Amazon Concedes on Kindle Text-to-Speech

Posted 03/02/2009 at 11:24am | by Paul Lilly

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Does the newly released Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature violate copyright law? That's a question Amazon would rather avoid asking, and so on Friday the e-tailer announced it would be modifying its eBook reader to give authors and publishers the final say on whether or not to enable text-to-speech.

Even though Amazon has decided to pass the buck on possible legal ramifications of using text-to-speech, the company maintains that it doesn't infringe upon copyrights. In a statement released Friday, Amazon said "Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given."

Amazon says it pulled the 180 because it believes "many rights holders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat." Or, as CNet interprets it, "Amazon caved." Amazon had been receiving criticism from the Authors Guild, who said it wouldn't rule out the possibility of suing Amazon. By making the text-to-speech function optional, Amazon has left authors and publishers to fend for themselves if they decide to enable the feature, which most of them probably won't.

Did Amazon make the right decision? Hit the jump and tell us what you think.