[A2k] WIPO Meeting the Needs of the Visually Impaired Persons (July 13 in Geneva)

[Claude Almansi]

2009/7/13 Federico Heinz <fheinz@vialibre.org.ar>:
> On 13/07/2009, Claude Almansi wrote:
>> However, when Federico Heinz asked him about publishers disabling
>> text-to-speech in Kindle texts, he answered that Amazon had forgotten to
>> negotiate the "audio rights".
>
> Later, talking with him in the lobby, I told him that was a lame answer, that
> audio rights might have been needed if Amazon had distributed a recording of
> the sound-to-speech output, but were not needed in this case: if I purchase a
> book, I don't need audio right to read it aloud to my children, and neither do I
> need audio rights to get my computer to read it aloud to them.
>
> After that exchange, he admitted that publishers were fighting a lost cause
> there, and that it was just a matter of time until common sense sets in.

Thanks for the update, Federico: even the Swiss delegate to WIPO said
to me in the corridors during the SCCR meeting in May that disabling
TTS in the Kindle was a lost cause.

These more lucid copyright defenders are in an awkward in-between
position: they can't very well tell publicly their more strident
companions that thinking they can emulate the Little Dutch Boy and
save the present copyright dam by sticking their pinkies in its holes
is delusional. Let's hope they do so when they are among themselves -
for the sake of access to knowledge AND of the authors' right to
compensation for their work.

Best

Claude