Wow with wording like this it is only a matter of time before this group starts naming individuals who are members of the Authors Guild. I bet publishers will like that type of publicity in this market. I wonder how much damage this might do to a writing career to be seen supporting a group like the Authors Guild who’s public statements are now seen as flagrantly discriminatory to the disabled?
I don’t think this is gonna end well.
We represent 30 million Americans who cannot read print because of blindness, dyslexia, spinal cord injury, and other print disabilities. We include school children, the elderly, professionals, college students, returning veterans, and your neighbors, family members and friends. We want to buy books. We have fought very hard for many years to have equal access to technology and information. For the first time, now that the Amazon Kindle 2 offers text-to-speech, which will read a book aloud, we can purchase and enjoy books like everybody else. Sadly, the Authors Guild does not support equal access for us. The Guild has told us that to read their books with text-to-speech we must either submit to a special registration system (that not all may qualify for and that would expose disability information to all future eBook reader manufacturers) and prove our disabilities — or pay extra. The Guild’s position is contrary to the principle of equal opportunity for all and discriminates against millions of people with print disabilities.
Tags: eBook Commentary
Amazon Text-To-Speech Debacle Is Escalating | The Naughty Bits wrote,
[...] and crippling one of their few accessibility features of the Text-To-Speech function. Seems the The Reading Rights Coalition and The National Federation of the Blind might be a little more powerful when it comes to [...]
Link | November 13th, 2009 at 10:09 am