no one really does that, so no one cares. The Kindle is the first major text-to-speech device that could impact audiobook sales, so it's not surprising it's the first to garner this kind of scrutiny. Remember: just because someone can file a lawsuit doesn't mean they have to.
Okay, but who's honestly going to choose the Kindle's computer voice over a real person reading an audiobook?
You're right, nothing's ever going to compare to a real live person reading to you, but it's not like technology ever stops progressing -- while the Kindle 2's voice isn't the best, we'd bet almost anything that the Kindle 5 or the Kindle 10 will be more than adequate for a lot of people. Remember, people happily listen to 128kbps MP3s through crappy iPod headphones all day long -- eventually the quality tipping point will come, and the Authors Guild is just trying to protect its own before they get totally bowled over.
So basically Amazon just has to pay up?
Well, maybe -- it's not exactly terrific public policy to say that text should be considered a recording as well, especially given the prevalence and intrinsic value of computerized text-to-speech. We'd say that means Amazon should fight this one out, honestly, but that doesn't mean Jeff Bezos won't just cut a check and make this all go away for now. You can do that when you're Amazon.
Look, just make this easy for me: who should I flame in comments? That's all I really need to know.
Doesn't matter -- we read everything back in the OS X "Princess" voice anyway, tough guy.
Thanks again to Matt Gavronski of Michael Best & Friedrich for his assistance!
Data is data.
Format is irrelevant.
If I have purchased the right to consume a story, it matters not one whit whether I choose to read it or find some way to listen to it.
Heck, I might even roast it and salt it and eat it. I paid for it and it is mine.
It sounds like some cheese head lawyer wants to make all data conform to the 'software as a service' model where you pay every time you use it. The idea is bunk for software and the the idea is bunk for stories.
There is no doubt that the rights holder(s), performer(s), and technician(s) should get paid for the purchase of an audio recording separately from the purchase of a book. In the same way that the rights holder(s) and publisher of a book are paid twice if I buy a book twice. Because in these cases you are talking about TWO separate purchases.
But being charged to have an electronic device read the book to my kid is like charging me money when I read the book to my kid. That is is done by a device instead of me does not matter.
Laws that depend on how technology does things are just plain stupid and short sighted. What is going to happen when someone makes a device that can read a book and dump the contents directly into my brain? It's an appliance. I pay for the book ONCE. I pay for the appliance ONCE.
Imagine if you had to pay Wonder Bread extra just because you put their bread into a machine and turned it into toast.
Just plain stupid.
Henry VI said it best: 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers'
Reading to a kid is your clincher. Parents do it daily, I would hope, and libraries also offer such services. Do libraries have to pay some royalty every Saturday afternoon?
Good points, Freitag... by the way, nice avatar... may I ask what it is? The University bomber sketch and what else is that?
Excellent! I'm gonna start selling pre-toasted bread and sue restaurants for toasting bread for their consumers without paying the right to toast the bread. Brilliant business model!
Don't say we didn't warn you!
http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/241/
Thanks Nilay! You saved me from reading all that. I'm going to do this from now on, if a comment is extra long, I'll just text-to-speech it.
Oh Freitag... I hope you know that the saying is from a Shakespeare play, and that it is really a testament to the role of lawyers in the prevention of abuse. That saying was made because a trio of people are contemplating revolution, they are all thieves and killers, and you give credit to the wrong person. It is Dick the Butcher who makes the claim to kill all of the lawyers so there is no one to prosecute them for high treason.
"Heck, I might even roast it and salt it and eat it. I paid for it and it is mine."
Be carefull, the author hasn't autorized you to eat it!
You didn't read the article did you? *sigh*
Freitag,
I get why you'd be pissed about this, but most laws have good, common sense reasons behind them, and this one does too. Your Wonder Bread analogy is cute, but it doesn't make sense. Wonder Bread isn't a work of art. A book is.
The point behind the copyright laws is to allow an author to exploit every revenue stream available from making his book. This gives people an incentive to write more books because, like it or not, most people write books for MONEY.
Sure, you might think that once you buy a book, you can do whatever you want with it without paying more money, but think about what that means. Can you take your one copy of the book and release a special edition of it, even if you retyped the whole thing by hand? Can you sell tickets to a play based on the book? Can you make a movie? Shouldn't the author get money for all these things?
