Lighten up, Authors. Get with the times.

Reading Rights Coalition Staging Protest in NYC Over Threatened Removal of Text-to-Speech Feature

Hundreds of Disabled to Protest Outside Authors Guild Headquarters -- April 7th

NEW YORK, April 6 /PRNewswire/ --

WHAT: The Reading Rights Coalition, representing millions of
disabled people who cannot read print, will protest the
threatened removal of the text-to-speech function from
e-books for the Amazon Kindle 2 which promised for the
first time easy, mainstream access to over 255,000
books. Hundreds of disabled Americans (the blind and
people with dyslexia, learning difficulties, spinal cord
injuries, seniors losing vision, stroke survivors) will
march to demand that the Authors Guild reverse its
decision.

WHEN: April 7, 2009 - noon to 2:00 p.m. EDT

WHERE: Outside the Authors Guild headquarters in New York City
at 31 East 32nd Street

AVAILABLE TO
INTERVIEW: Coalition spokesperson: Dr. Marc Maurer, President,
National Federation of the Blind Various coalition
member representatives

DISABLING THE
DISABLED: When Amazon released the Kindle 2 electronic book reader
on February 9, 2009, it promised the device would be
able to read e-books aloud using text-to-speech
technology. Under pressure from the Authors Guild,
Amazon has agreed to give authors and publishers the
ability to disable the text-to-speech function on any or
all of their e-books available for the Kindle 2. This
decision has serious discriminatory and censorship
implications for the disabled and is simply bad
business.

READING RIGHTS
COALITION: Coalition members include: American Association of
People with Disabilities, Association of Blind Citizens,
American Council of the Blind, American Foundation for
the Blind, Association on Higher Education And
Disability, Arc of the United States, Bazelon Center for
Mental Health Law, Burton Blatt Institute, Digital
Accessible Information System (DAISY) Consortium,
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF),
IDEAL Group, Inc., International Center for Disability
Resources on the Internet, International Dyslexia
Association, International Dyslexia Association--New
York Branch, Jewish Guild for the Blind, Knowledge
Ecology International, Learning Disabilities Association
of America, Lighthouse International, National Center
for Learning Disabilities, National Disability Rights
Network, National Federation of the Blind, NISH,
National Spinal Cord Injury Association, United Cerebral
Palsy, and Xavier Society for the Blind.


SOURCE Reading Rights Coalition

(Thanks Jenny W. for sending this. Apparently the protest is right outside her window. It's probably because they know what a print book fanatic you are.)