easter 🐣

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...

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

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!

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

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.

#supercorp as a tragedy told in… four hands

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.

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himself only ever gave the excuses you see in this slideshow, never acknowledging that piracy of self published or unpublished work for profit is wrong and keeping the door wide open for future copyright infringements.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

Be careful uploading your unpublished work to Speechify: bsky.app/profile/east...

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

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

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.

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

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/news/meta-li...

Advice for pirated authors.

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.

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.

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

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

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".

ABSOLUTELY NOT FUCK THIS SHIT

ABSOLUTELY NEVER
OVER MY DEAD BODY

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.

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

From the selfpublish community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the selfpublish community

Well, guess I can't use Speechify anymore. Such a shame, it was a good tool for reading back my wips.
#writingcommunity

www.reddit.com/r/selfpublis...

I wouldn’t choose Speechify if what you’re looking for is something to read you fanfiction, unpublished or independently published work: bsky.app/profile/east...

There are better options! A friend put together a list of them here: www.tumblr.com/thatonebirdw...

Quelle surprise! Speechify CEO Cliff Weitzman: "Qu'est-ce que les pratiques commerciales éthiques?"

bsky.app/profile/east...

I strongly advise against writers using Speechify, especially for stuff that hasn’t been published yet: bsky.app/profile/east...