Copyright Law

Take a look, it's in a book

By Andrew Raff, Esq.

This week, Amazon announced the details of its second generation Kindle e-book reader. One of the new features is text-to-speech software that can read aloud the text of a document stored on the Kindle.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Authors Guild is not happy with the feature, "They don't have the right to read a book out loud," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. "That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law." New Kindle Audio Feature Causes a Stir

Typically, audio books are derivative works of the original work and are fixed in a recorded medium. The reader adds his or her own interpretation to the text. The work can stand alone as an artistic creation. (See e.g. the accolades that Jim Dale has received for his readings of the Harry Potter books). However, a Kindle 2 owner could foreseeably forego buying the more expensive audiobook to choose to read aloud the e-book.

But is the Kindle text-to-speech reading a derivative work? With the Kindle 2, the computer is generating a reading of the original work dynamically for the portion of that work the Kindle user chooses to have read aloud. Is it ever considered fixed in a tangible medium? If the text-to-speech reading isn't fixed, then it isn't a derivative work. Perhaps e-book rights will become more expensive.

Engadget's Nilay Patel analyzes, Know Your Rights: Does the Kindle 2's text-to-speech infringe authors' copyrights?: "This is actually pretty tough stuff -- as far as edge cases go, this one pushes right up against the boundaries of the current law. On one hand, you definitely have the right to read books that you own out loud using whatever tools you want, and on the other, authors definitely have the right to prevent others from selling audio versions of their works. The Kindle's text-to-speech feature blurs the lines between books and recordings, and that means those two rights are in conflict with each other."

See also John Siracusa's take on the past, present and future of the e-book market, The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age - Ars Technica: "A veteran of a former turning of the e-book wheel looks at the past, present, and future of reading books on things that are not books."

Tangentially related, Apple's text-to-speech software, MacInTalk, has a major film credit in its resume. In Pixar's Wall-E, MacInTalk voiced the character Otto.

Full post as published by IPTAblog on February 11, 2009 (boomark / email).