The big point here is that an audiobook is just like a movie -- its a performance of a written work. If someone were to make a machine that could automatically turn a book into a movie, most people would probably agree that the author should get some extra cash for that. In that sense, the Kindle is no different.
So before you make some bonehead populist comment about killing the lawyers, think it through first. People like you just lower the level of public discourse.
IMO, this is just like getting another person to read it to you.
"Laws that depend on how technology does things are just plain stupid and short sighted."
By all means, if you can predict the future for our lawmakers, please do. It would have saved humanity over all the pants-shitting we went through when the printing press was first invented and no one was ready for the fact that books and text could be made available to the masses. Or when the first records were invented and you didn't need to hire a band when you wanted music. Or when VCRs were introduced and you can make copies of television shows. Or when the internet exploded and people could make bit-for-bit digitally perfect duplications of *anything*.
The case of text-to-speech hasn't previously been an issue because it's always sucked so much, but with GPS devices, the Kindle, and many other growing needs, it *will* get better. And one day, it will be nearly distinguishable from the human voice and we will be confronted with tough copyright policy questions--as we have since the history of information.
The tools and methods we have for creating and copying information will always grow and evolve, and without any way to predict how that will happen, we will have to begrudgingly accept that our laws will always be two steps behind.
@Matt:
Of course you can't re-sell or profit off the works of others (except in some highly limited cases such as parody), but this device is simply providing an alternate means of consuming a book which you already purchased.
The toast example is actually not a bad one. Suppose Wonder Bread sold both bags of bread and bags of toast. The invention of the toaster would threaten their sales of toast so they'd be inclined to claim that you have no right to toast their bread.
If you say that text-to-speech is an infringement, then certainly all forms of OCR are as well since they threaten digital distribution of printed material. Additionally, any device the read screens for the visually impaired or produces braille from printed materials are infringements as well if what's being transformed is copywritten.
Fighting technology is a losing battle. Plus, I have to believe that there's a fundamental quality difference between audio books and the text-to-speech produced by the Kindle.
@Matt
GM crops aren't a work of art, but they're treated as such.
"I get why you'd be pissed about this, but most laws have good, common sense reasons behind them, and this one does too. Your Wonder Bread analogy is cute, but it doesn't make sense. Wonder Bread isn't a work of art. A book is."
Sorry, but this is where I disagree.
At some point in history the act of taking bread and roasting it would have been a part of the culinary world. One might even say that doing this especially well could have been an art. We now have toasters to do that for us, it is not an art anymore, except by those who do it the old fashioned way.
Text-to-speech is a service like any other, the artistic form of it is in the writing, not simple reading, unless you count the intonation and phrasing that the reader puts into it. In that sense the Kindle 2 is much similar to the toaster, producing something for the average person which would have taken some skill to do otherwise. People can still buy audio books for the sake of having a person with a good voice and phrasing read it to them, but if do not want that they can get the Kindle 2.
Technology will always make certain professions obsolete. The printing press replaced the scribe, the inkjet printer replaced some functions of the painter, and the toaster took cooking bread from chefs. Technology marches on, get used to it.
Matt,
Just wait a damned minute. Did you just imply that text-to-speech is the equivalence of a performance? I highly doubt that an sophistication of text-to-speech algorithms will never be able to impart the proper inflection and emotion to the text. In an audiobook, the author generally provides the orator with this knowledge.
If someone decided to take a written work of art and read it aloud into a recording to be played back at a later time, would you consider that to be infringing on the rights of the author? If you do, then you really need a lesson in fair-use. Also, I could take the hardback book and type the whole thing into a text editor to save it for reading at my leisure. I could even make a home movie based on the written work. I have yet to truly infringe on the author's rights.
Would you also consider loaning my book to a friend to be a copyright violation? What if I corrected obvious typos in the book before I loaned it to my friend? What if I then sold the used book to someone else? Still, I do not see how, in any of these cases, the author's rights have been infringed.
let me guess your from the south....
@egghead
I completely disagree with you. We are not talking about putting a microphone up to the kindle and gathering the neighbors. This is me in bed or something. Maybe I'm in the bath and I don't want to hold it. Realistically I can't think of why I would want a bad synth voice to read it to me but that is not the question. The issue is should it be able to.
YES. This is just as ridiculous as saying I can't copy music off a CD and listen to it on my DAP. Once I have this text on this page I should be able to read it however I want. Provided I don't try to redistribute it there shouldn't be a problem. I think it is preposterous to put laws on what we can do with technology. I think copyright is important, but I also thing Fair Use is too.
