Feds Move to Prevent Kindle Readers for Use With College Textbooks

Publius Forum ^ | 08/09/10 | Warner Todd Huston

[Mobile Vulgus]

Once again we see the Obama Dept. of Justice acting like utter morons.

[La Lydia]

But my yellow highlighting pen would have ruined the screen.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Reagan was right. Cut taxes and starve this monster called government.
That is the ONLY way to get rid of this type of idiocy. And this type of idiocy is repeated thousands of times.

[chris37]

Uh Oh! Kindle must be endangering union bookmaking jobs somewhere...

[Mr. Jeeves]

Education monopoly defending its turf.

[ClearCase_guy]

I have said for years that school books for young and old ought to be available on a small electronic device. Why lug around a backpack full of enormous textbooks?

It's things like this -- decisions that manifestly prevent the vast majority of people from exercising basic rights and having better lives -- things like this really make me see our government as tyranny.

[jim35]

I wonder if walking violates the civil rights of periplegics? It should be banned until it is accessible to the crippled.

[Chickensoup]

Publishing houses are a way to funnel payola to candidates though media conglomerates. Their way or no way.

[omega4179]

So killing trees is progressive now.

[NEMDF]

Yes, and probably threatening the liberal college professors who write their own books, update a page or two every year, then require the latest version to be purchased at the camput bookstore. Then the book is referred to once or twice during the semester. It would be a hardship for those profs to have to have their works moved over to e-books.

[Little Ray]

Neah. Somebody (probably whoever owns B&N) BOUGHT this reaction from the DoJ.
They has a vision of Amazon sending zillions of Kindles out to schools everywhere and the mobi/azf file format becoming the default eBook format.

[NEMDF]

camput = campus

but then you had figured that out

[llevrok]

Uh Oh! Kindle must be endangering union bookmaking jobs somewhere...

And we have a winner !!!

[mnehring]

The ADA requires a reasonable accommodation for those with disabilities, not equal accommodation. As long as the publisher or school makes braille books available, that can be considered a reasonable accommodation. Also, the Kindle 3 is 508 compliant, offering features for those with vision impairment.

[Little Ray]

There are internal functions for notes, high-lighting, bookmarks, etc.

[the lone haranguer]

Morons, indeed. Evidently, no one in the DOJ is familiar with the Kindle’s “text to speech” functionality. Granted, it’s not an optimal technology yet, as the voice is totally without expression, but it seems that this technology is much further advanced from the “text to speech” tech currently employed in printed textbooks. (Oh wait; there’s no such thing in printed texts.)

[Clock King]

Didn’t I say on another Kindle thread that the Marxists would try to control the spread of knowledge?

[norraad]

I would have thought they would have wanted to get rid of textbooks and textbook warehouses the day after 11-23-63.

Too soon?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

You don't think the federal government took over education for its health, do you?

It's the kickbacks, baby!

[Yet_Again]

So do cars (blind people can’t drive), airplanes (blind people can’t fly), televisions, traditional printed textbooks, works of art, and cameras...