This that and the other thing...

[shadowkat]

1. Vaccines

Got the COVID vaccine after work. The New York Governor made it possible for everyone between the ages of 6-110 to take it for an expandable 30 day period, under an emergency order.

I scheduled it while at work for around 4:40pm, and ended up getting there early - so go it around 4:30pm. I got it today, in case there are any major side-effects. That way I have the weekend to get past them, not that I've ever had any outside of a sore arm. Mother hasn't had any side-effects either. The only ones who have in my immediate family are my brother and sister-in-law, who have the worst immune systems on the planet. Both get sick at the drop of a hat. It's insane.

This is my ....sixth shot, and I've yet to have any side-effects. Always worried that I might get them - and the worst I've had to date is a sore shoulder/arm. I had the original vaccine in 2021, then a booster each year thereafter. I almost had to skip this year - they wouldn't give it to me in January, because I'd already had it in 2024. I've always had the Pfizer. (Mainly because I've never had any side effects with it, and folks who've gotten the Moderna - have had side effects.)

I waited a while to get it - because I had COVID in June, and you need to wait about 90 days before getting the shot. COVID makes you immune for 90 days. I've had COVID about three times that I'm aware of? 2022, 2024, and 2025. Also possibly had it in November of 2019 - but thought it was something else. While the vaccine doesn't prevent COVID, it does lessen the effects of COVID. I've never had a severe case of COVID. It's just a respiratory flu - that's over in five days, with a lingering dry cough, brain fog and shortness of breath. Other's have had it far worse.

No, I didn't get either the Flu shot or the Shingles at the same time. My primary care begged me not to. I'm immune-compromised, so it's not a good idea. I tried to tell her that everybody else that I know of - has, but she was adamant. I could, I suppose, ignore her and do it anyhow - but I was afraid to - best not to take an unnecessary risk.

2. Take a photo of any book with your phone and have it instantly read to you - I keep seeing this weird app advertised on Facebook, in which you can take a photo of literally any book in a library or book store and automatically have it read to you.

Speechify reads books to you

Of course it does it in a monotone - but you can pick any number of digitized voices to do it.

I don't have any issues with having books read to me - my issue is that someone can willy nilly go to a book store or library, scan the book, and have it read to them for free? I don't know, that kind of screams copyright infringement? It's one thing if the writer is getting paid a royalty from the service...but what if they aren't?

3. Traveling Water Color Kit Another thing advertised on FB and Instragram that I'm resisting the urge to purchase: Tobios Travel Watercolor Kit, whomever is marketing this is doing an excellent job. I keep reminding myself - that this is not how I like to paint. I like to do it alone. In my apartment. With a large canvas. And room. Not in miniature. I have shaking hands, and no fine motor coordination - so can't do the miniature work well. I'm not a miniaturist, I tend to work better large? Big woman. Big hands. Big canvas.

But it is lovely for someone who wants a small traveling kit to wander about doing small stuff with?

Don't get it from Amazon - which apparently is selling knock-offs.

4. Shopping Went online shopping - via Talbots and Amazon - and picked up a few things on sale, including pjs, and a shawl.

Also checked out Anne Taylor's LOFT next door to Crazy Workplace, on the other side of Starbucks. The new fall color appears to be a pastel lime green - which is not my color, and brown, lots of brown. I do like the deep rich burgundy, but alas nothing in my size. Anne Taylor slants towards petite and small women, not big and tall women like myself. I'm not big enough for Lane Bryant, but not small enough for Anne Taylor. Talbots works better - but alas, none are nearby. I like Talbots but it didn't have everything I wanted. It had green and black, but not rich burgundy. So, I got a few shirts from Amazon, but it will take forever to get them.

As an aside? For the most part, I hate or dread shopping. But I did find it weirdly comforting doing it online this week. I prefer online than in-store shopping. Sales clerks and other shoppers and the dressing rooms, plus hunting stuff makes me edgy.

I like it displayed. I have no patience for hunting through the racks. I'm not a good bargain shopper. My mother isn't a shopper. The appeal of hunting for things in stores is kind of lost on us? But hunting for things online shopping is fun - even if it's a bit like playing Russian roulette? Since I suck at returning things, and some places don't let you.

