evil blogger

Amazon.com’s latest edition e-reader, the Kindle 2, is making noise in the publishing world… literally.  Other than sporting a slimmer body, the newest version of the reader is very similar to its predecessor (even priced the same at $359).  There is one addition that has lawmakers and (more specifically) the Authors Guild concerned: the Kindle 2’s new text-to-speech ability.

Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild (a trade group representing 9,000 authors), claims, “They don’t have the right to read a book out loud.  That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”  While his first line may seem a little ridiculous or illogical, the heart of the issue is very real.  It is feared that Kindle’s text-to-speech capabilities will replace the need for audiobooks, another source of revenue for book publishers.  Audiobooks are books read aloud by an actor or actors and then made available on a CD or via the internet (through places like iTunes and, ironically enough, Amazon).

Aiken argues the legality of Kindle’s feature comes into question when you consider the text-to-speech option a public performance of the content (in which the original author is not rightfully compensated).  Aiken’s opponents would argue that there is no difference between Kindle’s text-to-speech and reading the book aloud yourself.  You don’t have to pay the author a second time when you read your child a bedtime story (or fear copyright infringement), why should you have to worry if the “book” reads for you?  Detractors also note the vast differences between electronic text-to-speech technology and audiobooks.  Where one is a crude, lifeless machine, spitting out words exactly as they are written, without intonation or emotion, the other is read by a real human, often times using different voices for each character as if putting on a one-man play.  Hear the Kindle 2 text-to-speech capabilities yourself below.

But technology advances at a staggering rate (as the video above shows: the computer’s voice is a lot more realistic than its counterparts in computers from not too long ago). “Things move quickly,” Aiken said. “I think the technology has made a generational leap in just the last few years.”  Who’s to say Amazon doesn’t dedicate itself to creating an intelligent text-to-speech technology, with the ability to “understand” how a particular word or phrase is said in context?  Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, has already established the company as willing to take on bold challenges when he stated, “Our vision is every book ever printed in any language all available in 60 seconds.” The Authors Guild is recognizing the potential threat now before it grows out of hand.

And growing, it is.

The Kindle became so popular after its debut in November 2007 that it sold out four weeks after its release, and Amazon again found its stocks depleted again during the holiday-shopping season this past December.  CitiGroup analyst Mark Mahaney estimates Amazon shipped about 500,000 units of the Kindle, and could have sold 750,000 in 2008 if it hadn’t sold out in November.  At those numbers, the Kindle is outpacing the iPod’s first year of sales when it sold 378,000 units.  Mahaney believes that the revenue generated from the Kindle device and the e-books totaled $153 million and could grow to $1.2 billion in 2010.

Those numbers have cause for people in Aiken’s position to worry.  Especially when audiobooks are generating so much revenue for publishing houses.  In 2007, sales of audiobooks reached $1 billion, and had 28% of America listening in.

The Kindle’s comparison to Apple’s iPod is an interesting one, as it looks to be a disruptive technology unlike anything we’ve seen since… well… the iPod.  What the iPod did to the music industry, Kindle could do to the publishing industry: bring everything into the digital realm.  In the same way we see music companies still grapple with the challenges of on-line music, the publishing companies are likely to be thrown into the same position; a position they are trying to avoid at the moment.

The case seems to have no clear-cut “winner.”  Both sides have reasonable arguments.  The Kindle provides the option for a book to be read aloud, but does that constitute a recording of the content as the Authors Guild suggests?  And is the quality of the text-to-speech enough to compete with audiobooks and detract from publishing companies’ revenue?  It will be interesting to see how the courts dissect the colors in this fuzzy, gray area.

[Resources: WSJ,  Fast Company, Engadget, E-Zine Articles, CNET, TC]

Tags: Amazon, Amazon.com, audiobook, Authors Guild, copyright infringement, Kindle 2, text-to-speech

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 1:13 am and is filed under Marketing, Odd news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.