Kindle, Copyright, and the Evolution of "Reading"

Blount, Roy, Jr. "The Kindle Swindle." New York Times. 25 February 2009: A23.

Roy Blount Jr. is an author of some renown. If you listen to public radio, chances are good that you have heard him on different shows such as Wait, Wait - Don't Tell Me and A Prairie Home Companion. He is also the current president of the Author's Guild, and it is in this role that he writes his opinion piece. In short, Blount takes to task Kindle's use of computer-generated audio versions of the books (every book sold through Kindle comes to the consumer with both an electronic print and audio version). While authors do receive royalties for the electronic print version, they receive nothing for the audio version, and as Blount notes, audio versions of books "are more valuate than e-book rights. Income from audio books helps not inconsiderably to keep authors, and publishers, afloat." If you are interested in technology and copyright issues, then you'll be interested in this article. If you are interested, too, in the way technology is shaping the way that we read and consume information, then you'll be interested in this article.