I'd like to insert a question in this great thread: What about the obvious direct utility of text-to-speech for the visually-impaired, not even considering the marketing or the quality of the presentation? As an author I'd like to realize gain from such presentations from my work, and it seems that Amazon's Kindle steps all over that.
Eric Scoles wrote: > > > On 2009-02-25, *Dave Henn* <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > > On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Eric Scoles <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > [snip] > > If I undestand correctly what you're describing, this would > not be that. Sounds like what you describe is a matter of > piping text through MacInTalk, or something like that, and > saving it as MP3. Plus, they wouldn't have any inflection, as > we both noted, so it would be hard to listen to -- especially > for something like that, where you need to understand all of it. > > > > I don't think we're talking about the same "cues." > > Yes, there are periods and commas and paragraphs and quotation marks, > and you can code a text-to-speech system to account for that. > (MacInTalk does.) But that's a long way from Roy Blount, Jr. Or Tom > Bodet. Or Peter Riegert. Imagine Sarah Vowell read by a text to speech > system. OK, bad example: some people would prefer that, I know. How > about David Sedaris? > > Consider Blount's point about the accent: IBM has coded that into > their voice tree systems, possibly using his own southern accent as > one model. I've listened to accented text to speech voices, and > they're not terrible. But you'd have to know to use them, and there's > no cue in plaintext for that. There's also no cue for gender, > pitch, timbre, tone, or, really, cadence. > > > > > [snip] > All my speculations are purely divorced from the IP aspects of > it, of course. On the IP level, I still am not sure what to > think of it. I think I probably favor a broader reading of > Fair Use than is currently accepted. It's my mis-spent > Libertarian youth coming back to haunt me. > [snip] > > > Keep in mind that fair use is a defense to copyright infringement, > not a right. This is something that is generally not understood by > the non-copyright folks (read 98% or more of the world) You still > infringe the copyright and can be sued. You just say that what you > did does not warrant any sort of compensation to the copyright holder. > > > > I suspect we risk conflating different domains. I understand that > you're talking about law. A good libertarian (even a lapsed one, like > me) tends to have some measure of contempt for law. If I think about > IP, the law of it interests me only insofar as it drives whether or > not I can be sued (to your point); what interests me much more is what > "ought" to be, how things could work so that they satisfy my own sense > of fairness, and meet what I regard as a pragmatic need to account for > how change affects what we are able to do. > > 300 years ago, IP law barely (if at all) existed. As I've noted in the > past, I'm skeptical about the very concept of IP. I believe, with > Jefferson, that there's a tightrope that needs to be walked between > protection and restriction: Too little IP protection, and you > disincentivise creators; too much, and you disincentivize people from > building on the creations of others. > > > I would love to see specific grants of rights for people to read > to each other in non-commercial contexts, such as in the car, at > bed time, in book clubs, and the like. Specific grants of rights > have to be codified into statute or granted by the copyright > holders, such as in a notice in the work (hint, hint). > > > > Could you expand on that when you get a minute? I'd like to understand > why you couldn't just structure the contract to stiplate the rights. > (Or is that what you're saying?) Why do you need statute? > > > > > -- > eric scoles ([email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>) > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" 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/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
