11–20 of 62 posts
I think this could be good for both audio books and ebooks as well as when considering the implications for educational books (such as language books or religious study materials).
Or maybe the system of having separate rights for all sorts of uses was crooked from the beginning.
I'm sympathetic to the plight of the starving (or even well-fed) writer wanting to get paid for their work. But the opinion espoused in this piece is the classic argument that just because an industry has grown accustomed to a particular revenue stream or business model, they should therefore always and forever have the privilege of keeping it. And anyone who introduces products or technology to prevent that or cut i…
He is ridiculous. I can do anything legal with the purchased file, that's my basic right as a customer.
Yes, that's ridiculous - but that's as far as your 'basic rights' go...
I think e-books give the best chance for print to survive as a medium (in e-ink form, not in paper form). But as always, the captain of the ship fades away, not unlike a frog being slowly boiled to death because the temperature is slowly increasing.
For the record: no, the Authors Guild does not expect royalties from anybody doing non-commercial performances of "Goodnight Moon." If parents want to send their children off to bed with the voice of Kindle 2, however, it’s another matter. I really don't follow his logic here. I think the fundamental question is "what is a performance?". I just find it hard to see that kindle reading = voice actor reading. Why go to…
If the digital files on the Kindle contained lots of metadata, added by a human editor, to assist the text-to-speech system, then Blount would have more of a case.
I'm sympathetic to the plight of the starving (or even well-fed) writer wanting to get paid for their work. But the opinion espoused in this piece is the classic argument that just because an industry has grown accustomed to a particular revenue stream or business model, they should therefore always and forever have the privilege of keeping it. And anyone who introduces products or technology to prevent that or cut i…
Separate revenue streams for audio books is not just a quaint custom in the publishing world, but a consequence of copyright law, which treats text and audio rights as properties that may be licensed separately. He's arguing that his constituents' property is being taken from them without their consent. I think his case is weak, but it's not dumb.
He is ridiculous. I can do anything legal with the purchased file, that's my basic right as a customer.
It's the equivalent of music visualization tools. When I play a CD in my Xbox and it shows me pretty lights, no one considers that copyright infringement. It's the exact same functionality as text-to-speech, but in reverse.