The news that publishers felt the new read-aloud function on the Kindle 2 violated copyright laws raised some eyebrows around these parts. Well, it looks like Amazon has caved in and decided to remove the function for specific books upon publisher request. From Amazon.com
Quote:
We believe text-to-speech will introduce new customers to the convenience of listening to books and thereby grow the professionally narrated audiobooks business.
Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat.
Therefore, we are modifying our systems so that rightsholders can decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech enabled or disabled for any particular title. We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is.
Yeah,amazon just lost one of the major reason some people were buying it.
I still love my original one. But I didn't buy it,it was a gift.. I have plowed through so many books since I have had it...
Yeah, it seems that without this feature there would be almost no reason for a current owner to upgrade: aside from being a tiny bit smaller there is no big difference.
The news that publishers felt the new read-aloud function on the Kindle 2 book reader raised some eyebrows around these parts.
lost,
Your lead sentence doesn't even make sense. One or more words are completely missing. Perhaps you should have "Microsoft Sam" read things to you as a form of proof-reading? (While you're at it, be sure to sue Microsoft for including it in the OS, as having it read your text will clearly violate your copyright. )
That fixes that then![/QUOTE]
Actually, no. This doesn't "fix" anything. Having an e-book reader "read aloud" some text is NOT a "public performance" and the publishers that demanded this change are screwing over the blind, among others. It's just another ploy to (ab)use the absurd IP laws in this country to control access to information and make more money.
Yeah, it seems that without this feature there would be almost no reason for a current owner to upgrade: aside from being a tiny bit smaller there is no big difference.
Well,I am sure my fiancee would be pissed if I upgraded too since I just got mine the beginning of December.
).
(While you're at it, be sure to sue Microsoft for including it in the OS, as having it read your text will clearly violate your copyright. 
)
