Soundproof Books

What do President Obama, Vice President Biden, Toni Morrison, the Pope, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, Mother Teresa, Isaac Asimov, Tom Brokaw, P.D. James, Robert B. Reich, George Will and Ann Coulter have in common? In the last few days, they have all disabled books available on the Kindle 2, so the text-to-speech function no longer works. Now people who can't see, or have dyslexia, or have other reading disabilites, can't use the books. The Reading Rights Coalition is fighting efforts to "soundproof" eBooks, and so are these individuals who have signed petition against this practice.

Here are some of the titles recently made into silent books:

Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise (Kindle Edition)
by Barack Obama (Author)
Publisher: Three Rivers Press (September 8, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Kindle Edition)
by Barack Obama (Author)
Publisher: Crown (October 17, 2006)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Kindle Edition)
by Barack Obama (Author)
Publisher: Crown; Reprint edition (January 9, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics (Kindle Edition)
by Joe Biden (Author)
Publisher: Random House (July 31, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level (Kindle Edition)
by Sally Md Shaywitz (Author)
Publisher: Vintage; 1 edition (December 24, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built: The New No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel (Kindle Edition)
by Alexander Mccall Smith (Author)
Publisher: Pantheon (April 21, 2009)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Supercapitalism (Kindle Edition)
by Robert B. Reich (Author)
Publisher: Vintage (September 4, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

A Mercy (Kindle Edition)
by Toni Morrison (Author)
Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (November 11, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Beloved (Kindle Edition)
by Toni Morrison (Author)
Publisher: Vintage (July 24, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Song of Solomon (Kindle Edition)
by Toni Morrison (Author)
Publisher: Vintage (July 24, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Stand (Kindle Edition)
by Stephen King (Author)
# Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (June 24, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Road (Kindle Edition)
by Cormac Mccarthy (Author)
Publisher: Knopf (March 20, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

True Detectives: A Novel (Kindle Edition)
by Jonathan Kellerman (Author)
Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 24, 2009)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Letter to My Daughter (Kindle Edition)
by Maya Angelou (Author)
Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (September 23, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Kindle Edition)
by Maya Angelou (Author)
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (April 21, 2009)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Outlander (Kindle Edition)
by Diana Gabaldon (Author)
Publisher: Dell (October 26, 2004)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Your Heart Belongs to Me (Kindle Edition)
by Dean Koontz (Author)
Publisher: Bantam (November 25, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Odd Hours (Kindle Edition)
by Dean Koontz (Author)
Publisher: Bantam (May 20, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Forever Odd (Kindle Edition)
by Dean Koontz (Author)
Publisher: Bantam (June 29, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Da Vinci Code: A Novel (Kindle Edition)
by Dan Brown (Author)
Publisher: Anchor; 1st edition (March 18, 2003)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Snow Crash (Kindle Edition)
by Neal Stephenson (Author)
Publisher: Spectra (August 26, 2003)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Foundation (Kindle Edition)
by Isaac Asimov (Author)
Publisher: Spectra; Revised edition (June 1, 2004)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity: A Memoir (Kindle Edition)
by Bill O'Reilly (Author)
Publisher: Broadway (September 23, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America (Kindle Edition)
by Ann Coulter (Author)
Publisher: Crown Forum (January 6, 2009)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (Kindle Edition)
by Jonah Goldberg (Author)
Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (January 8, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior (Kindle Edition)
by Ori Brafman (Author), Rom Brafman (Author)
Publisher: Doubleday Business; 1 edition (June 3, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Kindle Edition)
by Alice Schroeder (Author)
Publisher: Bantam (September 29, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future (Kindle Edition)
by T. Boone Pickens (Author)
Publisher: Crown Business; 1 edition (September 2, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Return of History and the End of Dreams (Kindle Edition)
by Robert Kagan (Author)
Publisher: Knopf (April 29, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Kindle Edition)
by Mother Teresa (Author), Brian Kolodiejchuk (Author)
Publisher: Doubleday Religion (September 4, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Jesus of Nazareth (Kindle Edition)
by Joseph Ratzinger (Author, aka Pope Benedict XVI)
Publisher: Doubleday Religion (May 15, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street (Kindle Edition)
by William D. Cohan (Author)
Publisher: Doubleday (March 10, 2009)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Wisdom of Crowds (Kindle Edition)
by James Surowiecki (Author)
Publisher: Anchor (August 16, 2005)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies (Kindle Edition)
by M.D., and Cameron Stauth Kenneth Bock (Author)
Publisher: Ballantine Books (April 29, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons (Kindle Edition)
by Tim Russert (Author)
Publisher: Random House (May 23, 2006)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Kindle Edition)
by Stieg Larsson (Author)
Publisher: Knopf (September 16, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Boom!: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today (Kindle Edition)
by Tom Brokaw (Author)
Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (November 6, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Kindle Edition)
by Jeffrey Toobin (Author)
Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (September 30, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

