News Amazon's Kindle in copyright kerfuffle

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/02/12/amazons-kindle-in-copyright-kerfuffle/1

Amazon's latest incarnation of its Kindle ebook reader introduces text-to-speech capabilities - but at least one publisher is claiming it violates copyright law.

 

Douchebag. Case closed.

 

+1

 

+33345325352

 

most pathetic patent... how many times have i heard/read this?

 

That is really silly. Does the "voice" even sound any good?

 

Well, if the publishers have their way, you should only be able to read it. You'd need to pay extra to be able to hear it

 

With rediculous copyrights like this, no wonder the arts are dying. Technically it's illegal for me to barrow a book from a friend, theoretically the libraries are illegal as well. This is absolutely rediculous.

 

I suspect this is down to one or both of two things:
1) they copyright holder has sold rights to a third party and is contractually bound to enforce the rights,
2) it's being used as a negotiating tool to increase royalties. Copyright holders may be inclined to agree one thing when a product's success is unknown, and then want something better once the product is a proven success (and the other company is in a poor bargaining position, to boot). Company A takes a risk and it pays off, company B starts thinking it "deserves" a bigger share of the spoils it never took any risk for. Well, companies are hardly unique in this.

 

This should set a legal precedent... Amazon's sole defence is telling them to **** off.

 

Random question:

Is it just me or is 99% of patent litigation nowadays nothing but sheer greed attempting to destroy innovation?

Pretty much every single thing patent related in the past few years has resulted in a urge to *facepalm* so far...
English patent law is bad enough, but at least we don't have software patents *yet*.

I just can't help thinking that the entire patent system is so broken now it should just be scrapped and started over, it seems it only exists to feed patent trolls nowadays

 

Every patent related lawsuit anyway, yes. I havent really seen one that didnt result in a facepalm.

 

my patent troll detector has just exploded from the insane amount of stupidity of this act!!

 

Well...i can understand the part about "rights for audiobooks sold seperately"
Especially since audiobooks seem to be a growing market.

It's the only part that makes any kind of sense, though

 

I was just wondering... If I read the through my glasses the letters will/might be distorted. SURELY that makes the information reaching my eyes derivative as well. Subsequently my glasses need to be "authorized" to do the reading process. At a fee, of course.

 

Worse, they could act as a mirror and someone else could see the text, since that would be too hard to enforce as a law I'd suggest going to jail 5 years before you purchase the product containing the information just to make sure.

 

I say sue the punk who's voice is replicated by the Kindle! He's the one distributing the content without a license to people's ears! :B

 

I guess human kind is getting a little bit too much addicted to law suits... Everything done is prone to be in court just because one little piggy tried to make a fuss out of it. Pretty much almost every news is about a court case that envolves some sort of jackassery rights violation...

Ok, he said that Amazon should be praised for having developed a tool for the visually impaired but would someone try to make this into a app you should buy if you want the book to be read out loud?

Jeez, that's why lawyers are getting fatter and rich