NO! You can’t have audio with that! You’ve bought it, but no!

I happened to stumble on this: Legal ruckus over Kindle 2’s text-to-speech feature (reading this background required before this post makes sense). I trolled through some of the comments and found this, posted by a roadwort/Vinnie, from Cashiers, NC, USA (it’s comment #118 if anybody wants to check):

I hope the Authors Guild takes this to court and wins. I’ve been against the very idea of “digital books” since day one. I’m hoping to have a career in writing myself, and I feel that if you want to read a book you should BUY A COPY OF THE BOOK. What is so hard about that? Most people only read one book at a time, so you buy a copy of the book and carry it with you. Newspaper sales are declining, and now with this Kindle garbage, they’re trying to destroy books too. I will never buy into this and anyone who claims to love reading shouldn’t either.

I find that pretty amazing.  “I won’t make as much money” shouldn’t be an excuse for hindering progress. People have already paid for the book and are simply choosing how they want to consume the book.

And how about the visually-handicapped? Should they be second-rate citizens – when the technology exists to aid them – because you wanted to make a quick buck?

If I knew his/her real name I would never buy any of the would-be-author’s books, henceforth referred to as Distasteful. “I feel that if you want to read a book you should BUY A COPY OF THE BOOK. What is so hard about that?” – can’t accommodate how people choose to digest their literature? I can already see Distasteful’s books filled with egotism, hate and anger. Do a check there, people have already paid for A COPY OF THE BOOK even if they use Kindle to read it – just not in the format Distasteful likes, just not in the way Distasteful prefers them to consume their daily word.

Let’s just throw this in for argument’s sake: if the most popular book on the planet, the Bible, were to be Kindled – would Distasteful oppose it?

A career in writing? I hope not, because Distasteful seems to be an absolute disgrace to the community of excellent writers such as Paolo Coelho and Deepak Chopra whose works are written to illuminate and uplift, or in non-fiction, authors such as Noam Chomsky whose books are written to inform and enlighten, while Distasteful seems to care only about writing to sell.

Now as for the newspapers, let me set the record straight. Sales are declining because of the power, reach, versatility, connectivity and potential of new media, and because people are getting smarter at seeing through the agendas many of them push (and opting for new media which isn’t constrained that way, or is less constrained – citizen journalism anyone?), not because people are trying to destroy newspapers; nor is it about the destruction of books as is claimed. Distasteful should take some media studies before he/she slaps some ignorant views on people out there. It’s just the side effect of change, which happens all the time.

If anyone will check a few posts down, I did a piece on how much I love pen and paper. I much prefer holding a copy of a newspaper in my hands as well, over reading it off a screen. I like books too and would read much more if I had the time. But unlike Distasteful, I can reconcile that with technology and new media – see, I’m bloggin’! – adapt to be able to handle both and have no qualm with all that. In fact I’ve never had a qualm with that.

It’s really not that hard, as long as one opens his/her mind. And I’m sorry to disappoint Distasteful but I’m going to have to claim that I love reading.