Kindle 2 Makes Text-To-Speech Publisher Selected Feature

On Friday, a news release from Amazon went public stating that…

“Kindle 2’s experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given.” While making their stance clear, they Amazon has started modifying their systems “so that rightsholders can decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech enabled or disabled for any particular title.”

via Kindle 2 Makes Text-To-Speach Publisher Selected Feature – mediabistro.com: MobileDevicesToday.

When this controversy hit a couple of weeks ago, I commented that it was more complex than many were making it out to be. There are a lot of future complications that need to be worried about today because we’re setting precedents now that may have to live with. (at the same time, while I sympathize with the Author’s Guild position here, I don’t think it should win out).

I wasn’t terribly surprised when Amazon backed off and made the text-2-speech feature a per-publication option. I certainly can’t blame Amazon for not wanting to commit the resources needed to litigate this when there’s no real revenue aspect to it today. It’s a minor feature of an emerging product, and other than, say, my mom, who’s sight limited and for which audio books and text-2-speech would be nice to have, it’s not a big deal (today).

But I realized this morning that Amazon’s got a secondary motive here, and as usual, they’re thinking a step ahead of the rest of us again. Think about it. They are now allowing authors to choose whether to allow this on a title by title basis. That’s an information goldmine: if 90% of the authors allow it, that undermines the Author’s Guild argument in a huge way. And if 90% of the authors refuse to allow it, that tells Amazon not to pursue this. Either way, Amazon generates data that helps it resolve this issue without throwing lawyers at it. Even if the result is more 50-50, that helps Amazon because it shows that the authors aren’t united behind the Author’s Guild position and that the setuation is more complicated.

My guess is that most authors are going to be less ornery about this than the AG is, and that can only help Amazon. Simply by adding the option to turn it off, Amazon effectively kills the potential for expensive litigation here (“don’t like it? don’t allow it!”) – and it gives them a way to figure out the consensus of the authors, and that’s potentially useful information to fight the Author’s Guild if it shows that the general author population doesn’t fall in line with it.

That, folks, is a great hack.