October 22, 2015 at 16:10Using speech recognition and synthesis technologies to learn English on iPhone / iPad. Aspects of copyright on methodologies. My experience
Because of some things, sometimes they give up and there is no mood to do something further.
In my last article I spoke, in particular, about how my wife and I learned English using mobile applications with speech recognition, and how this method turned out to be effective. Then we worked on the Polyglot Sound application. After that, I made several more similar applications using other methods, and all of them have good reviews, people like them because they are simple and effective.
It would seem that everything was wonderful, but here it began ...
The fact is that the rightholders of the methods that have been lying around for many years everywhere on the network in free access immediately woke up somehow, stirred, and began to write angry letters with threats addressed to me.
The first were the British, the copyright holders of the Callan Method, who, as they themselves claim, are more than 60 years old (as far as I know, under British law, copyright ceases to apply after 50 years, oh well) They sued my Direct English applications for copyright infringement. I did not enter into the discussion, but simply offered them cooperation.
In order to make it easier for our esteemed readers to understand what I’m talking about, I’ll be a little distracted to describe briefly how these applications appeared and what they are.
The classical Callan Method is the so-called direct method of learning a language. There is no translation, everything is only in English, so the student can be of any nationality. Leads a native speaker. All students receive a small (200 pages) book. Teaching is carried out first in one book, which is run from beginning to end several times (usually 5-7), then in the next, etc. At the beginning of the lesson, students repeat the words after the teacher and read the expressions from the book. Then in the form of a question - the answer is communication with the teacher. Then comes a small dictation. And again, reading, communication in the mode of “short narration of the teacher”, then in the format of “question-answer”.
I worked on this method and got very good results in a fairly short time. The idea to make an application came to me when I was doing a book at home (reading aloud). In the book, the student is not always clear how this or that word or phrase sounds, and you don’t hear yourself whether you are saying clearly or not. So I decided to make a talking and hearing book for homework. Just when I did it, I realized that you can no longer go to classes with a native speaker, because the application actually completely replaced the teacher.
So back, as they say, to our British. I suggested that they use my application together, reasonably believing that when placing a link on their site it will be possible to get a good increase in installs. He expressed readiness to discuss changes in the application at their request, as well as issues of profit sharing. They thought for two weeks, asked different questions, to which they received mostly affirmative answers from me. Then the solution: no! And the requirement to remove immediately, sign the obligation not to transfer, not to publish, etc. If not, then the court, prison, Siberia.
Now I thought. No, the stories about how someone was arrested in Bangkok for copyright infringement didn’t scare me, but the prospect of being banned from the Apple developer scared me. And I decided to remove them from sale.
For about two months, applications were not available, and all this time I was hungry for thought. Not that money, these applications brought me a little, since I did not promote them at all. Although, of course, this is money, but for the most part time - more than a year of almost daily work - and the undoubted effectiveness of applications, tested on oneself. I did not steal anything (texts in the public domain), did not use a registered trademark. Why did you give up right away? And again I put the applications on the App Store.
About two months later I receive a letter from, as he called himself, the head of the Callan Online online training division. The young man extremely amiably told me that he downloaded my applications, that he really liked them, that he has an offer to me and expressed a desire to chat with me on Skype. During the conversation, he offered me cooperation, said in general terms what changes he would like to see in my applications, so that they become official Callan Method applications and promised to send me a sample contract soon, where all details of our further cooperation will be discussed.
I was waiting for a sample contract, and again an angry letter came from the same people who came for the first time with the same demand to immediately remove applications from the App Store. A letter comes from him from a young man in which he says that his colleagues are very angry and we need to remove the application from sale so that we can continue discussing our cooperation. Removed from sale, informed him. He replies that I need to write to my colleagues about myself: I don’t remember who I am, where I live, etc., etc., to explain something to them. In short, I didn’t write anything to him, he is also silent to me. A month passed, the second ... Silence. I laid out my applications again. The month passed quietly.
The silence was broken by a certain Rechel from New York, a lawyer representing the interests of the copyright holder of the Pimsler method, in which I also made an application. The requirement is the same: delete immediately, sign the obligation not to distribute, not to transfer. Plus, provide a listing of the proceeds from the sale of this application. Otherwise, as usual: court, prison, Siberia.
Also, briefly distracted by the description of the subject of the dispute, so that the esteemed reader can understand what is at stake.
Pimsler's English is a well-known audio course where the announcer pronounces words and expressions and asks to repeat them, pausing. In my application, I did not use their audio recording, but reproduced the text using standard voices (TTS), and the text is partially different from the audio recording. In the pauses, I used offline speech recognition, and the points for correctly recognized from three attempts +1, for three times incorrect -1. It turned out very so gracefully, at least definitely better than an audio course. Here you can see the demo video.
I sent her the same proposals that, they say, open to dialogue, let's discuss, etc., etc. From there it’s tough like this: in such a time so that there isn’t everything. Apple representatives write: decide with her, it is your responsibility (she pulls them too), I reply, they say, how to decide with her, if she does not want to talk at all? Well, today I wrote to Apple: the application is better than the audio course, I can, if necessary, change something in it, but I will not delete it.
