Action Alert: Reading Rights Coalition Protest in NYC April 7

Submitted by Jenifer Simpson of AAPD

Text To Speech:  New Reading Rights Coalition Launches New York City Protest with Picket April 7

A new coalition of organizations and individuals – the Reading Rights Coalition -- is protesting the recent actions to limit text-to-speech output on electronic books. (For More Information See Below) They are launching their campaign with an  informational picket in front of the Authors Guild’s headquarters in New York City on April 7th from 12:00pm to 2:00pm EST. 

Text-to-speech output on any electronic device allows enormous numbers of people to hear or understand the written word and is a well-known form of accessibility for blind people and others with print disabilities.

Call to Action: Organizations wishing to attend the informational picket should designate a point person responsible for getting members to the protest.  Designee should e-mail John Pare at [email protected] with the expected number of protest attendees.  The goal is to have the largest turn-out we can muster. Authors’ Guild is at 31 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016

All disability advocates are encouraged to attend!

Reading Rights Coalition members are: American Association of People with Disabilities, American Council of the Blind. American Foundation for the Blind, AHEAD (Association on Higher Education and Disability), Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Burton Blatt Institute, DAISY Consortium, International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet (ICDRI), International Dyslexia Association, International Dyslexia Association – New York Branch, Learning Disabilities Association of America, National Center for Learning Disabilities, National Federation of the Blind,  NISH (formerly National Institute for the Severely Handicapped), National Spinal Cord Injury Association and others.   Contact John Pare if your organization wants to join the coalition, email [email protected]   AAPD contact [email protected]

 

From Chris Danielson

Director of Public Relations

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

 

As you may already know, Amazon, Inc. released the newest version of its e-book reader, the Kindle, on February 9 of this year.  The Kindle 2 includes a feature that allows e-books downloaded to it to be read aloud.

The Authors Guild has objected to this feature because it believes these e-books are licensed only for visual display, and under pressure from the Guild, Amazon has decided to allow authors and publishers to decide which books can be read aloud by this device.  Naturally, this is a blow to blind people and others with print disabilities who can benefit from the text-to-speech feature and who would love to be able to purchase books and start reading them immediately for the first time in history.  For this reason the National Federation of the Blind has joined with other organizations representing people who cannot use print effectively to fight the Authors Guild.

 

Comments

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The Reading Rights Coalition has set up an on-line petition to urge the Authors Guild and Amazon to reverse course. Please read, sign, and pass along the petition below to all your friends and family: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read

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