For those of you that know me, you would already recognize that I like working with new technology, and even trying to make some myself. If this is news to you, well, take it in now for a moment before reading further.
When the first Kindle reader came out from Amazon, I thought it was a step in the right direction for e-book readers. But its somewhat limited capacities and features left me wanting more. Then the Kindle 2 came around this year. And boy was I happy.
What made the Kindle 2 so appealing to me, besides appealing to my geek nature, is the fact that I am an upcoming author of a book which will be offered on Amazon. So, after firing a quick e-mail off to my publisher about an e-book version of Horror Screenwriting, they said they were looking into it. I have offered my own book up as a test subject for the Kindle 2 in hopes that it will get an even bigger upswing.
So yeah, I do have something of a vested interest in seeing this reader unit take off. In college I remember fondly dropping $400 or more for books for a single semester. If something like the Kindle had existed then, my back and my wallet would’ve been in a lot better condition.
Then something like this comes out and it just enrages me. Yes, I am a writer. No, I don’t think this is anywhere near relevant. Many others smarter and more experienced in the field of writing have better elucidated their responses, such as Neil Gaman, John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow, and Wil F-ing Wheaton.
Put it simply, the Author’s Guild is an absorbed, greedy, self-interest group that claims to be fighting for the copyright of writers. But the claim that the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech capabilities somewhow infringe on copyright is bogus at best. So now it’s illegal for me to read a book out loud? When did this happen? And when did machine voice output all of a sudden get so good as to be indistinguishable from humans, complete with inflection, tonality, and pathos?
Final Draft has a “feature” that allows voice playback of screenplays. However, it is one of the most useless tools ever devised. It’s like listening to Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair computer read back all of the parts of your script with no regard to context.
Sure, text-to-speech is a neat thing, and can be handy for those with sight impairment. However, it is not, at this time, a substitute for human playback.
