5 ms·

This is not his argument. Separate revenue streams for audio books is not just a quaint custom in the publishing world, but a consequence of copyright law, whi

by sethg 18y ago

This is not his argument. Separate revenue streams for audio books is not just a quaint custom in the publishing world, but a consequence of copyright law, which treats text and audio rights as properties that may be licensed separately. He's arguing that his constituents' property is being taken from them without their consent. I think his case is weak, but it's not dumb.

brlewis 18y ago
More precisely it treats text and audio as distinct works which must be licensed individually. I wrote a lot about this at http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2009-02-11 http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2009-02-11
wavesplash 18y ago
There isn't an 'audio right' in copyright law. The author is trying to justify the loss of an established contractual norm for a sold derivative work (a professionally produced reading) by expanding the notion of copyright. The author is confusing contract rights with copyright. http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html
jpd 18y ago
But Amazon is neither selling nor giving away audio books. They are giving away a general text-to-speech solution which may conveniently be used on a book. Arguing that this is violating copyrights is the same thing as saying that text-to-speech is inherently illegal.
- andreyf 18y ago
  I wonder how things would change if the text-to-speech were done server-side? I'd imagine one can get significantly better quality if you're not doing text-to-speech on the 400Mhz processor on the Kindle 2.
  - blinks 18y ago
    The issue there is the bandwidth required for streaming audio. This is a device set up for batch downloads and not much else -- when you add time-sensitive network requirements like this, you make customers unhappy. Also, what if you're using it as a "book on tape" in the car, on a road trip through the middle of nowhere? You lose network connection, you lose your book on tape. tldr: I think it would be better quality, when you could get it, but at some level reliability is more important for this application.
andreyf 18y ago
I think his case is weak, but it's not dumb. I don't understand what the Author's Guild is trying to do here... Obviously, Amazon's lawyers have considered what the implications of an text-to-speech service are. As far as I can tell, the AG isn't even filing a lawsuit, just a PR complain-campaign. What does that get them? Conspiracy-hat-interpretation: this is great PR for the Kindle's new text-to-speech features. If it wasn't for the Author's Guild, this would be just another bullet point on the features list. Is this a favor from Roy Blount to Amazon?

by sethg 18y ago

brlewis 18y ago

More precisely it treats text and audio as distinct works which must be licensed individually. I wrote a lot about this at http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2009-02-11 http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2009-02-11

wavesplash 18y ago

There isn't an 'audio right' in copyright law. The author is trying to justify the loss of an established contractual norm for a sold derivative work (a professionally produced reading) by expanding the notion of copyright. The author is confusing contract rights with copyright. http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html

jpd 18y ago

But Amazon is neither selling nor giving away audio books. They are giving away a general text-to-speech solution which may conveniently be used on a book. Arguing that this is violating copyrights is the same thing as saying that text-to-speech is inherently illegal.

andreyf 18y ago
I wonder how things would change if the text-to-speech were done server-side? I'd imagine one can get significantly better quality if you're not doing text-to-speech on the 400Mhz processor on the Kindle 2.
- blinks 18y ago
  The issue there is the bandwidth required for streaming audio. This is a device set up for batch downloads and not much else -- when you add time-sensitive network requirements like this, you make customers unhappy. Also, what if you're using it as a "book on tape" in the car, on a road trip through the middle of nowhere? You lose network connection, you lose your book on tape. tldr: I think it would be better quality, when you could get it, but at some level reliability is more important for this application.

andreyf 18y ago

I think his case is weak, but it's not dumb. I don't understand what the Author's Guild is trying to do here... Obviously, Amazon's lawyers have considered what the implications of an text-to-speech service are. As far as I can tell, the AG isn't even filing a lawsuit, just a PR complain-campaign. What does that get them? Conspiracy-hat-interpretation: this is great PR for the Kindle's new text-to-speech features. If it wasn't for the Author's Guild, this would be just another bullet point on the features list. Is this a favor from Roy Blount to Amazon?