Hi all Well I am not in the US either and I can tell you that the BBC has featured a piece on the American Authors' Guild and their dog in the manger attitude to this.
Some authors have been mentioned in the course of this discussion. Can any of them be persuaded to speak out against this publicly? Can we start a Twitter campaign? Unless we all suddenly win the Lottery, a court case would be difficult and adverse publicity for these people may be another way of approaching it. You have elections coming up in the US, could any candidates be persuaded to speak out against this? How about letters to the NYT and so forth? Does anyone know any journalists who might take this up? I'm sure many of us outside the US would be happy to follow up in our respective countries in any way we can. Do you know, I remember hearing of the Kindle and how many books would be available through it and that it would make such a huge difference to most of our lives overnight, I was literally, bouncing up and down with excitement. Believe me, that doesn't happen very often. Seems to me that the dashing of hopes is one of the cruellest things you can do to people. Hope they sleep nights. Best Adrienne Karen Lewellen wrote: > Esther, > Two questions. > Does the author's guild have statistical evidence that the average mac > product user even knows that voiceover is there let alone that they would > opt for this behavior? > I might point out that audiobooks, commercial ones were not created for the > vision challenged population, but for the general public, so the argument > that a vision challenged person would opt for a voiceover edition > instead of a commercial one, seems well silly. They have figures to > document what percentage of the billions of audiobooks sold are sold to > individuals with vision > loss? After all, that population was serviced via nls and other programs > for decades, with commercial audio books selling just fine. > > lastly, would not creating an access specific format not solve that issue > then? there would be no risk of random audio hungry people learning how > to use voiceover just so they can avoid listening to a real person read an > audio book. > Not picking on you, just wanting your thoughts since you understand their > logic. > Karen > > On Sat, 24 Mar 2012, James Mannion wrote: > > > Which is why this stupid nonsense will probably rob us of access in > > the name of their closed minded greed until the old members of the > > gild all die and we get minds in there with open minds to a moddern > > world perspective. The good part is there excessive greed will put > > them under extra stress which will drive them to the grave sooner. > > > > On 3/22/12, Esther <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi Ray, > >> > >> You're correct that the policy of blocking VoiceOver access to eBook > >> content > >> in the Kindle app arises from the Author's Guild suit, but the guild is > >> mostly worried about readers who are not visually impaired making use of > >> these text-to-speech capabilities to listen to ebooks instead of buying > >> audiobooks. It's the very fact that Apple has been building in VoiceOver > >> capabilities into every iOS device and computer that constitutes the > >> danger, > >> from their point of view. That's why a Kindle app for the PC, that can be > >> used with screen readers like JAWS, has been released, but there is no > >> similar application for the Mac. If the only way that you could access the > >> Kindle ebook content on your computer was by investing in > >> blindness-specific > >> software that equals or exceeds the cost of your computer, it's pretty hard > >> to argue that you configured your machine this way just to avoid buying the > >> audiobook versions. But the fact that every iPhone, iPod Touch, an iPad > >> now > >> support VoiceOver, and that the same is true for every Mac, means that any > >> user of an iPhone, Mac, etc. could enable VoiceOver functionality in > >> reading > >> Kindle ebooks, if this capability were not explicitly blocked. > >> > >> And so, if you carry the argument of the Author's Guild to its natural > >> conclusion, non-visually impaired Kindle customers who find VoiceOver's > >> reading "good enough" to listen to, will turn on this feature instead of > >> buying audiobook versions that they would otherwise purchase. > >> > >> HTH. Cheers, > >> > >> Esther > >> > >> On Mar 22, 2012, at 4:03 PM, Ray Foret Jr wrote: > >> > >>> That's not quite true. It's not because of copy right. The truth is > >>> this. It's because of the Author's guild. They don't want the blind to > >>> be able to read their books without extra costs. Their twisted reasoning > >>> is that the text to speech tecnhology will rob them of sales. Every > >>> single organization of the blind is fighting this stipid infantile logic. > >>> > >>> > >>> Sincerely, > >>> The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! > >>> > >>> Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! > >>> > >>> Skype name: > >>> barefootedray > >>> > >>> Facebook: > >>> facebook.com/ray.foretjr.1 > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> On Mar 22, 2012, at 8:39 PM, Hank Smith wrote: > >>> > >>>> so because of stupid drm copy write crap the blind can't read the ebooks? > >>>> On 3/22/2012 6:30 PM, Esther wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> Hi Jeff, > >>>>> > >>>>> There are a number of ebook apps that specifically disable VoiceOver's > >>>>> ability to access the content in order to preserve digital rights > >>>>> management. This is also true if you try to use the Barnes & Noble Nook > >>>>> app, for example. You'll notice that usually you can access everything > >>>>> except for the actual content of the text. That's being blocked. You > >>>>> can verify this by taking a screen capture, and sending the results to > >>>>> an OCR app like Prizmo or TextGrabber. The OCR app will tell you what > >>>>> the contents are, but obviously you're not going to read the book by > >>>>> screen capturing every page and sending it to an OCR app. > >>>>> > >>>>> If you want to read another example of this viewpoint, that the ability > >>>>> of screen readers to access text would promote copyright violation, take > >>>>> a look at Greg Kearney's posted response from Fictionwise in the > >>>>> archives, sent in reply to his inquiry about ebook accessibility for > >>>>> their ebook reading app just a few months after the iPhone 3GS was > >>>>> released with VoiceOver support: > >>>>> • Fwd: Response for Support Ticket #102495 > >>>>> http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/msg06200.html > >>>>> Since this is the Mail Archive post, if you're reading on your computer, > >>>>> you can also use access key shortcuts of Control-N to read down the > >>>>> thread for other reader comments. > >>>>> > >>>>> Best, > >>>>> > >>>>> Esther > >>>>> > >>>>> On Mar 22, 2012, at 2:59 PM, Ray Foret Jr wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>>> Forget it. It ain't gonna happen. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> It ain't accessible at all. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Sincerely, > >>>>>> The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Skype name: > >>>>>> barefootedray > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Facebook: > >>>>>> facebook.com/ray.foretjr.1 > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> On Mar 22, 2012, at 7:38 PM, Jeff Berwick wrote: > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> Hi All, > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> I downloaded the Kindle app so I can read some of the books that my > >>>>>>> wife is reading. I can't, however, figure out how to get it to work. > >>>>>>> Has anybody had success with the Kindle app? Is it accessible? Any > >>>>>>> tips? > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> It looks like, to me, that it is displaying images instead of > >>>>>>> rendering the text. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Thx, > >>>>>>> Jeff > >>>>>>> > >>>>> > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > >> "MacVisionaries" group. > >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > >> [email protected]. > >> For more options, visit this group at > >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > >> > >> > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "MacVisionaries" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]. > > For more options, visit this group at > > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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