Out of the Mouths of Babes and the Pockets of Authors?

Last month we commented on the introduction of Amazon's new Kindle and its potential impact on the publishing industry. About a week ago, Roy Blount, Jr., president of the Authors Guild commented on the "Read-to-Me" feature that will read Kindle content -- magazines, blogs, books -- aloud. Blount argued that this new feature is no different than an audio book, which authors are separately compensated for. There is apparently no extra compensation from Amazon in light of the "Read-to-Me" feature. He's right to point this out as it does represent another commercial use of the original work. We say commercial to distinguish Kindle from bedtime stories which nobody would suggest requires a royalty payment to the author. We found it strange that there was no technological solution to this problem, so we went to Amazon to see if the site would shed some light. According to the specs, the "Read-to-Me" feature is not available where it is disabled by the rights holder. So that would appear to solve Blount's issue. But this is clearly something that authors and their agents should discuss with either Amazon or the publisher.

UPDATE: We learned that the ability to disable the "Read-to-Me" feature resulted in part from Blount's op-ed piece.