A few years down the line when we finally open our eyes will laugh at concepts like this.
@za7ch84
The other picture is from Ghost in the Shell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughing_Man_(Ghost_in_the_Shell)
Sorry egghead, my comment was directed at Matt. Wrong name.
Hey Nilay,
actually I think it would be a great idea if you guys would record yourselves reading out loud special articles like this one and made the audio avialable as a part of the post I mean articles that are more like editorial stuff rather than just a news post.
I think it would be much more interesting and enjoyable.
@Freitag
By your logic, if I had bought an album recorded on a cassette then I've essentially acquired listening rights to that album no matter how the bits are stored. Hence, I should be able to get it as a CD or as MP3 at the cost of the physical media. Also if my physical media gets damaged I should be able to walk up to a store and replace it for the price of the media????
Wait... That *actually* sounds logical! But I guess the RIAA doesn't see it that way.
Authors can't complain about this, I plan on getting a new one as soon as I can, and just like the first one it is going to enable me to read more books, more quickly, resulting in me purchasing more books, and therefore the authors will make more. I can see why they would be upset, but this will only bring on more money over all
Freitag,
Here's my two cents. I agree with you, but I think that a simple reflection on the example presented in the original article is sufficient, but I'll add some more to make it clearer.
When you want a copy of, say, Beethoven's Fifth (pretending he is still alive), and you purchase a midi format of the song, is it illegal to have a device that attaches to your piano that records the sound for your personal listening pleasure? Would you have to pay again for the separate audio recording? Nope.
Also, to Matt, not to be rude, but I disagree entirely with your movie example. If there were a machine that could translate books into movies (that was *only* for personal use), the author should get nothing for that; the makers of the "translation" software should. If someone, say, made a tape recorder that you could attach to your TV for personal audio enjoyment of television broadcasts later on, the manufacturer of such a device should not be sued. It is exactly the same thing here.
I suppose it is a deep legal issue, but from what I conclude, it really should not be an issue because it is merely a conversion and for private use. You use your Kindle, and I'll use my G1 while I burn my Kindle on kindling. Wow that was a stupid joke.
Data are data.
Datum is datum.
And tautologies...well, those are another thing all together.
I may be wrong, and I certainly have been before, but I think buying a copy of a book is like buying a copy of software. The book itself is only worth the cost of the ink and the paper, which is a few cents, but the rest of it is purchasing a license to use that book in a home environment. Similar to how if you buy a movie, it is licensed for home viewing, and licensed for 1-10 viewers, making it illegal to show said film with that license on a Daktronics scoreboard. That would require royalties galore. Generally, authors would want, and have good reason to, want money for licensing a reading technology. Keep in mind, while this is still a new technology, it has potential to become much better and could soon replace Audiobooks and other content providers. And as far as MacInTalk goes, it can be sued for that as well. And Apple could put an anti-digital edition reading system similar to how screenshots are blocked during DVD playback. That's just in the mind of Mike, though :)
"All rights reserved"
RIAA says we have no rights to change the format of ANYthing unless we pay for the privilege.
However, text to video isn't a recording -- unless the industry manages to get them defined as such.
So here are my thoughts on why this is a good thing for us audio book consumers, the kindle offers both e-book text to speech AND audio books by audible... I'm not saying all of audibles books are low quality crap that sound worse than text to speech, but well they now have incentive to put some small amount of effort in to making audio books that I can listen to without cringing at the crappy quality or an uninterested monotone narrator constantly miss pronouncing words, and failing to properly convey the emotions of a scene. Good audio books have multiple VOICE ACTORS, that are trained to sound like the characters they are portraying, to capture the emotion, there is a recording studio involved with some one that knows how to edit the audio to maintain quality, that can say that sounded like crap on my end, do it again.
I want to have your babies, Nilay!!!
totally love the Know Your Rights stuff,
great that its back :)
agreed! its my favorite recurring article on engadget!
If they are not careful their greed will hurt them like it did the music industry.
Dear Books On Tape:
Start reading (aloud) books on horse buggies.
Hey! where is the FUD alert here?
did enjoy the article. You funny, Nilay!
Ha, Nilay... good post.
