First, I want to thank Bruce for starting this thread:http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg1?%5Fencoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx1ZD6KVRTJQQ7S&displayType=tagsDetail(Amazon thread relevant to the discussion)I thought I’d address some of the issues here:OVERVIEWRandom House (a major publisher with many imprints) has started to actually block the otherwise available text-to-speech capability of the Kindle 2. This ability allows the device to "read aloud" things that have been downloaded to it. Some people (including me) who disagree with this policy have been boycotting Random House products.LEGAL ISSUESAmazon has maintained all along that text-to-speech is legal, and that is my understanding of it after research. The Copyright Office has made it quite clear, in my opinion. An audiobook is "fixed": text-to-speech is streaming. It is simply another way of accessing the material in the book, like a booklight or adjustable text size. The Copyright Office statement made it clear that if "read aloud" was not available in at least one version of an e-book (not necessarily in all of them), it would be legal to circumvent ("hack") the DRM (Digital Rights Management).Note: the Copyright Office did not say it had to be available in all versions, or that it had to be free.People sometimes cite the Chaffee amendment, which allows "authorized entities" to convert books into disabled accessible versions without getting permission first from the rightsholders. This does result in a small minority of the books being made available.LICENSING ISSUESLicensing is irrelevant to text-to-speech (although significant for audiobooks). Text-to-speech (in private) is a non-infringing use. Making an e-book or an audiobook needs to be licensed. Text-to-speech does not.AUTHORS OR PUBLISHERSIt has been stated in the forum by (reportedly) a Random House author (it isn’t possible to authenticate people very well on the forum, but my intuition is that this is a reliable person) that authors can arrange separately with Amazon to keep the text-to-speech available. WHY BOYCOTT?I simply don’t want to give my money to Random House while they have this policy. I’ve liked many Random House books, and am certainly a former customer. If they reverse the policy, I’ll go back to buying their products. If they make text-to-speech available in an equivalent way to the disabled, I’ll stop the boycott. I don’t think I deserve text-to-speech (although I like it and use it frequently), but I believe the disabled do.WHO IS HURT?The visually impaired are affected, for obvious reasons. Not as apparent to many people are the Americans with debilitating conditions (like muscular sclerosis). TTS enables "autoturn". For people who can’t hold a book for long periods of time, or have difficulty turning the pages, that makes a huge difference.The Reading Rights Coalition, which opposes the policy, is made up of many disabled groups that serve the disabled, including very well-known ones.It’s important to note that some of these groups =produce= the alternative texts currently. If they felt that those were a satisfactory alternative to the K2, they would not be protesting, in my opinion.Also affected are those who have impairments that do not rise to the legal definition of a disablity, such as those with minor arthritis or weakened vision.WHY IS RANDOM HOUSE BLOCKING THE ACCESS?They have mentioned authors’ rights (although that is not my understanding). They also have mentioned the audiobook market. Yes, there may be a risk, although it’s hard to tell with the data we have. Certainly, e-book sales have been rapidly increasing. Has there been a corresponding reduction in audiobook sales? I don’t have the data on that. SUMMARYAudiobooks and text-to-speech are two different things per the Copyright Office. Blocking text-to-speech disproportionately affects the disabled. Some people who oppose Random House doing this are boycotting them in hopes of having them change their position.

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