Kindle
Amazon's Soundproof Kindle books
Submitted by James Love on 14. June 2009 - 1:00In a 2002 article on "The Soundproof Book," George Kerscher and Jim Fruchterman explored the exclusionary impact of books with text-to-speech disabled.* In 2008, Amazon began to disable text-to-speech in thousands of Kindle editions of ebooks. Below are examples of the new Amazon soundproof books.
[*George Kerscher and Jim Fruchterman, "The Soundproof Book: Exploration of Rights Conflict and Access to Commercial EBooks for People with Disabilities," First Monday, Volume. 7, Number 6 - 3 June 2002.]
Amazon and Bertelsmann turn off text to speech even in Kindle books that have zero price
Submitted by Staff on 12. June 2009 - 9:39At least four imprints of Random House (Ballantine, Dell, Del Rey and Spectra) have turned off text to speech in Kindle books that they give away at a zero price. Random House is owned by Bertelsmann AG, the German publishing giant. What is the rationale for soundproofing* these books?
Here are some examples of DRM’d soundproof books that are free to Kindle users who do not have visual impairments.
Amazon turns off text to speech in more Kindle 2 ebooks
Submitted by James Love on 7. June 2009 - 6:51A google search using the term: “Text-to-Speech: Not enabled” site:www.amazon.com today gives 13,500 hits. On May 17, 2009, the same search gave 343 hits.
KEI Statement on Random House decision to turn off text to speech in ebooks
Submitted by James Love on 19. May 2009 - 1:00"KEI is disappointed that Random House is turning off text to speech in Kindle 2 ebooks. In a world where access to knowledge is central to everything, Random House certainly understands this action will isolate and marginalize many persons with reading disabilities. Contracts that prohibit the use of assistive technologies like text to speech should not be enforceable."
James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International,
http://www.keionline.org
+1 (202) 332 2670, james.love@keionline.org
For more background on this dispute, see:
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.
