Adobe meet ADA. Money meet Lawyer
Finally the fight over Text To Speech (TTS) is being addressed the proper way with threats of legal action. Their Lawyers probably smell blood money. The Reading Rights Coalition (RRC) has started with the Los Angeles Public Library (I expect more to come really soon here.) requesting all eBook purchases be shut down till Adobe and OverDrive get off their fat asses and turn TTS back on. I really hope all ePublishers out there take heed that this could turn into a very messy and very expen$ive Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) legal action and the RRC would be so correct in making sure anyone caught purposely turning off TTS in their eBooks pay. Let the finger pointing begin!
Access and use by all members of the public (Like in library get it?) is not an option for you to consider it’s a legal right for all and if you feel otherwise I hope you have deep pockets.
OverDrive represents over 150 publishers, retailers, and libraries. They recently announced a catalog of more than 400,000 digital titles, including eBooks and audiobooks in 42 languages and OverDrive supplies materials to retailers and libraries on 5 continents.
Tags: eBook CommentaryTags: eBook Commentary
Fledchen wrote,
I’m legally blind and I thank you for your support of the rights of all readers!
Link | October 14th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
You are so welcome.
It amazes me that people miss the fact “major life activities” includes “reading” which is the wording covered under the ADA. No one should act like Text To Speech is anything but a basic requirement like using clear text and proper spacing and is not something that people should be arguing over like it compares to audio books.
I would hope smart intelligent people simply stop giving any money to the Authors Guild. Maybe a good lawsuit is what is needed to finally point out the ignorance of those fools.
Link | October 14th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Melissa Blue wrote,
Why this is an issue is lost on me. Does it cost more to have the read function enabled? Do they have to pay the android voice used in Adobe royalites?
“they can release hardware and software faster than we can build support into Adobe Digital Editions,” he said.
Maybe I’m a noob when it comes to technology, but with all the update alerts I receive I figured it’s not rocket science to change something within the programming.
Link | October 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
Well the thing is Adobe had the function and obviously people were using the function and then they broke it last update and now say they cannot fix it.
Unfortunately that means OverDrive now does not meet community standards for accessibility.
Link | October 15th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Amazon Text-To-Speech Debacle Is Escalating | The Naughty Bits wrote,
[...] National Federation of the Blind might be a little more powerful when it comes to Universities and Libraries than a bunch of Dead Tree Publishing Idiots upset over Text-To-Speech accessibility functions which [...]
Link | November 13th, 2009 at 10:11 am