Who knew that text-to-speech, a technology that's been kicking around for decades, would spur such a showdown?

The issue around the feature, dubbed "Read to Me," first arose with the launch of the Kindle 2 earlier this year. Not long afterward, the Authors Guild sent an e-mail to members yesterday stating the feature presents a "significant challenge" to the publishing industry. At the time, the Guild said Amazon lacked legal the authorized to create text-to-speech readings of books.

The Guild also recommended that publishers include text-to-speech technology in their future contract negotiations over e-books, and that they delay granting e-book rights until the issue is resolved.

Amazon appeared to wave away the complaint, however. But within weeks, it backtracked on the issue, announcing plans to give copyright holders the opportunity to specify whether their e-books would support the feature.

The company said it would revamping its publishing system to enable writers, authors and publishers to disable the technology on a case-by-case basis.

It's still uncertain how it's all going to play out.

Aiken pointed to the Guild's recent settlement with Google over its practice of making scanned, out-of-print books available online helped the print disabled gain better access to their contents as a sign that the Guild's willing to work out a solution.

"We're confident we can arrive at a solution for in-print books as well," he said.

Aiken also said that the publishing industry needs to amend its book contracts to better address shortcomings relating to e-book rights, including covering users with learning disabilities who don't qualify for special treatment under Chafee.

Still, he made it clear that the Guild is also sticking to its guns on what it sees as a potential case of surrendering its members' rights.

"The Authors Guild will gladly be a forceful advocate for amending contracts to provide access to voice-output technology to everyone. We will not, however, surrender our members' economic rights to Amazon or anyone else. The leap to digital has been brutal for print media generally, and the economics of the transition from print to e-books do not look as promising as many assume. Authors can't afford to start this transition to digital by abandoning rights."

At any rate, I guess it took the Kindle to make e-books a mainstream interest (sorry, Sony) -- evidently, it's also taken the Kindle to make text-to-speech something of a cause célèbre.