I think the interesting bit here is whether the technology in the Kindle is actually infringing on the audio rights. It is a legal question that is going to need to define if the software generated voice is the same thing as an audio recording and therefore requires the same rights to distribute. I would think not as an audio recording exists when outside of software, and I assume the Kindle does this on the fly. But I am not a lawyer and all that, so who knows how this will play out.
The Kindle Swindle?
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#32You work for six months or a year building up your product, for no pay. A startup founder - or an unpublished author. What most tech types don't realize is how much risk there is already in the writers profession. These are not fat-cat music executives. They don't have anything like as much chance of becoming rich as a founder of a startup. Heck, most don't even make a living, and have to keep the day job; even once…
Hey! This is what my start-up does, so I can talk about that a little bit.
The first thing to change about the business model is the focus. A lot of people who are enthusiastic about writers know two or three names of writers they follow, and that's it. Everything outside of that is an unknown to them. The first part of the solution is to focus people who are enthusiastic about writing in one place.
The next fix is to let writers release fast, iterate often, similar to hackers, and that means critique. You need to give them a good system for getting lots of feedback fast. The minute they start writing they should have access to feedback, even if they choose to finish a first draft before releasing anything and showing it to people. The better your revision access is, the less of a risk it is.
The final solution is to publish more writers, more incrementally. It means that you sift through a lot of short stories and poems and yes, even novels, if you're a publishing company, and you get back to everybody so that they can figure out how to get better. At the same time, you expand aggressively so that you can handle the incoming people as your model expands outward, and you keep the focus on quality publishing, just more of it.
Also, computer-based vocalization is horrible, and it will never replace audiobooks. I want Steven Colbert reading to me, not my Kindle.
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#33You work for six months or a year building up your product, for no pay. A startup founder - or an unpublished author. What most tech types don't realize is how much risk there is already in the writers profession. These are not fat-cat music executives. They don't have anything like as much chance of becoming rich as a founder of a startup. Heck, most don't even make a living, and have to keep the day job; even once…
"They don't have anything like as much chance of becoming rich as a founder of a startup." Have you ever looked at the revenues for a best selling author? They very much a have a small chance of hitting it big. They should change their business model by offering interesting things like McSweeney's which uses both online and offline products to attract an audience.
Yes, they have a small chance of hitting it big. But I reckon it's a much smaller chance than that of a startup founder.
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#34For 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…
He sounds like somebody who doesn't fundamentally understand the nature of audio reading. He's envisioning something more threatening to audio readers than actually exist today.
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#35Old guard always wants to protect a dying business because the people in charge have to wipe out their existing knowledge and experience of their business to go into a new business. When he/she goes into the new business, he/she would have no advantages vs a competitor that already exists in the field (i.e. a print executive going into tech). Most companies (due to the promotion structure) cannot make this jump some…
Why not in paper form?
There's something lost from paper to e-ink, and everybody who uses a Kindle will realize that. If e-books become big and cheap, that means book sales are going to benefit, to some degree.
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#36They should be grateful that the Amazon Kindle, a complement good to ebooks is so popular. How many books were purchased because of the Amazon Kindle? How many books will be bought because of the extra usefulness of the audio feature? Instead, they are biting the hand that feeds them. Not only that, but they are also obstructing the advancement of technology and innovation by reducing their usefulness. First Google B…
Perhaps I'm biased because I'm a writer myself, but I think they're a little bit more excusable than the RIAA. Writers have an ancient history: as a group they are further behind the times than any other, and their world is extremely closed-door and high-barrier. Because of that, their love and joy has dwindled, decade by decade, and they haven't noticed that the people who are making their craft more loved are the people who are embracing the future (Billy Collins, former poet laureate, for instance).
The effect is that you have something akin to a group of old, uninformed, frightened people, who are all very bright but very ignorant regarding some things, and some of those people think technology means books have to die, and if that was the case then they'd be right in that something powerful and valuable was being lost. So I understand why they're so fearful, even if I wish they could comprehend how things have been moving forward.
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#37I'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…
This is not his argument. 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.
But Amazon is neither selling nor giving away audio books. They are giving away a general text-to-speech solution which may conveniently be used on a book. Arguing that this is violating copyrights is the same thing as saying that text-to-speech is inherently illegal.
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#38You work for six months or a year building up your product, for no pay. A startup founder - or an unpublished author. What most tech types don't realize is how much risk there is already in the writers profession. These are not fat-cat music executives. They don't have anything like as much chance of becoming rich as a founder of a startup. Heck, most don't even make a living, and have to keep the day job; even once…
"They don't have anything like as much chance of becoming rich as a founder of a startup." Have you ever looked at the revenues for a best selling author? They very much a have a small chance of hitting it big. They should change their business model by offering interesting things like McSweeney's which uses both online and offline products to attract an audience.
McSweeney's is an icky model. They work online, but they're very closed-door, they appreciate only a very specific manner of writing, and they don't tell writers what it is they're doing wrong when they are, in fact, doing something wrong.
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#39You work for six months or a year building up your product, for no pay. A startup founder - or an unpublished author. What most tech types don't realize is how much risk there is already in the writers profession. These are not fat-cat music executives. They don't have anything like as much chance of becoming rich as a founder of a startup. Heck, most don't even make a living, and have to keep the day job; even once…
Hey! This is what my start-up does, so I can talk about that a little bit. The first thing to change about the business model is the focus. A lot of people who are enthusiastic about writers know two or three names of writers they follow, and that's it. Everything outside of that is an unknown to them. The first part of the solution is to focus people who are enthusiastic about writing in one place. The next fix is t…
Those sound like the right goals, if you have a way to implement them.
Does your startup have a website yet?
Re: The Kindle Swindle?
#40Text to speech is at best a 10% solution for the blind and those with impaired sight. The robotic voice that comes out of synthesizers is such a long way short of human cadence and intonation that the argument that the two compete is all but ludicrous for those in the know - i.e. those who have experience of both. I can't take this guy seriously.
They're getting much better, check out http://www.ivona.com/online/editor.php?set_lang=en
I can tell it's generated, but there are bits here and there that sound like a normal speaking voice. This is like CGI in the 90s, where everyone was talking about how it was wooden and clunky and awful but the proponents just kept building better tools and now teenagers can make lightsaber duels with their laptops.