Comments on: Is Kindle’s Text-To-Speech a Breach of Copyright?

By: what is kindle

what is kindle — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 07:07:31 +0000

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By: Jason Block

Jason Block — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:07:11 +0000

Maybe my comparison doesn’t hold much water, because both a book and a MIDI file are seperate products and have seperate applications that are covered under IP law. If in the case of the ebook there were two seperate computer file products, one which was for displaying text on a screen and one which was for computer generated speech, then there would be no ‘problem’. But the functions use the same file, and one of the functions was unforseen. I imagine publishers contracts will change to include different compensation. My fear is that it won’t happen that way for small publishers and independent writers who don’t have the same leverage with large corporations like Amazon.

By: Michael Kwun

Michael Kwun — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:44:11 +0000

I should hasten to add, having just noticed that Kinkabink is based in Melbourne, Australia, that I’m applying US law in the above analysis.

By: Michael Kwun

Michael Kwun — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:41:23 +0000

Jason: There are several ways a MIDI file can infringe:

(1) The MIDI file itself is fixed, and can infringe the reproduction right held by copyright owner of the original composition.

(2) If publicly performed, the MIDI file can infringe the public performance right.

(3) If the MIDI file is an interpretation of the original work, but with some original choices (of, for example, phrasing and dynamics), it can infringe the right to make derivative works.

Those rights suffice to protect the owner of the copyright in the original composition. For example, if I include a MIDI version of your tune in my game, for example, I run afoul of (1), and quite likely (3). And if I then sell CDs with my game on it, I’m also infringing the distribution right.

But simply using a MIDI file in private does not independently infringe, for the same reasons that apply to the read-to-me feature of the Kindle 2.

Michael Kwun
EFF Senior Staff Attorney

By: Jason Block

Jason Block — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:21:29 +0000

Interesting. What about MIDI files? The performance of a MIDI file is not ‘fixed’ but it is covered under IP law. In this case, the e-book may be acting as an abstract code instructing the machine what to do, as a MIDI file instructs a musical instrument what to do. It certainly is functioning as a discrete work. Maybe this is a new derivative work, maybe not. IMO it should be, even if it uses some of the same process.

btw I’ve been a member of the EFF for ten years and just becuase they say something doesn’t make it correct. Like the ACLU, they take a hard, ideological line and are often completely divorced from reality.