New Kindle raises copyright query

As Alana Semuels reports in The L.A. Times, following criticism by the US Authors' Guild over the 'text-to-speech' capability of the new Kindle 2 electronic reader, Amazon has given publishers and authors the power to disable the function.

Amazon made it clear Friday that its reversal didn't mean it agreed with that interpretation of copyright law.

"Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created and no performance is being given," the company said. "Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rights holders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat."

Ben Sheffner, a Los Angeles copyright attorney and author of the blog Copyrights & Campaigns, said Amazon probably reversed course to maintain good relationships with authors, not because of legal concerns.

Sheffner said that Amazon probably wouldn't need different rights to sell an e-book with the text-to-speech function enabled, but that book contracts could differ dramatically so there was no way to know for sure.

In a comment on the WGGB blog before Amazon's change of heart, leading British agent Meg Davis expressed concerns about the text-to-speech function.

As an agent, I'm very much keeping an eye on this. As a general rule, the more rights you can split and have paid for separately, the more money the writer makes. So not keen on an audio facility on this, which will erode the already fragile audio market. Even though Kindle's probably lost a lot of ground due to the Sony getting here first, manufacturers of the next generation of eReaders will not doubt seek to add functions such as this (as is the trend with any new technology), and we need to be vigilant.

Amazon says that more than 230,000 titles are now available to download to a Kindle, and early reviews suggest that the new version improves the device's usability.

It's not clear, however, when it will be available in the UK. As Bobbie Johnson writers in The Guardian, to sell Kindle 2 in this country, Amazon will need to overcome several hurdles relating to the use of its wireless technology.

Article updated 02.03.2009