Maybe it is. The law isn't the best place to glean any useful moral principles from. I think if you're willing to put in the effort, nobody's going to stop you from making your own text version from the audiobook. But once you're in a position where you're distributing that unauthorized version, or you're already a distributor of the audiobook version and add a feature that automatically creates a text version (without appropriate licensing from the copyright holder), it's something else entirely.
I should clarify I was talking about the existing legal rights owning property entitles me to. Moral rights as well, but that discussion isn't nearly as relevant or useful in this particular case. Sorry for not clarifying.
>and add a feature that automatically creates a text version
This is where I'm not so certain about. If they add a keyboard and notepad that lets me take audio myself, then where is the significant difference in adding software that makes it easier for me to do the transcription? Is there a certain level of ease that anything easier than that becomes illegal?
I don't think there's any uncertainty here. They're creating a text version and distributing it without appropriate licensing. If they give you a notepad, and you happen to write a text version, it's not them creating or distributing it, but it's still unlicensed. If it makes its way on their platform in some way, they're going to need permission, again.
Further, I don't understand why anybody here is giving Amazon the benefit of the doubt. If they want to do this, they can negotiate the required licensing from the publishers. The fact that they've done it without doing this or even discussing it with the publishers shows their clear intent to do what they want, regardless of how much it runs afoul of any laws, simply because they're big enough to fight any lawsuits for ages.
If they create it on their machines and distribute it, then I agree this is an issue. It doesn't matter if it is an AI or if they paid someone to transcribe it, they are distributing a work they likely don't have permission to do so. But if they provide you an application to create it on your machine, then it is you who does the work to make a copy and distributing the application is not an issue (there is an underlying issue of distributing a neural network that was trained by private work, but I'm not certain that is the case here and I think that is a separate issue to discuss that is irrelevant to the use of that neural network).
It is my understanding that the user's device does the translation, but if that isn't the case then my entire argument doesn't apply to this particular case.
>Further, I don't understand why anybody here is giving Amazon the benefit of the doubt.
Personally I don't care about Amazon. But I do care about the precedent set when it comes to distributing applications that make doing something legal easier (at near zero cost). I personally don't even prefer the argument they use and don't even think it works that great as an argument (because it doesn't work if you replace the AI with a person hired to do the same job).
I'd say if this were an open source project created by some volunteers because they were genuinely of the opinion that this provided value to people, and it would in the same way that DeDRM is, there'd be no problem.
> It is my understanding that the user's device does the translation
It's Amazon doing this for financial gain, integrating it into their app with which people consume audiobooks bought through their platform, based on licenses they legally acquired that presumably don't allow this use. I don't see any context in which this is okay. We can't excuse anti-competitive behavior just because if you do the right amount of twisting it seems okay and they found a neat way to skirt contractual and financial obligations. I'd say most significant issue is the scale. They're essentially providing automation of creating unlicensed copies for everybody on their platform and presumably will have a significant impact on the original copyright holders. Which simply wouldn't be the case for an open source project (the amount of people who use DeDRM is miniscule).
Yes. The level of ease where a technology impacts other businesses/versions of material (e.g. the audio book industry here) it is made illegal.
If it's unrealistic/inconvenient as to not have impact, it's ignored.
I don't see why you would be. You aren't permitted to manually copy a book to notepaper, either. The whole point of copyrights are, after all, to manage the rights to copy.
[0] https://answers.justia.com/question/2017/09/03/is-it-legal-t...
[1] https://www.quora.com/Are-audio-transcriptions-legally-allow...
IANAL but, at least as a practical matter, anything along these lines that's done for personal/internal use seems likely fair game. Someone is seriously going to make a case that I can't transcribe a copy of a speech or other recording for my own use?
It's external distribution that gets stickier--especially as you get beyond short excerpts to a full and complete work.
ADDED: And, yes, anyone can sue anyone for anything. But arguments that something could technically be construed as a legal violation even though no one has ever been called on it in the history of the legal system aren't terribly convincing.
How about students photocopying books?
Universities seem pretty convinced that's not permitted.
They note however that The concept is not defined in the legislation, so they seem to be going by feel really.
https://www.soas.ac.uk/infocomp/copyright/library/photocopyi...
Audible on the other hand is not allowed to sell you a text version of an audio book that they licensed even if they are using a clever way of producing the text version of the book.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Unive....
Do you have any case law dealing with personal use copies only? In my mind it is like copying an mp3 file. I can make as many copies all over my harddrives as I care. It is only when I share those copies with others it becomes an issue.
>The whole point of copyrights are, after all, to manage the rights to copy.
While it is named copyright, generally they are applied to distributing copies, not the actual creation of copies. For example, anytime I make a backup of my computer I make copies of all data on it, including many I have no copyrights to. It only would be an issue when I started sharing/selling those copies.
I'm afraid not (IANAL), but university text-copying policies seem to assume that personal copies are very much forbidden, for what that's worth.
> While it is named copyright, generally they are applied to distributing copies, not the actual creation of copies
It also covers creation of copies. Unauthorised recording is copyright infringement, despite that it's an act of creation, not of duplication.
> anytime I make a backup of my computer I make copies of all data on it, including many I have no copyrights to. It only would be an issue when I started sharing/selling those copies.
Indeed. That seems to count as fair-use provided you don't distribute to others.
(More generally, there are already lots of products that “covert” a book to a similar but more useful item: bookmarks, stands that hold it open, etc.)
Publishers may not like that product, and may even embargo dealers that sell them, but it’s not clear that they would have any kind of legal right to stop them, even if they were only used for this one purpose.
You're allowed to physically do whatever you want to the copy of a book you've purchased. You can fold it, you can tear it, you can burn it. Hell, you can even eat it if you really want.
I can also scan the pages and print them into a new softback. I can even just retype the story and print it into a new softback.
(The quote is from the parent's comment, not the one I directly replied to but my reply fits here better.) This is not permissible under copyright law, and never has been. That would be creating a new copy, which is exactly what copyright law was created to prevent.
My understanding is that this is entirely legal as long as you don't sell the copy. Borrowing/giving it away would likely be illegal but not worth prosecuting. But a copy solely as a personal backup is allowed. We do that with data all the time.
I mentioned in another post, my understanding is the AI is running on the users machine (given neural networks are cheap to run and expensive to train, it seems plausible the phone is capable of running it). If I'm wrong then my comments don't apply and the issue is more convoluted (I would almost agree it isn't legal in such a case, but I would first have to see about some case law to what I think of as equivalent services, such as online backups/storage/vcr to dvd services).
[0] https://answers.justia.com/question/2017/09/03/is-it-legal-t...
[1] https://www.quora.com/Are-audio-transcriptions-legally-allow...
But I am. It would take some work, but I can undo the binding of the hardback and turn it into a softback. I can also scan the pages and print them into a new softback. I can even just retype the story and print it into a new softback.
Now, selling, trading, or lending those copies will be an issue, but I don't think anyone here is arguing that someone should be able to use speech to text and then sell the text generated, so the comparison stills stands.
And I can't expect to be given an official softback book, just like I don't have to expect to be given an official text version. But being able to turn an audio book into text seems well within my rights.