Reading Disabilities
Soundproof books
Submitted by James Love on 17. May 2009 - 11:41I spent a few minutes today on Amazon, to check on reports that some Kindle titles now have text to speech disabled. Among the authors who are “turning off” text to speech in Kindle editions of books are President Obama, Vice President Biden, Toni Morrison, the Pope, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, Mother Teresa, Isaac Asimov, Tom Brokaw, P.D. James, Robert B. Reich, George Will and Ann Coulter, to mention a few.
Kindle 2 vs Reading Disabled Students
Submitted by Meredith Filak on 13. May 2009 - 16:25Update #2, 15 May: Yesterday, Random House began to disable TTS on books in the Kindle store, which is our primary concern. However, it appears that early reports from the Amazon message boards of remote disabling may have been inaccurate; there have been no confirmed reports of TTS being remotely disabled, and we apologize for any confusion. However, the technology to remotely disable these works does exist, and this remains a significant concern.
Two major points to bear in mind as this story progresses:
KEI submission: Survey on Accessible Books in Spanish-Speaking Countries
Submitted by Judit Rius on 28. April 2009 - 14:49Find below a copy of the KEI submission to the U.S. Copyright Office and the USPTO on a survey on accessible books in Spanish-Speaking Countries.
Survey on Accessible Books in Spanish-Speaking Countries
By Judit Rius Sanjuan, Knowledge Ecology International
April 28, 2009
Access to Foreign Works, for reading disabled persons
Submitted by Malini Aisola on 22. April 2009 - 17:09Today Meredith Filak and I filed comments with the LOC Copyright Office and the USPTO on the importance of access to foreign works for reading disabled persons. A pdf of the comments are on the web here.
The comment is filed with a lot of data, including, for example:
Accessible Versions of 56 Titles Cited by Yochai Benkler in The Wealth of Networks
Submitted by Meredith Filak on 22. April 2009 - 16:35KEI recently submitted comments to the US Copyright Office regarding the upcoming Treaty for the Blind. One element of those comments was a test of the availability of books in reading-accessible format.
KEI Comments on Accessible Works and Standards
Submitted by Manon Ress on 22. April 2009 - 14:07Today I filed my comments to the United States Copyright Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Accessible Works and Standards, a topic related to the provision of access to copyrighted works for blind or other persons with disabilities.
Slideshow: Text to speech in Kindle 2.
Submitted by Manon Ress on 8. April 2009 - 14:19On April 7, 2009, the Reading Rights Coalition held a demonstration in front of the Authors Guild in New York City, to protest the Guild's opposition to the text-to-speech feature in Amazon's Kindle 2 e-book reader.
Notes from the protest: People vs Authors Guild on Kindle 2 text to speech
Submitted by Manon Ress on 8. April 2009 - 8:36The following is my report from the April 7, 2009 Reading Rights Coalition demonstration in front of the NYC offices of the Authors Guild, regarding text to speech for Kindle 2.
Abraham Lloyd on the Kindle2/Authors Guild demo in NYC
Submitted by James Love on 7. April 2009 - 13:10I am in Montreal right now, and missed the Right Rights Coalition demonstration at the Authors Guild. Manon, Judit and Malini from our office are in NYC at the demonstration, and said it was incredibly moving. Several people at the protest sent reports by tweeter. The most complete was probably Abraham Lloyd. This was his account, with the Tweets organized from his first to last.
Some ideas for the Authors Guild
Submitted by James Love on 6. April 2009 - 7:11The Authors Guild is claiming text to speech functions in software programs and e-book readers violate their copyrights, and should be turned off unless they are paid more for the extra functionality. Obviously the geniuses among the Authors Guild are on to something. There are many similar areas of functionality to be exploited by the Authors Guild. Here are some thoughts on how the Guild might squeeze more money from readers, if they want to expand upon their new anti-consumer business strategy:
