As I understand it, their reasons are technical, , not ideological.
In order to distribute the books, they're required to be certain
that only blind people can access the material. To date, this has
been possible by making the books available on blind-person-only
devices like the Stream and Icon/Braille+. Of course, a sighted
person could purchase one of these, but probably wouldn't want to.
Further, these devices have advanced rights protection features,
and a sighted person wouldn't be able to easily obtain a decryption
key.
Though rights protection can be frustrating at some times, NLS has
tried to make this as painless as possible by only requiring
authorization for the device, not each piece of content. For
example, once your device is authorized, you can download as much
content as you want from their web site. You can archive the
content in any way that suits you, and play it on any player that
you own that is authorized. You never need to ask for permission to
play a specific book, worry about files that expire, etc. As rights
protection goes, this is a very friendly, easy to use, and flexible
system.
There is no technical way to secure content on PCs to the same
degree that is possible with the current hardware players. All that
would need to happen on a PC is for someone to manually hack the
player application, and the hacked player would be able to play any
book from the collection. With the unlimited download capability on
the NLS site, you'd have a huge problem with unauthorized people
downloading mountains of books, building their own collections, and
sharing them. The only partial solution would be for NLS to start
acting like Audible, enforcing download limits, requiring you to
obtain per-book authorization, and forcing files to expire. And,
even then, the content would still be quite vulnerable, while
increasing the frustration level for all of the honest users that
must now deal with complex rights protection.
The IPod and IPhone are secure platforms, but ITunes is not. Since
ITunes is used to manage content on the Apple players, NLS probably
sees ITunes as just as big of a security hole as any PC player.
Of course, anyone that is determined enough can break any sort of
protection. However, NLS must make these efforts, or else they'll
be viewed as contributing to unauthorized reproduction. I'm not
fully up on the legal side of why they do this, but I bet that
they're working under some modified form of the exemption in the
DMCA that allows them to produce these audio books in an
alternative format without having to seek approval for each
individual book from the copyright holder. Reproducing audio books
as specially formatted talking books on specialized players can
probably stand legally as an acceptable alternative format, while
making them available through a PC application is not looked on in
the same way.
Maybe if the books could be downloaded over the air directly to an
IPod Touch or IPhone, they could have legal cover, but I don't
think that a sync with ITunes would stand.
As it is, you can buy a Stream for about $300. That is dirt cheap
as far as assistive tech goes, and it is a far better book player
than any IPod. If you're too broke to afford a Stream, you can get
a free digital player from your library.
I'd like to play their books on my other devices, but I think that
their hands are legally tied in this regard.
Bryan
-----Original Message-----
From: macvoiceover-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:macvoiceover-
bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Poehlman
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 10:29 AM
To: macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [macvoiceover] no nls for ipod ever:
All;
I've received information that nls will not make it possible to
play their digital talking books on ipods and iphones etc.
This is indeed distressing and if you are concerned, please contact
the administration of the nls digital talking book program, your
state representatives and your state legislature to boost this. It
is of grave concern to voiceover users since the ipod is the most
widely used portable digital media player available and the books
are after all digital media.
Further, it has come to my attention that software will not be
produced or authorized by NLS for the purpose of reading digital
talking books on any computer which effectively stonewalling itunes
from accessing them legally. If we were to undertake an illegal
approach, we'd be punnished in some way or another if they found
out yet they leave no alternative avenue open and this is after all
tax payer dollar we are talking about.
Why shoule we be forced to purchase or be handed a proprietary
player that is over priced when we already have players as
inexpensive as the ipod nano at under $60 at our disposal. I know
the nano might not be able to play a huge book, but most books are
not huge and many of us have ipods larger in capacity than the nano
and wiITunes is available and accessible on both platforms.
Thanks for listening.
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