'Don't speak!' Does text-to-speech technology in e-book readers infringe authors' rights?

Abstract

Oliver Wolf studied law at the University of Trier (Germany), First State Examination, and the University of East Anglia (Norwich), LL.M. He is currently a doctoral student and research assistant at the Department for Civil Law, Trade Law and Commercial Law (Prof. Dr. Hans-Friedrich Müller, LL.M.) at the University of Trier. The author wrote a master's thesis entitled “Kindle Regards–The Legal Implications of E-Books with Special Reference to the Amazon Kindle” in summer 2011. Based on the dispute between Amazon and the Authors Guild in the United States, that arose when Amazon introduced e-book readers equipped with a speech synthesis function, the author argues that such technology does not infringe authors’ rights. These findings may also apply to other newly introduced techniques and may thus help to assess the question of infringement of authors’ rights. There persists a strong need for clarification in this area of law, especially regarding Directive 2001/33/EC and its implementation.