“You don’t have the right to read a book aloud.” Those are the words of Paul Aiken, the Director of the Author’s Guild, in relation to Amazon’s Kindle 2 . “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law,” he continued.
So, basically, anything that turns printed text into audio, without being a licensed audio book, is a violation of copyright. I guess that means I should be reporting a whole lot of elementary teachers, not to mention all the evil devices that blind people use to read text, such as screen readers. Come to think of it, sometimes I enjoy reading passages in a book aloud while I am going through them. I’ve been breaking the law? Well, crap.
Now, I have nothing against the Author’s Guild. I know they can be reasonable, which results in some neat stuff . I also believe that artists and such do deserve some compensation for their works, of course. Given that I have a love of writing as well, it’d be silly to think otherwise. Still, there are certain limits, and there are certain times when busting out the whole copyright thing makes you look silly and completely unreasonable. This is one of those times.
Besides, judging by how the Kindle 2 sounds, I don’t think audio-books with professional vocalists have anything to worry about.
