Online book-sharing for the blind launched

Empowered with a special exemption from copyright law, Bookshare hopes to avoid the bitter legal fight that bogged down Napster and prove Napster's subversive technology can be applied for social good.

Bookshare, based in Palo Alto, is building an online library of books scanned into audio and Braille formats for the exclusive use of the blind and people with reading problems such as dyslexia.

The target audience, about 5 million people nationwide, qualifies Bookshare for a copyright exemption created in 1996 to encourage greater distribution of literature to the blind and reading-impaired.

With a $1.3 million investment from a non-profit technology organization, Benetech, Bookshare hopes to break even by next year. To do so, it will need at least 10,000 subscribers willing to pay a $25 setup fee and a $50 annual subscription to download as many books as they want.

"Great technology that helps people but doesn't make a lot of money usually never gets done," said James Fruchterman, Benetech's chief executive. "We are on a mission to make sure socially cool applications happen."

If not for Napster, Bookshare probably never would have been created. Fruchterman got the idea in 2000, shortly after his son joined millions of teenagers hooked on the music-sharing service.

Bookshare, launched Feb. 21, is starting out with 8,000 titles from an eclectic mix of authors ranging from Shakespeare to William Shatner.

Fruchterman believes the library easily can expand to 40,000 digital books within the next two years by tapping into the collections stored on the computers of its users.

With just 5 percent of all books available on audio, many people feed paperbacks page by page into a special scanner to create audio files. It's tedious work requiring about three hours per book.

One blind man who scanned a book almost every day for the past 10 years already has given more than 3,000 titles to Bookshare, Fruchterman said.

Despite its special exemption, Bookshare faced some resistance from book publishers worried about an invasion from readers who aren't blind or disabled.

"About 20 percent of the publishers were scared to death of us," Fruchterman said. Bookshare didn't reassure publishers with its original name -- "Bookster."

Bookshare eased industry concerns by keeping all its files on a central, secure server. About 3,000 of the titles on Bookshare's site can be downloaded by anyone because the copyrights on the works have expired. For the remainder, subscribers must prove they are blind or have a reading disability.

Despite the controls, publishers will be watching closely.

"Technology advances at a pace far faster than any of us can imagine, so one of the things we are concerned about is what might happen in the future," said Allan Adler, a vice president at the Association of American Publishers, the industry's main trade group.

Bookshare's format seems unlikely to appeal to people accustomed to listening to taped books read by professional narrators. Using special computer equipment, books will come through in an automated electronic voice.

Other companies, such as Audible Inc. and Books on Tape Inc., sell more polished audio versions of books online.

With 20,000 titles from books, magazines and newspapers, Audible offers monthly subscriptions starting at $12.95 per month, while Books on Tape sells audio tapes at discount prices.

Bookshare signed up 60 subscribers in its first week.

On the Net: www.bookshare.org

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