Debating buying a pair of Uno Black Sneakers from Amazon. I don't really need them. I have enough shoes. But does one ever really have enough shoes? Ponders.

5. Buffy Revival or Continuation (Because it's not a reboot! Got it?) I keep stumbling upon online fights over whether it's a reboot or a continuation or a revival...which is kind of amusing. Welcome to the Internet - where people fight over semantics incessantly.

Anyhow, the latest: Gellar Reveals more about Buffy's Comeback and Insists its not a Reboot (But it's a lot easier to call it a reboot.)

"In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Sarah Michelle Gellar was asked about the Buffy reboot which is under no circumstances to be called a reboot. “There’s so little I can say about what we just shot,” Sarah explains. “I will say that it’s not a reboot. It’s a continuation of a world - the world of Buffy, if that makes sense. It’s picking up 25 years later in a world of Buffy. It’s equal parts incredibly thrilling but also it’s very nerve-wracking. People have been asking for this for so many years but everyone also has an opinion on how it should be done."

“I’m doing it for the fans so I hope that they love it. It was made with a lot of love and a lot of passion and a lot of thought behind it. As an actor, you hope you have projects that resonate and stand the test of time. That’s what’s amazing about it because it’s continually getting rediscovered but it holds up."

The wait might feel like forever, but is officially underway at Hulu, with the pilot episode having wrapped filming. Directed by Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao, the series introduces a new Slayer named Nova, portrayed by Ryan Kiera Armstrong, while Sarah Michelle Gellar returns as Buffy Summers in a recurring role that’s going to be more Giles-like. Set 25 years after the original series, the show brings the Buffyverse into the present day, featuring a fresh cast including Faly Rakotohavana, Ava Jean, Sarah Bock, Daniel Di Tomasso, Jack Cutmore-Scott, and Chase Sui Wonders.

If all things go smoothly and we all pray they do – the Buffy pilot is expected to premiere in 2026, marking the 23rd anniversary of the original series’ finale."


[From what I've read - I don't think much of the original cast will return, outside of maybe one or two, and as either special guest stars or brief cameos...I think it's mainly a continuation of the world, with Gellar more in a Giles' role. The shift is the mentor/watcher will be Buffy herself. Which is also why - I don't think it will do that well or get picked up past one season? Because the fandom fell in love with the characters NOT the world? Joss sucked at world building. Star Trek, it's not. Also what was captivating was the dialogue and banter, the one liners, and the humor - also, sigh, the supporting characters. A good portion of the fandom did not watch for Buffy - they watched for everyone else. I know I did. Buffy did pull me in - but not Gellar, it was the writing, direction, and how Gellar played Buffy against and with the other characters. I've not liked her in anything else. And I didn't like books like Fray which were playing with the world - but didn't have the television characters in it. But hey, I could be VERY wrong about this? Just because it doesn't seem appealing to me...doesn't mean it isn't to other people?]

Comments

[shadowkat]

I don't mind debates per se, just conflict. I think logically for the most part - and it's when the debate gets emotional - that it falls apart for me. Also I've learned not to debate about topics near and dear to my heart, or that involve family members. (I've made that mistake recently with a post about my niece, which I had to delete, and ended up losing a long-term social media acquaintance over. I thought people would know better - not to debate about family members activities? But alas, no.) I think most arguments online and off tend to be a misunderstandings or miscommunications - and usually over semantics? Which isn't really a debate?

Anyhow, thank you for taking the time to clarify your points. I didn't get back to you - because all of a sudden, I got busy at work again. Yay!

The writing is obtained legally . . . so no copying an entire book in a bookstore without buying the book. (Jeez, that app sounds like a lawsuit in the making.) The TTS is being used for noncommercial, personal uses. There is no license or DRM to prevent the use of TTS on the book. The TTS software itself is legally obtained - say, it's part of the operating system of the smartphone you bought. And finally, there is no distribution of a file or other product, which makes it unlike the examples of AI training, fanworks, and Kinko's course copies.

Okay, on this? We are in 100% agreement. As long as it is authorized, and the user has bought the book. If you buy the book and then transfer it via the app to speech, or find it in a book store, then buy the audio version instead, that's fine. Amazon offers that option. I've done that. I have no issues with that?

