Comments on: DRM, the Kindle and the Blind – from a session at the O’Reilly conference http://www.teleread.com/drm/drm-the-kindle-and-the-blind-from-a-session-at-the-oreilly-conference/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:00:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Bob Martinengo http://www.teleread.com/drm/drm-the-kindle-and-the-blind-from-a-session-at-the-oreilly-conference/comment-page-1/#comment-713664 Bob Martinengo Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:44:33 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/02/11/drm-the-kindle-and-the-blind-from-a-session-at-the-oreilly-conference/#comment-713664 For more on this topic, check out: The Soundproof Book: Exploration of Rights conflict and Access to Commercial EBooks for People with Disabilities http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/informationaldocs/soundproof/soundproof.htm -and- The Next Textbook? Finding—or Creating—Alternative Instructional Materials for College Students http://www.accessiblecontent.com/online/v1n3/index.php?view=textbook For more on this topic, check out:

The Soundproof Book: Exploration of Rights conflict and Access to Commercial EBooks for People with Disabilities
http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/informationaldocs/soundproof/soundproof.htm

-and-
The Next Textbook? Finding—or Creating—Alternative Instructional Materials for College Students
http://www.accessiblecontent.com/online/v1n3/index.php?view=textbook

]]> By: Jim Lester http://www.teleread.com/drm/drm-the-kindle-and-the-blind-from-a-session-at-the-oreilly-conference/comment-page-1/#comment-713409 Jim Lester Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:38:51 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/02/11/drm-the-kindle-and-the-blind-from-a-session-at-the-oreilly-conference/#comment-713409 DRM adds in two pain points for using Screen Readers, such as Jaws. The first is that DRM usually locks you into a specific application which may or may not play well with the screen readers, since good support for the Screen Readers takes a bit of work to get right (it took Acrobat 2 versions - 3 years, for instance). The second is that since APIs for Screen Readers are generally available and to be useful the application needs to provide the full text of what you are reading, those APIs make for interesting attack points for people looking to remove the DRM from text. So the more paranoid publishers prefer the permission in the DRM to disallow access to the screen reading APIs (application permitting of course). Hardware devices (such as the Kindle) would need to have the accessibility built in, or would need be programmable enough to have it provided later (XO, N800, etc). Given that the Kindle is a closed platform, I wouldn't expect to see this happening any time soon. DRM adds in two pain points for using Screen Readers, such as Jaws. The first is that DRM usually locks you into a specific application which may or may not play well with the screen readers, since good support for the Screen Readers takes a bit of work to get right (it took Acrobat 2 versions – 3 years, for instance). The second is that since APIs for Screen Readers are generally available and to be useful the application needs to provide the full text of what you are reading, those APIs make for interesting attack points for people looking to remove the DRM from text. So the more paranoid publishers prefer the permission in the DRM to disallow access to the screen reading APIs (application permitting of course).

Hardware devices (such as the Kindle) would need to have the accessibility built in, or would need be programmable enough to have it provided later (XO, N800, etc). Given that the Kindle is a closed platform, I wouldn’t expect to see this happening any time soon.

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