Amazon has caved to pressure from the Authors Guild, who indicated that it might sue over the text-to-speech technology in the Kindle. Amazon maintained that the feature was legal, but presumably dropped the feature for business reasons.
Amazon Caves on Kindle
March 1, 2009
Share this post
3 Comments

Law Bytes
Episode 282: Udbhav Tiwari on Why Signal May Exit Canada Over Bill C-22’s Encryption and Metadata Retention Rules
byMichael Geist

November 9, 2026
Michael Geist
November 2, 2026
Michael Geist
October 26, 2026
Michael Geist
October 19, 2026
Michael Geist
August 10, 2026
Michael Geist
Search Results placeholder
Michael Geist on Substack
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 282: Udbhav Tiwari on Why Signal May Exit Canada Over Bill C-22’s Encryption and Metadata Retention Rules
From Making Web Giants Pay to Paying Media Giants: Budget 2026 Replaces the Government’s Internet Platform Strategy With $1.5 Billion in Taxpayer Dollars for Culture and News
Has the Government Read Its Own Bill? What Three Days of House Debate Revealed About Bill C-34 Before the Committee Hearings Begin
Surveillance By Design: Government Officials Say Lawful Access Could Reach Gaming Platforms, Daycares and AI Services
Canada’s First Digital Trade Agreement: Why the Canada-EU Deal Will Likely Follow Europe’s Template and What That Means for Canadian Digital Law

Ficticious copyright violation?
The BOOK is the “product” that is copyrighted.
Any audio package for such a book would be directly DERIVED FROM that book, and should only be considered “reading” the work. It’s not a “sound track”, in the “movie” or “music” sense, and the book is complete without it.
It’s utter nonsense that someone can/would claim “copyright” over the very ACT of reading anything, as such a copyright could make ANY reading of a book “illegal”.
What would that mean for schools??
Reading a book, and even recording that reading can’t possibly constitute “copying” the product itself.
This is madness.
The practice of copyright itself needs to die.
>sigh
I realize one shouldn’t “feel sorry” for people with vision impairments, but it seems the blind are the collateral damage here. Exemptions don’t mean **** if the feature gets pulled before market.
Not like that impacts Canadians anyway.
CNIB should sue…
For discrimination.