As I understand it, don't companies have to protect their IP whenever it is infringed upon, or risk losing its protected status? Xerox, I believe, got caught up in this, no? Isn't this what Monster Cables argues (albeit with a trademark) every time it sues everybody over having some combination of "m" "o" "n" "s" "t" "e" "r" appears in a firm's name?
So, wouldn't deciding not to sue others with text-to-speech capabilities undermine a potential case?
That only applies to trademarks.
that does not even apply to trademarks.
I find the "know your rights" sections funny, but informative or authoritative they are not. The arguments presented here are patently ridiculous.
Speech technology has been around for many years and it's improved slightly but there are barriers that it can never surmount. To assume that someday it will be the same as real reading is just foolish, it would require artificial intelligence at minimum and the computer would have to grow a personality. No one who knows anything about the field would really ever suggest this.
Even if the tech existed in the future, it doesn't exist now so it does not affect the argument.
Similarly, you can't force people to pay for a possible use of a product. It's unconstitutional in the US and Canada at minimum (although that didn't stop the stupid Canadian government from imposing a tax on audio tapes and CD's which is pretty much the same false argument). if I buy a test to read it's patently immoral and unfair to expect me to pay for the possibility that I might also listen to it.
Froitag is right. Data is data.
If Amazon caves to this kind of fear-mongering, bigger fool them. If they took it to court they would win hands down.
Most likely is that they will do what they did with the aforementioned CD's and tapes and levy it as a fee on the end consumer, knowing full well that the end consumer has not got the money to fight it in court. Thus Amazon satisfies the whiners in the audiobook "market" and doesn't have to pay a dime themselves.
It would be nice if some company like Amazon stood up for their customers once in a while though. Capitalism rocks!
It's great having a bona fide copyright law attorney commenting. Thanks for your insight.
"I find the "know your rights" sections funny, but informative or authoritative they are not. The arguments presented here are patently ridiculous."
Show us your law degree and then you can decide what is patently ridiculous or authoritative. Nilay has presented the state of the law as it stands today; as an attorney, I can independently assure you of that.
There is a difference between "the Law" (as derived from the copyright statutes and case law) and policy. If you think the current copyright law is stupid, illogical, and "ridiculous" (no argument there), then you have a problem with its policies. If so, please write to your congressmen to have them change it to something that makes sense.
Also, what about the MIDI arguement that is made, Is it legal to distribute MIDI versions of songs? I've seen sites that distribute MIDI versions of songs, but they might not have been legal :D
NeoteriX, I haven't seen your law degree either.
Luckily for us non-lawyers this particular question doesn't require a deep knowledge of case law or anything. You can just read Title 17 and see that there's no infringement here. I don't see why Nilay is waffling about this. See my straightforward analysis at http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2009-02-11
You obviously don't know what you are talking about or just don't pay attention to the world around you. AI professionals can and do develop specialized AI all the time.
The algorithm that picks the best route for you in a GPS is a specialized AI just for map interpreting, there is one that can act like a soldier or player in a limited game situation or even in a sport. A general AI that can read a book with feeling and hold an intelligent emotional conversation, maybe never, but a specialized one that can parse a text for clues to emotion and punctuation, very very likely.
Simulating the emotion that you parse from a book is easy. Holding a conversation with this thing would be impossible but it could read you the text as a person would and even do voices for different speakers. We've done a pretty good job of writing down the emotions and if we can parse it a computer can. Just wait it will happen and not so long from now..
Idiocy. If I can pay a man to read me a book, why can't I pay Amazon (by buying their device) to read me a book. At any rate, Amazon is selling their books and making them money so this is just pointless veniality. Maybe next they should sue to stop the printing of "large print" editions because just buying the book doesn't give you the right to read it with big letters.
You CAN'T pay a man to read you a book; that's the whole point here.
@darklighter of course you CAN pay someone to read a book to you, it's just that nobody realistically would. Technically I could pay someone to run me over with a cement truck, even though i wouldn;t.
well, in this economy...
Yes, you can. What you cannot do is pay a man to read you a book then distribute the recordings, or, pay a man to read a book at a public event.
You CAN pay a man to read you a book. You can't pay a man to read the book, record it, and then profit by selling the recording to other people and expect to be in the free and clear.
