DMCA Revision: e-Book Text To Speech OK?
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Remember how Amazon was almost forced to get rid of Read-to-Me feature on Kindle due to its potential legal risks? Apparently, that is not such an “illegal” thing to do (in some cases). Not according to the Library of Congress. It has added 5 new exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, deeming jailbreaking phones and text-to-speech functionality for e-books kind of legal. Of course, it’s not as straight forward as it sounds:
…works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function…
That means there are certain cases that e-book owners can bypass their book’s DRM under. It would not be the case when publishers decide to offer an audio-version of their work. PC World put it best:
A new exception to the DMCA allows users to break through copyright protection on e-books in order to enable text-to-speech functionality…If a publisher offers an option for an audio version, even if it is twice the price, you can’t legally bypass the book’s DRM.
This is not a huge win for the consumers. But it does make it possible for people to turn their e-books into audio format of some sorts if their publishers decide not to offer an audio version. That is only fair. Read-to-Me could have been a very powerful feature for Amazon Kindle. Unfortunately, greed has crippled it for now. The latest exemptions added to the DMCA won’t likely change that.
