Amazon agrees to cripple Kindle 2

That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Amazon should have fought that instead of wussing out.

How many times do we have to go down this same road with regards to the use of digital content?

Oh well. I give it till March 31st before the Kindle 2's text-to-speech is cracked wide open by all those creative hackers out there?

I'd argue that since the machine has to render the text before it can be used, audio is just a different rendering, and what the authors have actually sold is the digital information of the book, not the right to display it visually. It's a naturally more flexible format, but the authors haven't added that value themselves, the device has. Why do they deserve money from that? We should be able to use it in any personal manner that we want.

Why didn't Amazon fight this more? This is a feature that so many were excited about and now there is talk of disabling it all together make me think it will dwindle sales a good bit. I think the problem begins with the fact that nobody is buying hard back books anymore and more digital copies of them, less revenue in somebodies pocket means more complaining. And call me ignorant but its probably the authors and publishers that are having a hard time transitioning into an electronic lifestyle, they probably have difficulties checking their own emails. Give the user, the consumer, the buyer the option to disable this.

The thing is, this is a travesty and all -- I've already written to that effect under a previous post -- but it's probably not in Amazon's best interests to piss off publishers. Imagine for a moment if a publisher boycotted Amazon. They wouldn't just lose business on those books, now "hardcore" Amazon users would have to go out on their own and leave the "Amazon ecosystem". I can't really fault them for buckling, but only because the damage done by pissing off publishers is more visible than the damage done by pissing off consumers. Sad but true: those of us that actually care about "digital rights" are few and far between.

I must be alone in seeing this as a good compromise. I have a feeling the writer's guild came to Amazon and gave them two options;
A: Disable text 2 speech altogether
B: Deal with higher e-book prices for their customers and higher cost (lower profits) for amazon

SO making the text to speech optional, and with no higher fees for amazon, everyone wins. Amazon gets to continue marketing the technology and using it as an advertising point, and the authors/publishers get to retain control of their material.

After listening to the Kindle 2 text-to-speech in action, I can say that the Author's Guild had nothing to worry about. The audio sounds like a robotic voice with no cadence or inflection, speaking in clipped tones. There's no way I'd listen to it except in an emergency.

What amazes me is that the one time when the minority voice (in this case the visually impaired) would have a credible complaint, they are oddly silent. I'm going to go park in a handicapped spot now!

How strange. I HAVE seen at least one comment, if not more, in every commentary thread I have yet seen devoted to this topic pointing out that, auctorial rights and money aside, this is a great tool for the visually impaired (or the otherwise impaired, really: imagine if it hurts to hold up the book, hurts to turn the pages, hurts to sit up, etc.). People keep mentioning it. And nobody listens.

So it's been mentioned. As to why you haven't seen it, well, that's your little red wagon.

This is silly. I don't care much for Amazon.com (I didn't appreciate some of their attitudes toward books and small publishers as Kindle 1 was coming out), so it takes a thoroughly moronic debate for me to be siding with them. But they should have left it in. It's a non-issue. It's even lower than a non-issue. An audio book and text-to-speech are two completely separate creatures, with two completely separate uses. To lump them together and then remove one...it boggles the mind.

That said, Amazon's been shrewd about this, leaving it open to the publishers and the individual authors. There have been authors online (Neil Gaiman, for one, Wil Wheaton, for two) scoffing at this non-issue. So presumably THEY will allow text-to-speech. The publishing houses haven't been complaining about this. So who knows, over the thrashing of the Author's Guild, some big publisher like Harper might just allow all their books to have the feature anyway.

We'll see, in the coming weeks, how much this is actually an issue or not. I'm betting not. And I wish someone would give the Author's Guild President a good talking-to before letting him out in public.

I disagree with this decision for reasons other than most folks,even Roy Blount.What everyone is missing (other than Crunge) is the quality of the reading.Personally,I would never own a Kindle because I prefer to read actual books,printed on paper,the old fashioned way.I also don't listen to audiobooks.However,If I were to choose to listen to a book,say while working or somesuch (NOT WHILE DRIVING BECAUSE THAT'S STUPID),I would prefer to listen to it read by someone with a pleasant reading voice,or the author's choice of reader.This technology will also drastically reduce JOBS...those of the bookreaders,which is,believe it or not,an art.I don't want to hear some crappy computer voice reading anything to me.I also don't want to look up to empty bookshelves where REAL BOOKS should be.I'm sure this will generate a lot of bullshit about me being a technophobe,which is not at all true.I simply think we are living in a society of semi-literate morons,and fear that the ability to read is slipping away.

This is a shame, once again people not knowing how to transition to digital media. And something that can help the visually impaired. Although a Braille Kindle would be cool.

David: I don't think the kindle reading will "drastically reduce" jobs, because it is indeed an art form, while the kindle is going to be robotic and can't put the inflections and enunciation that a voice actor can. I too like Real books over the electronic format, but for the visually impaired this can be an easy method to "read" without having to wait for the tape.

Also isn't it odd that you speak of literacy, yet so many blogs are appearing and more and more classes of society have access to computers, which you have to read to use.

John: Being a father of someone who is visually impaired,(she's 15 months) I'm going to say I doubt many visually impaired people who use the web read Downloadsquad. How many programs here cater to any of their needs or would interest them? And you might as well start mild by parking in the "Togo only" spaces and work you way up on the abuse ;)

Glad: I can understand getting angry, but please try to be civil. John was using his style humor to point out that nobody that is visually impaired has evidently spoken up.

I don't understand what the fuss is about.

I assume the major newspapers and magazines will enable TTS... what else would non-hearing-impaired individuals want TTS for? Don't tell me people think machine translation can provide even a passable experience for works of fiction and / or entertainment.

Here's something everyone can relate to: Can you imagine listening to Tuesdays With Morrie using a machine translation, with no soul? Tell me that doesn't sound wretched. The machines mankind has created cannot come close to emulating real human emotion, (yet.)

John, you can see also some examples here - vpn