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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · 6d

You may want to carefully consider the following info before feeding Speechify your writing, especially if it’s not been published, or is/will be published on kindle unlimited: bsky.app/profile/east...

easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 3

STEAL THIS THREAD. 1/3 #Speechify

White and yellow text on a black background, reading: it's time to stop using Speechify® to read fanfiction and self-published (or not-yet-published!) work. (there’s a pink thread emoji, and an arrow pointing down, asking you to) please allow me to explain how using Speechify® harms indie and fanfiction authors.

easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · 6d

I see #cliffweitzman of #speechify is still up to his usual tricks, not even hiding anymore that this platform he claims is meant to help out people with learning disabilities is specifically designed to make its users commit piracy and copyright infringement while paying him 💰💰💰 for the privilege

Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 12d

Speechify is an app which, per the scenario in their promo video, encourages users to go into bookstores, photograph books page by page, and then use “AI” to have the text read back to them (up to 4.5x faster!) in one of 500 synthetic “celebrity” voices.

Still from Speechify promo video showing a woman in a retail bookstore taking photos of a book on the shelf as input data for the app.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · 7d

watch this space! #broadsandbroadswords is a charity art zine created by independent artists that consistently features truly stunning and imaginative work by artists from all over the world. I’m proud to have been part of it from issue 1 and can’t wait to see how this last edition turns out!

Broads and Broadswords Zine @broadswordszine.bsky.social · 8d

We'd like to welcome back Easter @easterkingston.bsky.social (she/her) to Vol. III of Broads & Broadswords! ⚔️

"I love stories, women, language, finding fresh excuses to bring up my wife, and trying to keep my large collection of plants alive in a climate zone that actively encourages them to die."

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · 7d

I miss the days where we could count on Google to take our very coherent translation requests and turn them into something you might find on a Tori Amos album. It was completely nonsensical, obviously, but at least it was consistent

Heather Hogan @heatherhogan.bsky.social · 8d

A lot of my neighbors and delivery drivers speak Arabic, so for the sign I put out on my porch with Halloween candy, I ran the phrase "Free candy for all drivers and neighbors!" through Google Translate. My FedEx guy just told me it says "Zero money for men in sweetie cars." 🫣

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Aug 11

#supercorp as a tragedy told in… four hands

a digital painting hand drawn by easter kingston, showing Lena Luthor and Supergirl from the chest up, maintaining an intimate though clearly conflicted embrace. They’re both facing the viewer, with Kara holding Lena from behind, her left arm slung around Lena’s chest while using the right to cover Lena’s eyes with her hand. Lena’s face is in the light, though most of her face is covered by Kara gently keeping her in the dark; her posture is relaxed, trusting, her jaw slack, her hair down, while Supergirl’s face is partially hidden in shadows, her expression deeply troubled. The hand Supergirl/Kara rests just beneath Lena’s collarbone is only barely stretching the collar of Lena’s sweater, one fingertip dipping beneath. Lena’s right hand lies just over/hovers just above Kara’s right hand, a wish more than a demand. Her left hand however is clutching Supergirl’s forearm, as if frightened she will pull away.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 20

Weitzman has built his entire brand around the fact that he’s dyslexic and wanted to help people with similar issues, but with Speechify’s business model he has actively normalized putting accessibility tools behind pay walls. He is not in this for the greater good.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 20

Thank you! I’d love to hear what (if any) response you get. Weitzman himself only ever gave the excuses you see in this slideshow, never acknowledging that piracy of self published or unpublished work for profit is wrong and keeping the door wide open for future copyright infringements.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 18

These should outline how the platform will interact with uploaded works and how they will ensure they won’t end up being sold on any of Weitzman’s apps without our permission. As long as Weitzman’s operations can’t verify who owns the copyright of a work, they shouldn’t be able to use it this way.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 18

Weitzman never acknowledged that piracy of self published or unpublished work for profit is wrong, keeping the door wide open for future copyright infringements. As writers, we’ve asked that Speechify implement transparent guidelines for handling user-generated content.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 18

Cliff only ever communicated with a few individual authors who contacted him directly and repeatedly, blocking people who addressed the issue on Twitter and quietly distancing himself from WordStream, apparently hoping we would forget it ever happened.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 18

That’s great—I hope you mean Cliff? Because his silence on WordStream’s copyright infringements has been extremely telling. All we ever got from him was the justification you see in the slide above, which he (and his sockpuppet accounts) posted in comments on the original Reddit and Tumblr posts.

Speechify: Free Text to Speech Reader | 500,000+ 5-star Reviews

Listen to PDFs, books, docs, websites – anything you read. Over 500,000+ 5-star reviews and 50M+ users.