What I saw on FB - was an ad of a woman sitting on the floor of a bookstore, surrounded by books, taking pictures of the cover, and the text with her phone, and not buying them at all. And then telling people who were at a gym they were doing this all wrong, they should just scan the book at the book store, not buy it, and have it read to them for free, just need to get the app.

Now I may have misunderstood the ad? It was on FB and Instagram - and they tend to be fairly brief and not very clear. But, I found the idea of someone just going into a book store and willy-nilly scanning books then listening to them for free - with just a subscription to the software, disturbing. If it's like audible - where you pay a monthly fee, get so many free credits, and the writers are paid a royalty - then no issues. But if the writer is being paid or has authorized the service, and it is not negatively impacting them - go ahead.

Incidentally, note that Kinko's was sued in that court case, instead of IBM. The technology of photocopying wasn't a threat per se to publishers, because photocopying can be used for perfectly legal purposes; publishers use photocopying themselves, all the time. I'd argue that this is a similar situation: text-to-speech is used for many, many tasks besides voicing copyrighted books.)

On this, I agree. It's kind of similar to the Betamix case in a way, also Napster, and Tasini. The issue isn't copying the text or the software utilized for it, but why the text is being copied or the visuals are being copied. When I was licensing content way back in the 1990s and early 00s for electronic databases - I found a way to transfer the copyright for the licensed content via my licensing agreements. What I did was state that the library reference company owned the reformatted and digitized text - in this scenario - ASCI format - text. I argued that the ASCII was the work product of the reference company, and specifically translated data for electronic databases. So the library reference company, in this case, Wilson, owned the ASCII text and that ownership would transfer to any other database organization (such as EBSCO) if Wilson was bought. The rational was the translated text was a different version of the text, and licensed separately, and wouldn't exist without the hard work of Wilson. In return, Wilson would provide the journal publisher with the ASCII for their own use.

I put the clause in the contract, and they signed off on it. It was long time ago, so I don't remember exactly how I phrased it. But I do know, from a friend who had signed on with the new organization after Wilson was bought out by EBSCO, that every content license I signed with that little additional clause added - ensured that EBSCO held copyright over the translated text and could keep that content post-merger/sale. EBSCO could not sell the ASCII text to other people, it could only put it in its databases, and it could only be acquired by EBSCO in the merger of Wilson/EBSCO. So there were some limits on it? I think? (It was a long time ago and I've been out of the copyright and content licensing field since 2002. Also copyright law has changed a lot since then. This was before DVDs, and digitized imprints, and protections.)

This is somewhat similar to what you were saying about the Kinkos case, and to a degree Betamix. And it is what makes copyright law in the technological age so complicated. It's also in a way true of both the Napster and Tasini cases. What a lot of folks don't understand about court cases or the law - is it is often narrow in some places, vague in others, and open to interpretation. One court or group of lawyers may interpret it one way, while another interprets it very differently. The Supreme Court is an example of this? It often will overturn a prior appellate court's decision, or in some instances a prior Supreme Court decision - because the Justice's interpretations of the law vary. The legislative branch often writes in a lot of vague loopholes - just to get the law passed, or compromises.

The trick is knowing how to interpret it? I agree with you - the Kinkos case doesn't make it illegal to photocopy a book per se, but it does make it illegal to make multiple copies of the book as a substitution for students actually buying the book. There are however, caveats to that - such as the book being out of print or otherwise unavailable, in the public domain and the copies are for educational purposes. And creating software that permits copying is not inherently illegal - that can and often is used for a various purposes.

Betamix had a similar situation - it is allowable to copy a television show, so you can watch it later. You are still watching it. And for watching it more than once. What is not permitted is showing it to a huge gathering on a huge screen, or mass-producing it. What gets tricky - is preventing folks from selling it. They ran into the same issue with music. Napster came about, because it is one thing to make a mixed tape or copy a cassette or DVD and give to a friend, it's another to sell it on the street to a lot of people or in Napster's case distribute it electronically. (You can't really do what Napster did now - by the way? Artists tag their songs - so whenever it is played on the internet, downloaded or remastered or sung or used - there's a royalty tracker that informs the artist or copyright holder that it is being used. I found this out from a friend who works in the music industry. They informed me that they get notified any time anyone plays their song or remasters it, or sings a version of it, and that person is sent a notice to pay a certain amount or stop and desist.)

