NEW YORK — A group representing the blind and other people with disabilities protested limitations to the new read-aloud feature on Inc.’s latest Kindle electronic reader Tuesday, arguing that the restrictions unfairly limit their access to e-books.
The feature, which reads text in a stiff-sounding electronic voice, is still available for all books on the new Kindle, which was unveiled in February. But the Authors Guild has expressed concern that the feature will hurt sales of audio books, so Amazon plans to give publishers and authors the ability to silence the text-to-speech function for their books.
That’s what prompted the newly formed Reading Rights Coalition to stage an “informational protest” outside the office of the Authors Guild in New York. The protesters shouted, “Stop the greed, we want to read.”
The number of books Amazon has made available for Kindle, more than 260,000, dwarfs the 50,000 to 60,000 books generally available through libraries for the blind, said Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind.