Speechify.com

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 18

The Terms and Conditions are publicly available on Speechify’s website. The piracy was witnessed by thousands of us when WordStream was still fully operational with all the pirated work. I summarized that in this post here: www.reddit.com/r/AO3/s/Xmx4...

From the AO3 community on Reddit: So your fic was stolen & then quickly hidden from view by Speechify CEO: update & full recap regarding the word-stream situation

Explore this post and more from the AO3 community

www.reddit.com

easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 18

Be careful uploading your unpublished work to Speechify: bsky.app/profile/east...

easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 3

STEAL THIS THREAD. 1/3 #Speechify

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 18

Just be aware that by using Speechify to read your drafts you’ve given them permission to sell your work: bsky.app/profile/east...

easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 3

STEAL THIS THREAD. 1/3 #Speechify

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 18

You may want to consider using a screenreader for that instead of Speechify: bsky.app/profile/east...

easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 3

STEAL THIS THREAD. 1/3 #Speechify

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Reposted by easter 🐣

Bree Lundberg @breelundberg.com · May 11

I feel bad about my art (or lack thereof) pretty frequently so just know if you also feel bad about your own art, you’re not alone. Every single artist I know no matter how *amazing* they are still questions their skills, creativity, etc. The doubt means there’s growth and change and that’s okay.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · May 10

another day, another scammer. check your work my friends ❤️

Jae 🏳️‍🌈 @jaeauthor.bsky.social · Apr 30

A new scam is threatening the sapphic book community: Scammers are creating rip-offs of existing books with the help of AI.

I have written a blog post explaining how to recognize red flags, a list of suspicious pseudonyms, and what we can do to help.

Please read: jae-fiction.com/ai-rip-offs-...

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Reposted by easter 🐣

Elizabeth Bear @matociquala.bsky.social · Mar 21

authorsguild.org/news/meta-li...

Advice for pirated authors.

Meta's Massive AI Training Book Heist: What Authors Need to Know - The Authors Guild

Today, The Atlantic published a search tool that allows authors to check if their works are in LibGen, an illegal pirate site AI companies copied for their AI systems. This is a similar tool to the on...

authorsguild.org

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Reposted by easter 🐣

meg jones wall // 3am.tarot @megjoneswall.bsky.social · Mar 20

in some ways it’s hard to create new things right now — and in other ways it’s the easiest, most necessary choice, to stay sane and remember who you are and have the energy to keep fighting.

the world is hard. keep making beautiful messy powerful honest things anyway.

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Reposted by easter 🐣

Karla Ortiz @kortizart.bsky.social · Mar 14

Google joins the call to gut our legal protections, pushing for a world where Big Tech gets to profit from all your innovations & works for free, and that theft is ok’d by law.

No joke IF they get this, the US will likely face irreparable harm as pivotal creative economies crash.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 12

Replacing human narrators has been the idea all along. #speechify has been bragging about this plan for at least a year:

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 11

Careful feeding Speechify your WIPs: bsky.app/profile/east...

easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 3

STEAL THIS THREAD. 1/3 #Speechify

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Reposted by easter 🐣

Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · Mar 11

ABSOLUTELY NOT FUCK THIS SHIT

ABSOLUTELY NEVER
OVER MY DEAD BODY

Screenshot of an email from KDP Customer Support, subject line: You’ve been selected! KDP Audiobooks with Virtual Voice Beta

Hello,

Congratulations! You’re invited to participate in KDP's beta for audiobooks. Starting today, you can now produce audiobook versions of your eligible eBooks using virtual voice narration and reach new customers by making them available on Amazon, Audible, and Alexa. Customers have already enjoyed listening to millions of hours of audiobooks with virtual voice from KDP authors.

To try this new experience, follow these steps:
1. Go to your Bookshelf: https://kdp.amazon.com/bookshelf.
2. Next to an eligible eBook, select "Add audiobook with virtual voice".
3. Follow the instructions on the "Audiobook with Virtual Voice" page to choose the voice and prepare your audio files.
4. Click "Publish audiobook".

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Reposted by easter 🐣

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · Mar 6

A plea to the #writingcommunity: please stop using AI-generated art to promote your book or for cover art.

It looks terrible, and AI companies create the images by stealing from legitimate artists.

Without exception, the AI art I've seen looks stale, lifeless, and generic. Do better for your book.

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easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 11

Be careful using Speechify for your own writing: bsky.app/profile/east...

easter 🐣 @easterkingston.bsky.social · Mar 3

STEAL THIS THREAD. 1/3 #Speechify

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