***

Actually if people were sending terrorist messages via wordprocessors, their word-processors would be seized. (But only theirs.) And I think you mean computers? Not sure a word-processor can send a message? I may be wrong about that? The old version couldn't. Or at least I couldn't send email by word-processor back in the day.

But it's not the same thing? Computers don't just write text, they do other things besides that. And it's easier to disable the people who are using it for nefarious purposes, since they make up a small percentage of the population.

Arguably, I'd say currently the folks using text to speech do not make up a large percentage of the population, or we wouldn't have printed books. (Supply and demand principles.) It's kind of like e-books, they've not done away with printed books either because not everybody uses ebooks, there's still quite a few who read printed books. Or read both. But e-books aren't free. You have to buy the book on e-books, or borrow it from the library, which has a limited number of copies, and it's not easy to loan or give it to someone else. I'm guessing this may be true of text-to-speech as well - that you can't easily give it or send it to a friend? Not sure about that. E-books - I know you can't. At least the Kindle version - you can't.

I'm not sure how the text-to-speech system works? But I'm guessing that if you acquiring the book for "free" you don't own it? You are borrowing it for a limited time? That would fit the e-book model in regards to library books.

That's what I need to be clear on - I have no issues with making the works accessible to whomever needs them, or to the general public as audio books. My e-reader does translate text to speech in the monotone. How you can stand it is beyond me. It gives me a headache. It's because it wars with the voice in my head, and I just get distracted. I don't tend to like most audio books - unless they are read by a good voice actor or graphic dramatization - because then I can see it unfold like a movie in my mind. When a book is read - I see it visually in a way, as feelings and images. I think visually not auditory. So monotone hurts my head. I don't understand how anyone can listen to it - so I thought that you must put up with it out of desperation? It's either that or not reading at all?

What I have issues with - is selling the book as audible without paying the writer. Or reproducing it as audible and distributing it broadly, at no cost. That worries me. Which is what the advertisement implied, not what you are implying.

It's been a long time? But I vaguely remember being asked if I wanted my book to be made accessible to the visually impaired, and I said yes, when I non-traditionally published it. I think I made it accessible in large print.

I like the idea of the AI text to speech - from a writer point of view - mainly because this means I don't have to do it myself or pay someone to do it - it's incredibly expensive. But, it is also alarming, if it means the book is given away for free to the masses? I mean 1000 people, isn't an issue. I did free Kindle giveaways, and I'm on Kindle Unlimited. But over 1 billion given away...is problematic. Unlikely though, since I don't see 1 billion being interested in text to speech? 1 billion doesn't use the library.

[duskpeterson]

Yay, we're in agreement on the main topic! Now we get to have semantics discussions. :)

"What I saw on FB - was an ad of a woman sitting on the floor of a bookstore, surrounded by books, taking pictures of the cover, and the text with her phone, and not buying them at all. And then telling people who were at a gym they were doing this all wrong, they should just scan the book at the book store, not buy it, and have it read to them for free, just need to get the app."

I think this company must also be selling bridges in Brooklyn? Incidentally, this sort of thing feeds into bookstore owners' worst fears. They already have to contend with customers browsing through their stores and then going home and buying the books online.

"When I was licensing content way back in the 1990s and early 00s for electronic databases"

Oo, you've been at this for a long time. (And thanks for all the delightful technical info you included in your comment.)

My first encounter with the licensing problem when a magazine I'd written for in the 90s (a major magazine in its field) contacted to tell me, with great delight, that I now had the privilege of having my print article added to their new electronic database. Which they had done, without asking me.

Checked my contract and discovered I'd signed a work-for-hire contract. Just how that got past me, I do not know; I'd been warned against such contracts by authors' magazines since I was a teen. I must have been dazzled by having my byline in a well-known magazine. At any rate, I was not nearly as pleased by this development as the magazine was.

"Artists tag their songs - so whenever it is played on the internet, downloaded or remastered or sung or used - there's a royalty tracker that informs the artist or copyright holder that it is being used."

