SlashGear Japan
Amazon have begun to implement a remote kill-switch that removes text-to-speech functionality from their Kindle ebook reader. A byproduct of the Author’s Guild TTS controversy, the system allows publishers to disable text-to-speech on a title by title basis; as of this week, TTS has been removed from over 40 works including five of the top ten Random House best-sellers in the Kindle store.
The argument from the Author’s Guild is that, by artificially reading out any ebook, Amazon are impinging on audio-book rights that the copyright for Kindle texts does not cover. Amazon, meanwhile, maintain that it is a legal use of the texts, but implemented the kill-switch nonetheless to make rightsholders ”more comfortable”.
As Slashdot raises, Amazon has not made clear what other flags might be present in its Kindle format. While currently the Kindle DRM is known to prevent loading of the file onto non-Amazon ebook reader devices, and now to allow remote switch-off of TTS; it’s possible that it could also only allow certain texts to be read once, or in certain orders.
[via Slashdot]
One Response to “Publishers hit Kindle Text-to-Speech kill-switch”
charlesp210 May 18, 2009
I like listening to books, but the vast majority of books are not available in audio format. So text-to-speech is a great idea. I wish I had text-to-speech app for books on my iphone. It is very sad that greedy publishing houses would seek to disable this capability, and I wonder if the books they are so concerned about are even available in audio format. Then also I end up paying for books multiple times, a hardcover for my library, a softcover for traveling, and an audiobook for my car.
Neutral