The Private Patient (Kindle Edition)
by P.D. James (Author)
Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (November 18, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Getting Past No (Kindle Edition)
by William Ury (Author)
Publisher: Bantam; Revised edition (April 17, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Rogue (Kindle Edition)
by Danielle Steel (Author)
Publisher: Dell (February 24, 2009)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

His Excellency: George Washington (Kindle Edition)
by Joseph J. Ellis (Author)
Publisher: Knopf (October 26, 2004)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (Kindle Edition)
by Joseph J. Ellis (Author)
Publisher: Vintage (December 16, 2003)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Kindle Edition)
by Bill Bryson (Author)
Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (October 26, 2006)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil (Kindle Edition)
by Kristin Ohlson (Author)
Publisher: Random House (April 10, 2007)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation (Kindle Edition)
by George Will (Author)
Publisher: Crown Forum; 1 edition (June 3, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Kindle Edition)
by Tim Weiner (Author)
Publisher: Anchor (May 20, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America (Kindle Edition)
by Jim Webb (Author, and US Senator)
Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (May 19, 2008)
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled

Comments

[canadapundit]

So if I understand this correctly the Text-to-Speech function would be important for a visually impaired person if there was no audio version of the book already available from the publisher. Do any of the books in this list NOT have an audio version available or in production?

[BlackJAC]

A quick trip to iTunes' audiobook library should confirm that.

[BlackJAC]

They did it for the same reason Warner Brothers doesn't stream its TV shows online: additional revenue, specifically in the form of the audiobook sales. Besides, text-to-speech programs have never worked right, and you have to play merry hell with the phonetics to get the right pronunciation.

[SteveWeber]

This issue is always presented from the consumer's point of view -- how it affects the Kindle owner. For a change, let's look at it from the author's point of view.

Under our nation's copyright law, authors own the rights to the audio performances of their registered works. I ask the Kindle owners: What are these authors supposed to do, hand these rights over to Amazon -- with no compensation, no negotiation -- simply because lots of people like to get free stuff? That's not the way things work.

Merely because the Kindle can convert plain text into an audio performance does not give Amazon the right to sell access to it. If Amazon wants to sell access to audio performances of copyrighted works, then it will have to negotiate licenses with the copyright holder. This is precisely why Amazon has backed off on text-to-speech, the company knows it would lose the case in court. It's a slam dunk.

The issue of access to audio recordings by the blind is a red herring. Publishers, libraries and foundations take care of this need in our society, it's not part of Amazon's mission.

Steve Weber
www.weberbooks.com/publish.htm

[GrahamInCanada]

You are completely wrong that the legal interpretation that a computer reading text is a performance is a slam dunk. It is a brand new and pernicious interpretation of the law that has never been successful in court anywhere in the world.

When a copyright is violated by a computer, it is the owner or the person controlling the computer that is liable, not the computer.

When I read a book out loud to myself, or read it to somebody else in a private communication, I am not giving a performance of the book, and neither when I cause my computer or kindle to read text is the computer or myself giving a performance.

When I purchase an audio performance of a copyright work, I do not purchase the right to read to myself out loud or have my computer read to me, I purchase the labor of a third person reading to me that has been published, which is not something that I do when I read to myself or have my computer read to me.

Arguing against computers reading text because it violates an imagined right you think you possess is just as wise as standing in front of a racing train because it is early, and you should be able to cross.

Get real, computers read print, and you can't stuff that genie back into the bottle.

[BlackJAC]

Yet Microsoft doesn't feature a text-to-speech option in anything other than Excel. Sucks to be a talentless Napsterite, doesn't it?

[llisa]

I need more info. What were their reasons for disabling the sound feature?

[Paradym]

Publishers want to keep their audio book market alive. They seem to think that if you can listen to a book on the Kindle you won't be inclined to purchase the audio book.

What publishers aren't considering is that the Kindle voice is very robotic - think Stephen Hawking's voice. Audio books are read by either the author or a professional voice actor and are much more lively and interesting. Anyone who needs audio (the blind, say) will not be buying written text unless there's no audio version available, and having the Kindle be able to read it for them would be a decent alternative. But there are many people who could use the assistance of an accompanying audio of the text if they have trouble reading, or perhaps trying to learn the language. Publishers aren't thinking clearly, like the record companies in regards to DRM. The number of people who would use the voice feature on the Kindle in lieu of buying an audio book is exceedingly small. They could easily package the text and audio together for those that would like both, but leave the robotic voice of the Kindle open for those that need the assistance or occasional use.

[BlackJAC]

More like Napsterites still don't understand how intellectual property rights work. They could easily raise the price of a Kindle download to factor in the audiobook revenue the text-to-speech function circumvents, but the Napsterites would still complain about it.