Machines Making Art.

If you hadn't heard, the writers guild is stepping up to become the next artistic representative to be despised by the populous is exists because of. Of course its got a long way to go to be an RIAA or an MPAA, but you gotta start somewhere. And objecting to the kindle II's ability to interpret written text into an audible format is a good start. Apparently they thing the rights to read a book and the rights to read a book out loud should be sold separately.

Actually no, that's not fair, they're willing to admit you're allowed to read a book to whoever you want in a private and non-commercial setting. But they are taking issue with an automated reader that they percieve as an infringement into their audio book market. Which is of course ridiculous.

I had two thoughts about this today.

First, what are the standards in music? Buying sheet music of a song is not the same as buying a CD of a musician playing the song. But you certainly have the right to play the sheet music at home on a piano. Do you also have the right to have a synthesizer play back the song? I think so. Is that really viable competition to (and infringement of) the professionally produced and artist performed version? I wouldn't think so.

Second, what if there was an automatic writing machine that could create works of text with virtually no human input? Would it put human authors out of business or would the Writer's Guild assert that human authors brought something more to the table than machines could?

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the audio books are performances of written material. They're also selling the source material which is essentially instructions for creating private performances, whether human or not. If they're upset about losing some income, the Writers Guild should be focusing on value they could add rather than trying to limit the options of its customers.

• Authors Guild Digs Itself In Deeper Concerning Kindle Text-To-Speech