Wow, fascinating. I didn't know this.

"I think you mean computers? Not sure a word-processor can send a message?"

I said "create terrorist messages," not "send." :) I meant that, if you wrote an illegal message on a word processor (or typewriter or piece of paper), the writing technology was not to blame.

"It's kind of like e-books, they've not done away with printed books either"

Um . . . I never suggested TTS would?

Audiobook sales are soaring. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has surveyed how much TTS book-reading is being done. I suspect this is one of those reading activities that is running under the radar. If someone asked you what formats of books you had read, would it occur to you to mention TTS?

"But e-books aren't free."

(*cough* AO3 *cough*)

I assume you're referring to for-sale e-books? Any commercially sold TTS audio file would be referred to as audiobook . . . so yeah, commercially sold audiobooks aren't free. But TTS can also be used to turn free text into audio. I could read your comment aloud with TTS if I wanted to go grubbing into Windows's accessibility settings.

"I'm not sure how the text-to-speech system works?"

It's software. It can be integrated into an ereader, a word processor, a computer . . . Pretty much anything. Back in the day, I used to have a nifty TTS app that would translate any (unprotected) written text into audio and create an MP3 file, so that you could listen to the text on the go. (I used that MP3-output feature to create an audio pronunciation guide to the proper nouns in one of my series. Here it is, in all its 2006 glory.)

But mostly, the way people encounter TTS is through an app with a wider function than TTS. So, for example, if I wanted to turn on an iPhone's TTS, I would go to the Accessibility section of the phone, turn on VoiceOver, and VoiceOver would read aloud to me what was on the screen as I navigated around the phone.

My recollection (it's been a long time since I've used VoiceOver) is that there are some restrictions on this; VoiceOver can't access certain apps. So I doubt it would work with ebooks that have DRM. But it will work with ebooks without conventional DRM. Provided the ereader app permitted VoiceOver, VoiceOver would work on any of my e-books, because I choose not to apply DRM to my e-books. It would certainly work on any AO3 e-book.

If we're talking about making profit from TTS outputs: As you mention regarding AI, authors can use TTS to create audiobooks, which they then sell to readers . . . which begs the question of why authors would bother to do so, since readers can achieve the same end by using the TTS software themselves. My guess is that it's because (1) DRM excludes a lot of readers from reading ebooks by TTS, and (2) a well-done TTS audiobook - whether AI or non-AI - requires a lot of editing to tweak the pronunciation.

(As just one example: "read" has two pronunciations, depending on whether it's present tense or past tense. TTS software isn't sophisticated enough to know what tense your verb is. Or at least, TTS software wasn't sophisticated enough in the past - heaven knows what AI TTS software is like!)

The short answer to your earlier question is that TTS book files are like any other audio files: you can get them for free (legally or illegally), you can borrow them from the library, or you can buy them. A lot of audiobooks now are AI TTS (though honestly, last I checked, voice-acted audiobooks remained far superior).

"I don't understand how anyone can listen to it - so I thought that you must put up with it out of desperation? It's either that or not reading at all?"

Heh. :) Well, I think practical needs do motivate some readers; if they're commuting by car, they'll listen to an audiobook, rather than read a printed book (one fervently hopes). When I've listened to TTS, it was because my hands and eyes were busy doing housework. But some people - an increasingly large percentage of the population in our audio-visual culture - are audio-oriented. What percentage of them enjoy TTS (AI or non-AI), I don't know. But self-publishing platforms are making an aggressive effort to get all self-publishers to bring out audiobooks, so we're likely to see a lot more AI audiobooks in the future.

"I like the idea of the AI text to speech - from a writer point of view - mainly because this means I don't have to do it myself or pay someone to do it - it's incredibly expensive. But, it is also alarming, if it means the book is given away for free to the masses?"

It's media, so by definition it's vulnerable to piracy . . . but no more so than ebooks. I don't know exactly what options are available to audiobook creators, but if Audible didn't ask you at some point whether you wanted DRM applied to your audiobook, I'd be mightily surprised.

