The Author’s Guild, made up of many brilliant fiction writers, made up some fiction of its own and have pressured Amazon to remove a key feature of its eBook reader upgrade.  The Kindle 2 included a text-to-speech feature like many computer programs do.  The Author’s Guild president, Roy Blount, claimed turning text-to-speech in this fashion was copyright infringement, undermining the billion dollar audio book industry.

Um, no. Reading text out loud is not copyright infringement.  Blount has been pushing this issue, most recently in an op-ed in the New York Times, offering no legitimate argument for why text-to-speech is bad or illegal.  He says Amazon is not paying for audio rights, but there’s no need.  Michael Masnick points out the text-to-speech feature is not a fixed work, which is a requirement for copyrightable material. It’s the same as someone reading the book out loud, as much as Blount wants to pretend it isn’t.  Masnick says the only way this violates copyrights is if someone records the computerized voice, and then tries to sell it. Blount says he doesn’t want this to prevent parents reading to their children or the blind, but for no other reason than doing so would sound bad.

As for Amazon, shame on you. You come out with this innovative and successful product that makes people want to read more books, helping these very authors. But instead, without any legal basis, you cave.  It makes the product less valuable to consumers and even ebooks lose some value.  This is a lose-lose-lose situation (the third being consumers) where authors are decreasing the value of their books, Amazon is decreasing the value of Kindle, and consumers have less valuable products to buy – for the same price.  It’s sad Amazon was scared away from this legal fight. Instead it sets a scary precedent that groups can raise a little hell and make this retail giant fall.

The Guardian posts an interesting theory that for Amazon’s Kindle to be more successful, it needs more widespread piracy.  Unlike Apple’s iPod, Kindle users can’t transfer their book collections onto the hardware like CD-to-MP3s.  Every book must be purchased or downloaded. And while book piracy does exist, it relies on devoted fans copying every page – not as easy as an automated CD ripper.

The Kindle is selling quite well for Amazon, but hardly on the road to travel dominance like the iPod. This might show the market is not as ready for the iPod of books as it is for the iPod of music.  As I’ve (and others) have written, piracy shows what the market wants and at this point, digital books are not in high demand.

Book and content producers need to understand why this is the case. Right now, books are more valuable to consumers for any variety of reasons, like convenience, habit, and collecting.  We know reading online/on the computer is a preference for many for short features, like news articles, but books are still preferred in tangible form.  The Kindle isn’t going to change the habits of consumers, but it’s a forward looking option that knows paper’s days are numbered.

Unfortunately, the book industry is leaving clues they are more likely to follow the close-minded music industry approach.  Paul Aiken, the executive director of the Author’s Guild claimed the Kindle’s new text-to-speech feature was an act of copyright infringement by allowing any book to be read aloud saying literally: “They don’t have the right to read a book out loud…That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law”. According to his logic, reading any book out loud, even a bedtime story for your kids, is a derivative work and thus copyright infringement.  Or, maybe, this feature is just a way to make the Kindle, and thus digital downloads, more valuable to consumers. It’s unlikely a computerized voice is going to replace emotional actors on audio tapes.

For book publishers, they need to plan for a future where books are digital and readily pirated. It’s already happening on a very small scale.  Instead of fighting the inevitable future, book publishers can embrace the change and profit from it. First, embrace the cheap distribution of digital goods and include digital downloads of books with the purchase of a hard copy. Even spread full, free downloads online – several examples of free eBooks show huge increases in tangible book sales.  These sales come because the hard copy is more valuable than the digital copy.  Book publishers need to increase the quality of the published books, recognizing why people buy them.  Small, soft cover travel copies are perfect for convenience customers (and should be cheap, impulse buys). For collectors, like everyone I know with huge bookshelves to fill, increase the value of hard covers with gorgeous art, author’s notes (the paper form of commentary tracks), and high-end binding.

These features give customers a reason to buy the hard copy.  This way, when book piracy explodes, book publishers are already offering compelling alternatives that give customers a reason to spend their money.