Amazon late Friday night announced it would give authors and publishers access to disabling its newest Kindle 2 feature, the text-to-voice capability, which ignited a [controversy](/mobility/article.php/3802826) shortly after the e-reader arrived this month.
Two days after the new Kindle debuted, the Authors Guild, a writers advocacy group, issued an email to members to ask Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) to disable its “Read-to-Me” feature in light of murky copyright issues with text-to-voice recording of e-books.
In its short [statement](http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1261092&highlight=), Amazon once again declares that its feature is legal and does not break any copyright rules.
*”Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver’s seat.”*
Amazon is adjusting its publishing system to let writers, authors and publishers decide on a title-by-title basis to enable or disable the text-to-speech feature.
*”We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is,” wrote Amazon.*
