Reading Rights Coalition to protest Authors Guild’s opposition to text-to-speech feature in Amazon's Kindle 2 e-reader

The next battle in the war over the text-to-speech feature in Amazon’s Kindle 2 e-reader will be fought tomorrow afternoon in New York City. According to a statement from the Reading Rights Coalition, a nonprofit organization that represents millions of disabled people who cannot read print, the Coalition will “protest the threatened removal of the text-to-speech function from e-books for the Amazon Kindle 2 which promised for the first time easy, mainstream access to over 255,000 books. Hundreds of disabled Americans (the blind and people with dyslexia, learning difficulties, spinal cord injuries, seniors losing vision, stroke survivors) will march to demand that the Authors Guild reverse its decision.”

The informational protest will take place outside the headquarters of the Authors Guild in New York City at 31 East 32nd Street on April 7, 2009, from noon to 2:00 p.m.

If you support the Reading Rights Coalition but cannot attend the protest, consider signing a petition: Allow Everyone Access to E-books. At the moment 1,786 people have signed the petition. The goal is 10,000 signatures.