Amazon practically gave rights holders the option of disabling the feature for individual titles, but this does not mean it agrees with the complaints of the Authors Guild, a trade group representing 9,000 book authors. 

 

Among the numerous improvements from its predecessor, Kindle, the Kindle 2 also packed a very interesting text-to-speech feature. Although very useful to Kindle users, the feature struck a legislative and sensitive cord at the Authors Guild. 

 

Legislative - the agency objected that Amazon does not have the right to turn e-books into audio books. 

Sensitive - the difference between the Kindle 2 text-to-speech feature and regular audio books is that, in the case of the Kindle, no royalties are being paid to the books authors. This is what really bothers the Authors Guild.

 

"They created a hybrid product. It was being used in a way they had not been given permission for," Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, said according to The Los Angeles Times.

 

Although it reverses the controversial feature, Amazon said loud and clear that the Kindle’s text-to-speech feature is legal. The online retail giant said in a statement that no copy is made, no derivative work is created and no performance is being given, thus it has every right to use the feature, but decided to reverse it and give authors the alternative of turning off the feature to individual e-books because many rights holders will most likely be “more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat."

 

For those of you who do not know, the Kindle 2 is Amazon’s latest e-book reader. The device can hold more than 1,500 books, it can download e-books directly from Amazon.com and it’s considered to be the best e-book reader out there right now.