Random House Kindle Outrage

Reprinted without embroidery; sign the petition mentioned. Get involved.

Reading Rights Coalition Denounces Random House

Random House Has Denied 15 Million Print-Disabled Americans Access to its Books.

New York City (May 20, 2009):
The Reading Rights Coalition, representing more than 15 million
print-disabled Americans, has denounced publishing giant Random House, which has turned off text-to-speech on all of its e-books available
for Amazon's Kindle 2 reading service.

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: "When Random House turned off the text-to-speech function on all of its e-books for the Kindle 2, it turned off access to this service for more than 15 million print-disabled Americans. The blind and other print-disabled readers have the right to purchase e-books using this service with text-to-speech enabled. Blocking text-to-speech prohibits access for print-disabled readers and is both reprehensible and discriminatory. We urge President Obama, whose e-books are now being blocked from over 15 million Americans, to either demand that access be restored or to move to a publisher who does not engage in discrimination."

Dr. Cynthia Stuen, Senior Vice President of Policy and Evaluation for
Lighthouse International, said: "Having the technology available to
give people with impaired vision and other print disabilities equal
and timely access to the printed word should be celebrated and
encouraged in a civil and just society for all."

Andrew Imparato, President and Chief Executive Officer for the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), said: "Random House is callously disregarding the right of American consumers with disabilities to get access to the same content at the same price at the same time as everyone else. Random House's decision to turn off the feature that makes this content accessible to millions of print-disabled Americans is a bad business decision with real human consequences and it must be corrected immediately."

Mitch Pomerantz, President of the American Council of the Blind, said:
"The recent action by Random House disabling text-to-speech on e-books is the latest and most egregious discriminatory action against the
nation's 15 million print-disabled individuals. Random House either doesn't care or doesn't understand the impact this will have on those who
would otherwise have equal access to books and other printed materials
in the same manner as our non-disabled peers. We must work collaboratively to do everything possible to assure such access for this
growing constituency."

James Love, Director of Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), said:
"KEI is disappointed that Random House is turning off text-to-speech
on its Kindle 2 e-books. In a world where access to knowledge is
central to everything, Random House certainly understands this action
will isolate and marginalize many persons with reading disabilities."

K. Eric Larson, Executive Director and CEO of National Spinal Cord
Injury Association, said: "All Americans have the right to equal
access and many people living with paralysis use text-to-speech
capabilities in order to gain that access. Our members are also consumers and "turning off" text-to-speech means that some will not buy books they would otherwise purchase."

John R. Sheehan, Chairman of the Xavier Society for the Blind, said:
"The Xavier Society for the Blind is committed to the notion that ALL
books should be accessible to all people. When a book about Mother
Teresa is among those whose text-to-speech functions have been
disabled, we fear that we are seeing the beginning of a blanket
cut-off of a function that should be open and available to all,
especially (but not exclusively) to those with visual impairments or
other problems that limit access to printed materials."
When Amazon released the Kindle 2 e-book reading service on February
9, 2009, the company announced that the device would be able to read
e-books aloud using text-to-speech technology. Under pressure from
the Authors Guild, Amazon has announced that it will give publishers
the ability to disable the text-to-speech function on any or all of
their e-books available for the Kindle 2 service. Random House is the
first publisher to turn off text-to-speech on all of its e-books and
thus deny the rights of print-disabled people across America.

The Reading Rights coalition includes the blind, people with dyslexia,
people with learning or processing issues, seniors losing vision,
people with spinal cord injuries, people recovering from strokes, and
many others for whom the addition of text-to-speech on the Kindle 2
promises for the first time easy, mainstream access to over 270,000 books.

For more information about the Reading Rights Coalition, please visit

http://www.readingrights.org/
. To sign our petition, go to

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read
. If you are an author who supports our cause, please send your contact information to

readingrights@nfb.org