Why Amazon Caving to Authors Guild on Kindle is Bad News
Larry Lessig says that when Amazon agreed last week to demands from the Authors Guild that it disable the ability of the new Kindle to read a book aloud it was caving into bullies. And that’s very bad news:
The Authors Guild has objected because Amazon’s Kindle 2 has a function built in that enables the book to be read aloud. So when, for example, you’re commuting, you can plug your Kindle 2 into your MP3 jack and have the book read aloud.
Amazon rightly argued that this did not violate any of the exclusive rights granted by copyright law to the copyright owners. In that, Amazon is exactly right. But nonetheless, it will now enable publishers to decide whether the Kindle books they sell will permit the book to be read aloud. And of course, that includes public domain books.
So here we go again — How long till we can buy Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and be told that this book “cannot be read aloud”?
But the bigger trend here is much more troubling: Innovative technology company (Amazon (Kindle 2), Google (Google Books)) releases new innovative way to access or use content; so-called “representatives” of rights owners, Corleone-like, baselessly insist on a cut; innovative technology company settles with baseless demanders, and we’re all arguably worse off.
Lessig reminds us we have been down this road before. In 2001 Adobe released an e-book reader and gave rights holders the ability to control whether a book could be read aloud.
RELATED: At GigaOm Kevin Kelleher notes that Amazon is about to become almost debt-free. In that it is bucking the economic trend:
…in a market in which companies are in need of new financing and yet unable to find it, Amazon is using cash to escape from debt. Few companies’ operations are that healthy, and the ones that are will likely emerge from the recession much stronger than their peers.
2 Responses to “Why Amazon Caving to Authors Guild on Kindle is Bad News”
Excellent post.
As Joe suggests, there are bigger issues at play here than the Kindle.
IMO, this is about (1) the destructiveness of our DRM obsessed culture to innovation; and (2) the public's submission to corporate domination.
Re point one, as Joe's linked sources show, the rights owners have no Congressional or legal authority for their demands. They are attempting to extend their rights through corporate extortion.
On my second point, a very similar story happened when HP first introduced its Media Center PC line with Microsoft years ago:
Microsoft hobbled the Media Centre software so that video recorded on one PC could only be played on that PC, and on no other PC.
They did this out of respect for the concerns of fellow corporations — media corps — although Microsoft was not in partnership with these corporations.
There was a massive consumer backlash prior to the introduction of the Media Center PC…and Microsoft was stunned.
How can people refused to buy our computers? they asked. Bizarrely, although the pubic purchares gave Microsoft revenues…Microsoft considered it true allegiance to other corporations.
It was only when HP leaned on Microsoft…HP recognizing that its line of PCs would flop…that Microsoft re-wrote the Media Center software to remove that hyper-restrictive DRM which went far beyond the law.
Corporations respect corporations. They have no respect for the consumers of their products.
What about the visually disabled . . . who would love to be able to download a book and listen to it with Kindle 2 ?
A fine post . . . but a sad story.
Further…
Amazon's statement notes it has the law on its side, but is caving nonetheless: “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. Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat.”
Amazing. They are hobbling their own product, and limiting sales.
As a commenter over at Neowin observed:
“Is Roy Blount Jr. [Head of the Author's Guild] going to sue parents for reading books to children?”
That is actually a valid question. Parents reading to children is a performance of a copyrighted work…and may even be illegal even if not for commercial purposes.