You can read a book aloud to your children. You can't tour around reading books to children and charging them a fee for your "show" (without paying an author or publisher).
etc etc...nothing to hard to understand
The Talking Books program for the U.S. Library of Congress is permitted to record books and magazines without author's permission for the Public Library system (a service for the blind and/or physically handicapped) because they use a "specialized format", and I assume, because it is for the library. Not necessarily a protected format, but one that is different than the norm. Presently it is *still* a specialized cassette player that uses regular cassettes, but gets four sides out of what is normally two by using two mono tracks per side. This is the only biz I am familiar with which can tell a protesting author "Yes we can." when it comes to recording and distributing published work.
People pay to have other people read books all the time.
RSVI - Reading service for the visually impaired
I bet many, many, many home health aides and home care specialists have spent time reading to patients... And receive pay for the time spent doing it.
There is no sale after the conversion. You buy the book and then give it to a man so that he can read it to you and only you. You are not selling the recordings further. The text-to-speech conversion happens after the sale and there is no further sale or distribution after conversion, so copyright should not apply in this case.
Basically it is just like if I buy a CD and then convert that CD to MP3 and listen to them on my iPod. Same here - I buy from Amazon a book in digital text form and convert it (via a feature in the Kindle) to the same book in audio form. It should be perfectly legal under fair use (as long as there is no resale or redistribution of copies).
Seems to me that you could pay a man to read you a book, but he would technically owe royalties to the author for doing that. If he reads it to you for free, he doesn't, but he can't profit from somebody else's work.
So Amazon should pay the authors a bit extra every time they sell a book for the Kindle because they are selling a book *and* an audiobook. Probably not the full audiobook price because it is a much lesser quality one, and it's not guaranteed to be used, and it has the potential to increase sales for the authors, and all that jazz. But I suspect that's what will come out of the court case: Amazon pays royalties (and how much) and probably your costs don't go up much, if at all.
I like when you do both parts...
that's what she said...
"Sure, and a MIDI piano isn't playing back song recordings, it's just playing notes from a file that sound exactly like the sound recording, right?"
Right, and places that sell sheet music aren't being sued for selling recordings.
"Amazon has the rights to sell you the book, it doesn't have the rights to sell you the recording."
But they're not selling a recording, they're selling a book and a device that can convert books into recordings. Neither of those are illegal. In your example it would be like a music store selling you sheet music and a device that can read sheet music and play it back as MIDI. There's nothing wrong with that either.
When you buy an audiobook you're paying for the content plus the time of the person who spoke it. The latter does not apply here.
That was exactly the point I was trying to make -- you have to pay twice. Once for the CD, once for the sheet music. Here, it appears you're getting both, and it's not clear how to resolve that issue and protect both authors and consumers.
His point was that you pay twice, for the sheet music and the device that turns the sheet music into sound, which is not the same as paying for the sheet music and for the CD. Amazon's device is analogous to the device that turns the sheet music into sound, not the CD.
I'm not trying to sound argumentative here but I don't think that's what he said.
"you have to pay twice. Once for the CD, once for the sheet music."
In this case you also have to pay twice if you wish to have both the ebook (sheet music) and a recorded reading of that book (CD)
Just as you can play back sheet music with MIDI software you can play back an ebook with text-to-speech. I just don't see why doing it with music is fine but not with text.
Wait.. what if they sell you the sheet music and then a sax to play to the music. that's more like that's going on here.
The Kindle is just an instrument.
No, you're arguing that you'd have to pay once for the sheet music, and once to have that sheet music played by an electronic device.
There's a copyright on the sheet music, but there's a separate copyright on the performance of said piece. And while a public performance of a copyrighted work may need a license, a private one does not.
The same applies here. In fact, the Kindle 2 is one level more removed. If somebody say, broadcasted the Kindle 2's reading, Amazon isn't liable, the person doing the broadcasting is. Just like Sony isn't liable if you play copyrighted music over the air.
Put another way: If it became a popular trend for people to hire someone to read their books to them, would the authors then have the right to sue Amazon? It doesn't make sense.
What about visually impaired people? They use text-to-speech quite often. And there's mobile text-to-speech hardware that they can use to read books, magazines etc.
The one point I don't "hear" mentioned is that if the Kindle isn't allowed to do this, what happens to al those people who can't see to read a book and use speech to text conversion to "hear" the book read to them. Are we now saying all those can't do that.
This is quite absurd.
Will the Kindle's text to speech replace all those audible.com books? No way.
A professional reader brings the book to life. A text to speech session literally just says the words.
The authors are a bunch of whiners who clearly don't care about people with handicaps.
