Other responses have tried to summarize WHAT is happening, but not as much as the why (or at least, the direct why as opposed to the handwavey "encourage innova

Other responses have tried to summarize WHAT is happening, but not as much as the why (or at least, the direct why as opposed to the handwavey "encourage innovation" why). For that, look to the past before copyright was a thing. Sure, there was the immediate result of when you put out a book others would copy the text (sometimes poorly). But another huge issues was _translations_. If you put out your book in, say, English, that meant you had a fairly small market. Those with the money for books and the background knowledge and interest in your topic were probably among the smaller well-off classes in several countries. Translations of a hot title were big money - and they'd be done, probably by others, and probably not as you (the author) would like. Thus, while the first copyrights were "don't copy the text", derivative works like translations were soon added. And because other languages mean other countries, there was an incentive to create international agreements, and this led to modern copyright. Arguably, all of the above are pretty decent reasons for the copyright protections we have. Consumers benefit because creators can expect to be paid for their work, and because creators are more likely to focus on quality than just getting it out first (particularly on translations). In that light, the argument that a speech-to-text translation requires permission makes some sense, at least legally. One could even argue that the copyright-holders (publishers, in this case) have a reason to not want a poor speech-to-text translation to ruin the reception of their works. Of course, this falls down when the publishers are preventing purchasers from making use of such services even when those purchasers are aware of the source of the translation, and any motive other than greed falls away when the publisher wants to be paid a second time. But the publishers aren't coming at this from nowhere, it's an existing, long-present concept. Arguably laws should change. Alternatively, consumers could demand changes in behavior (I have low expectations of that, but that's the theory).