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Reading Rights Coalition Urges Authors to Allow Everyone Access to E-books

One of the really cool features of Amazon’s Kindle2 is text to speech—this allows users to listen to their purchased content. It’s good if you want to continue “reading” while you do other things. It’s great for individuals who need reading assistance: people with disabilities, English Language Learners etc.

After publishers and authors got wind of this, they claimed that it violated authors rights to earn money by selling audiobook copies of the titles. While the text to speech is nice, it in no way compares to an audiobook. There isn’t the dramatic reading that is part and parcel of an audiobook. Even so, it makes books more accessible for those who need it.

I’m disappointed to know that publishers are going to be allowed to withhold TTS rights from the users of Kindle2. I hope the bad publicity they receive will make them reconsider their position.