No, those people would purchase audiobooks ;)
Doesn't Amazon own Audible.com now?
In other words, IP laws were created by lawyers for lawyers.
There's one extremely good reason not to take this legal action (if it would, in fact, hold up in court) - publishers would look ridiculous and when the deaf community gets up in arms about hindering products designed to aid in accessibility. Think of how bad that would look in the press.
Sorry, I meant blind community - not deaf community. I was up too late last night.
hmm... I personally don' t think the deaf community would mind. Now the blind might have a thing or two to say about it.
I think you meant to say blind, not deaf.
OK, now I look like an idiot. You posted your correction while I was writing my smart-a** reply. It is pretty funny though.
How does speech synthesis help deaf people?
Is there some sort of delay on when comments are posted? I posted my correction one minute after I posted the original and then 20 minutes later a flood of comments saying that I made a mistake...
They're all blind, and had to wait for someone to read your second comment to them.
Can a computer give a public performance or create a derivative work? Doubtful. Text-to-speech is also not copying as the "speech" is not fixed. Copyright law has also has an exception for performances for small groups of people. Otherwise jam sessions would become mini infringement fests. I do not see a way under copyright law for book publishers to attack this feature of the Kindle 2.
So you're saying it's not a public performance if I take my computer and some big speakers out to a park and crank up some tunes, because it's the computer performing, not me? No exemption there, I think.
The argument you might be stumbling towards is this: it's not a derivative work, merely a different representation of the exact same work. See SchmuckyTheCat's comment below.
I can take a boombox and some music CD's to a park and just crank it up. Someone sold me a CD and a boombox. That's all Amazon is doing. They are selling books and software, not audio books.
I think you're confusing things, but in doing so you bring up the central argument that Nilay fails to mention; Kindle's text-to-speech function, like all text-to-speech devices, does not seem to fall under the derivative works law but under performances law, which are a classification of exemption to copyright violations. Can a computer give a performance? I'd say yes, but in doing so that does not necessarily violate copyright because there are performances that are allowed. So I think when viewed in that context Amazon is probably pretty safe (though I have not done any research on caselaw).
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#110
Section 101 defines two methods of public performance:
(1) to perform . . . at a place open to the public or at any place where a
substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social
acquaintances is gathered; or
(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance . . . of the work to a
place [open to the public] or to the public, by means of any device or process…
To translate, you should not plug your Kindle 2 into big speakers and blast text-to-speech in the park. You definitely should not record the text-to-speech and put it on your internet radio station. Normal use of the Kindle 2 is probably O.K.
the way i see it, eye-mo, and eye care product, should sue farmers selling cucumbers, because some people are using cucumber as eye-stress reliever. if you eat vegetables, thats fine, if you start using vegetables as beauty product, a lot of beauty care companies would be suing farmers.
Best Engadget post evar! Seriously.
I think logically this falls under the same category as when someone buys a book and, due to disability or multitasking, asks their friend or spouse to read it to them. Would the author's guild sue them? Doubtful. Does that violate the spirit of the copyright laws? Of course not.
It's only because of the matter of scale, then, that they're going after Amazon. You're neither purchasing nor acquiring an audio recording of the work. Instead, you've previously purchased an automaton that fills the role of their friend or spouse in the above example by reading your book to you.
It's an academic distinction but it seems fairly cut and dry. The guild's statement comes across as greedy and desperate, and I think they see one of their revenue streams slipping away.
Treat this as an extension of the ADA laws. This technology will make it easier for a blind person to enjoy the same books as everyone else, with little effort. I can't imagine the book publisher wants to prevent blind people for enjoying the content, so let everyone enjoy it the same way.
Well, it _would_ be useful to the blind community if the device were able to also read the menus to you. Unfortunately, it isn't, thus making it relatively useless for real unsighted use. It's essentially a gimmick.
He is making the wrong argument against the Guild.
An audiobook is a derivative work of the original book - a new and SEPARATE copyright because a human being did the recording and the human being owns the copyright (and probably assigned it to the publisher as a work for hire).
The Guild is saying that the Kindle is making a derivative work. It's in their quote, go read it. Kindle text to speech is a limited mechanical reproduction. Mechanical reproduction is not eligible for copyright, it's not derivative. It's not a new work. Machines can't make copyrightable things. The basis of their claim is false.
"Machines can't make copyrightable things."
Thank you. +1.
