Read-aloud feature on Kindle has people talking

— -- The Kindle 2 electronic reader that Amazon is now shipping has a new read-aloud feature. And for authors and publishers, that's a potentially troublesome development.

"It's a contractual minefield," says Paul Aiken, executive director of The Authors Guild. "Authors often give audio rights to one entity and e-books rights to another."

But Amazon insists there is nothing illegal in what it is doing. "People are not limited by copyright or any other law to reading silently," writes Andrew Herdener, Amazon's director of communications, in an e-mail. "They may also read out loud. And when they do so, either with their voices or with the help of software that vocalizes the text on the page, no copy or derivative work is created and no performance is being given — an audience would be required for that."

Certainly, no audience will confuse the computerized voice reading to you on Kindle 2 for that of professional actors James Earl Jones or Jim Dale. And Amazon calls the text-to-speech feature "experimental." But the technology is bound to improve.

"No, it is not the same thing as a professional reading yet, but that doesn't change the direction it might be going," says Seth Gershel, an independent consultant in the publishing industry who once ran the audio books business at Simon & Schuster. "I just think it's an issue that needs to be explored now before text-to-speech gets so good that it is the same thing."

Gershel believes the hybrid e-book/audio book for the Kindle represents a new entity. "I'm sure there's a way to make a revenue model that works for that, " he says.

How might that play out? Aiken says a consumer might, for example, pay an extra $1.75 or so to be able to listen to a book. He says the guild is "in communication" with Amazon.

At its website the guild advises writers negotiating contracts to make sure Kindle's capabilities are included in the dialogue. "Until this issue is worked out, Amazon may be undermining your audio market."