If you're wondering whether Audible is more vulnerable to piracy than KU . . . honestly, I don't know. I don't know what anti-piracy measures Amazon has in place for the two systems. But there's nothing about an audiobook that makes it inherently more likely to be mass-pirated than other media.

(Also, this reminds me of when an author, circa 2000, was asked what he would do if he woke up to discover that a million people had read a pirated version of one of his books. He replied, "Celebrate." Would that obtaining a million new readers was that easy.)

[shadowkat]

I decided to send you a link to the ad on Instagram - because I don't think you comprehend what I was trying to explain in various posts? Because this is beginning to feel like a whose on first whats on second semantics Abbot and Costello routine, or arguing for the sake of arguing? I do that enough at work, and I get paid. I won't do it for free.;-)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ9gA-XRwRK/

Sorry, I still find it disturbing. But you either get that or you don't, I guess? But the above link should take you to the ad that bothered me.

[shadowkat]

Checked my contract and discovered I'd signed a work-for-hire contract. Just how that got past me, I do not know; I'd been warned against such contracts by authors' magazines since I was a teen. I must have been dazzled by having my byline in a well-known magazine. At any rate, I was not nearly as pleased by this development as the magazine was.

Wouldn't feel too bad about that? That's about 90% of television writing agreements, comic book agreements, and most newspaper and magazine writing agreements. It kind of has to be - otherwise they'd go broke. The publisher doesn't make that much off of the print issue of the magazine, it's the resale of the content that they make the money off of. Also, for an electronic database? The journal publisher is getting maybe 5% of the proceeds. Think about it this way - there are over 1000 articles in the database, it's subscribers are libraries - who provide the content for free to their users for research. The reference publishing company might sell it to the library for about - $5,000 a month, it has to divide that amount by everyone who contributed, which is about 1000 publishers, the folks who digitized the content (they have to painstakingly scan it in, then translate it digitally), the folks who sell it, the folks who index the content, the folks who come up with the indexing system, and the search mechanism...etc. There's simply not enough left over to pay the freelance writer who was already paid for writing the article.

It's why the NY Times didn't sell their content to Electronic Databases - their writers weren't work for hire. But Journal writers are - they get a journal article published - that journal retains the rights. They can't resell their article.

Of course was decades ago - that I did this - before I ran screaming from copyright law and the publishing industry and jumped into an entirely different field regarding contracts.

Now, image licensing is harder - such as photographs and art, we couldn't get distribution rights to those. Not back then. So the digitization process had to remove all the images (ie. photos). Music rights is even dicier - in music licensing - they often give you one-time broadcast rights. So for example, you are creating a television series, and you decide you want to feature a song by Billie Joel, you have to pay him for every time that episode of the show is shown. Unless you manage to make a deal that allows for the episode to be reshown with the music, and the music is considered part of the episode.

Copyright law is convoluted, constantly changing, and headache inducing. Also not very lucrative. I worked in it roughly from 1996-2002, and then again briefly in 2007 for a video game developer - regarding the licensing of video games. (That was even worse.) I've not worked in licensing since 2007, happy to say. Horrible field.

[duskpeterson]

Thanks for all the industry insight! I don't remember the details of my case after all this time. What irritated me then was that (1) none of the author industry publications warned me about the rights situation of this particular magazine, (2) electronic databases weren't on most authors' radar back then, and (3) the magazine was insufferably cheery about the news. Imagine receiving a notice saying, "Oh, hey, we're about to make your article available to millions via 5D hyperspace comm, and you won't make any money from it, nyah nyah nyah. Aren't you warm with happiness?"

[shadowkat]

LOL! I was on the opposite side of that argument a lot of the time. I remember explaining to the Economist our royalty formula - which basically paid them less than .00005 cents per article.

It's worse with video games, comics and television shows. The writers in those professions make next to nothing. They are work for hire for the most part. Mainly because it's next to impossible to split the royalties among all the contributors. So the studio pays the writers a salary for delivering product, but doesn't give them rights to the material.

[duskpeterson]

I found that WFH educational publishing paid decently per word, as long as you didn't think about how much the publisher was likely to earn from the book. The deadlines were killer, though: two weeks to research and write a short book. I quickly figured out why most bibliographies in such books have only three titles listed. Sad to think that these books are how students are learning.