Nilay,
Thank you for you excellent legal discussion and primer.
A comment, I use Mac OS X text to speech to read public domain books and other writings. Surprisingly it works pretty well. So well that I can play WoW and work on my law school homework.
So Amazon got shafted by a copyright problem. What delicious irony.
My faith in natural justice is restored.
he didn't answer the question!!! Who am I to flame? my money's on the RIAA. Or the MPAA. Or Apple. Or Microsoft.
Ah, screw it. Just flame them all.
Certainly, your highness. ;-)
I think the authors should leave this be for now. If they take this to court, not only will they lose, but they will also set precident for authors in the future to lose their cases when the text-to-speech technology becomes even better.
Let the next generation take this to court.
...
On further consideration they may do well to take this to court and bring up the fact that in the future text-to-speech will be infinitely better, and so there needs to be a fee paid at minimum. Otherwise the market may be flooded with e-book readers with tts and future generations of writers would have no chance winning a case.
Things to think about.
What happens when a book does not exist in audio form to begin with? Also they have completely lost their marbles Microsoft has had a free text to speech engine that works fairly well in their operating system for years and nobody has done anything about it. It is just lawyers being lawyers and @$$hole companies trying to make money off of somebody's great idea.
I Got My Mac To Talk Out This Whole Article Using Text-To-Speech, And This Was Before I Saw Them Referring To Apple
Even if format shifting were violating copyright law, it's not Amazon doing the shifting. The individual Kindle user chooses how to read the book, visually or audibly. Amazon only provides the tool. I think this falls well within fair use. You might as well say they themselves can't read a book out loud. It's also important to point out that the DMCA's clause about subverting copy protection doesn't apply because the DRM on those books does not attempt to prohibit a screen reader.
More to the point, this is a discrimination issue. Visually impaired people have been using text readers for decades. If such a suit were won by the Author's Guild, it would effectively prevent visually impaired citizens from reading anything without the express permission of the author to use a screen reader.
This is ridiculous and anyone supporting the position of the Author's Guild should be rendered blind for at least a week.
The issue here is that Amazon has the ability to capitalize on this feature.
At the end of the day, the copyright belongs to the author. What the author does is license the publisher to distribute it in a particular format and region. Commonly for books, it is print in North America, or Europe, etc.
Now it is accepted that there is a separate worldwide license for electronic, and one for voice recordings. It is also why movie studios have to pay for the movie rights to a particular piece.
What the Author's guild is contending is that Amazon should pay for the audio rights since the device is capable of voicing the piece. It isn't the best argument since the technology is readily available, however, most people using the technology are not doing it for monetary gain. It goes back to the fact that Amazon has the potential to capitalize on this feature.
It seems like there would be some precedent for this issue in book readers for the blind? Sure, you'd look pretty bad suing "the blind", but then again I wouldn't put it past some of these lawyers...
the way i always took it with an audio book you where paying more for the name of the person reading it than the book content itself. ie. green eggs and ham read by a famous person would be more than if it where taped by some not so famous person.
im not an avid reader by anymeans so im probably wrong. But im sure there a lot people that think the same way.
My suggestion, make the peoples voice like fonts. Charge for em, or give em away. since this is a patent legal thing what do you think nilay can i get a patent for that idea or do i have to actually come up with the tech first.
Aside from my new toasted bread business, I'm siding with Froitag as well. The problem we have today is too many old business modeler's don't understand what they are dealing with.
With books and audio books; you're given the same material in two different formats. It is perfectly legal to take a book you bought and make your own recording from it. The AG had their way, THAT would be illegal too. Not because they don't want to you to listen to their books, but simply because "they already provide a recorded version." This is pure bs and complete failure in understanding what they are *really* selling.
In the case of books; you're selling a physical copy of the story you wrote. In case of audio recorded books; you're selling the recorded audio of your story. In the digital medium, you're selling the digital bits of your story. In all these instances you're never actually selling your story, but rather your story in convenient formats people wish to consume. It's a convenience you're selling, not your story.
Now, if somebody just so happens to allow that convenience in another fashion, it doesn't mean they are infringing on your rights. It just means they found a better business model that consumers can use to consume your story. You're still getting paid for that one sale. You just can't act like the recording industry and assume you should be paid for the sale, the right for the user to create an audio version, the right for the user to add videos to it, the right for the user to read it to friends, the right for the user to use one line quotes and so forth.