With much criticism from publishers on the newly released Amazon.com’s Kindle 2 text-to-speech feature, Amazon.com has apparently backtracked on this feature now. Publishers had expressed concern that this text-to-speech feature will sidestep royalty payments. Based on these concerns, Amazon.com has supposedly allowed publishers to selectively disable this feature, on a per title basis.
The new Kindle can read books aloud, but unlike with audio books, royalties are not paid to authors. There were also concerns that this new feature of Amazon, was illegal in that it violates copyright rules. However Amazon, in its recent press release stated that. “Kindle 2’s experimental text-to-speech feature is legal. No copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given.”
“Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver’s seat.”
The Authors Guild, earlier had also said that there was a possibility that the guild could sue over the issue. The guild, which is studying the issue, has called the Kindle’s speech function a “significant challenge to the publishing industry.” It has recommended its members bring up the issue of the Kindle when negotiating book contracts.