Now I'm sitting, waiting for what will happen. I don’t understand one thing: I do not use their audio recordings, I do not use the registered Pimsleur trademark. What are their copyrights to words? Maybe someone had a similar experience, what will happen as you think? Maybe I'm wrong and I should listen to them and uninstall applications?
In my last article I spoke, in particular, about how my wife and I learned English using mobile applications with speech recognition, and how this method turned out to be effective. Then we worked on the Polyglot Sound application. After that, I made several more similar applications using other methods, and all of them have good reviews, people like them because they are simple and effective.
It would seem that everything was wonderful, but here it began ...
The fact is that the rightholders of the methods that have been lying around for many years everywhere on the network in free access immediately woke up somehow, stirred, and began to write angry letters with threats addressed to me.
The first were the British, the copyright holders of the Callan Method, who, as they themselves claim, are more than 60 years old (as far as I know, under British law, copyright ceases to apply after 50 years, oh well) They sued my Direct English applications for copyright infringement. I did not enter into the discussion, but simply offered them cooperation.
In order to make it easier for our esteemed readers to understand what I’m talking about, I’ll be a little distracted to describe briefly how these applications appeared and what they are.
The classical Callan Method is the so-called direct method of learning a language. There is no translation, everything is only in English, so the student can be of any nationality. Leads a native speaker. All students receive a small (200 pages) book. Teaching is carried out first in one book, which is run from beginning to end several times (usually 5-7), then in the next, etc. At the beginning of the lesson, students repeat the words after the teacher and read the expressions from the book. Then in the form of a question - the answer is communication with the teacher. Then comes a small dictation. And again, reading, communication in the mode of “short narration of the teacher”, then in the format of “question-answer”.
I worked on this method and got very good results in a fairly short time. The idea to make an application came to me when I was doing a book at home (reading aloud). In the book, the student is not always clear how this or that word or phrase sounds, and you don’t hear yourself whether you are saying clearly or not. So I decided to make a talking and hearing book for homework. Just when I did it, I realized that you can no longer go to classes with a native speaker, because the application actually completely replaced the teacher.
So back, as they say, to our British. I suggested that they use my application together, reasonably believing that when placing a link on their site it will be possible to get a good increase in installs. He expressed readiness to discuss changes in the application at their request, as well as issues of profit sharing. They thought for two weeks, asked different questions, to which they received mostly affirmative answers from me. Then the solution: no! And the requirement to remove immediately, sign the obligation not to transfer, not to publish, etc. If not, then the court, prison, Siberia.
Now I thought. No, the stories about how someone was arrested in Bangkok for copyright infringement didn’t scare me, but the prospect of being banned from the Apple developer scared me. And I decided to remove them from sale.
For about two months, applications were not available, and all this time I was hungry for thought. Not that money, these applications brought me a little, since I did not promote them at all. Although, of course, this is money, but for the most part time - more than a year of almost daily work - and the undoubted effectiveness of applications, tested on oneself. I did not steal anything (texts in the public domain), did not use a registered trademark. Why did you give up right away? And again I put the applications on the App Store.
About two months later I receive a letter from, as he called himself, the head of the Callan Online online training division. The young man extremely amiably told me that he downloaded my applications, that he really liked them, that he has an offer to me and expressed a desire to chat with me on Skype. During the conversation, he offered me cooperation, said in general terms what changes he would like to see in my applications, so that they become official Callan Method applications and promised to send me a sample contract soon, where all details of our further cooperation will be discussed.
I was waiting for a sample contract, and again an angry letter came from the same people who came for the first time with the same demand to immediately remove applications from the App Store. A letter comes from him from a young man in which he says that his colleagues are very angry and we need to remove the application from sale so that we can continue discussing our cooperation. Removed from sale, informed him. He replies that I need to write to my colleagues about myself: I don’t remember who I am, where I live, etc., etc., to explain something to them. In short, I didn’t write anything to him, he is also silent to me. A month passed, the second ... Silence. I laid out my applications again. The month passed quietly.
The silence was broken by a certain Rechel from New York, a lawyer representing the interests of the copyright holder of the Pimsler method, in which I also made an application. The requirement is the same: delete immediately, sign the obligation not to distribute, not to transfer. Plus, provide a listing of the proceeds from the sale of this application. Otherwise, as usual: court, prison, Siberia.
Also, briefly distracted by the description of the subject of the dispute, so that the esteemed reader can understand what is at stake.
Pimsler's English is a well-known audio course where the announcer pronounces words and expressions and asks to repeat them, pausing. In my application, I did not use their audio recording, but reproduced the text using standard voices (TTS), and the text is partially different from the audio recording. In the pauses, I used offline speech recognition, and the points for correctly recognized from three attempts +1, for three times incorrect -1. It turned out very so gracefully, at least definitely better than an audio course. Here you can see the demo video.
I sent her the same proposals that, they say, open to dialogue, let's discuss, etc., etc. From there it’s tough like this: in such a time so that there isn’t everything. Apple representatives write: decide with her, it is your responsibility (she pulls them too), I reply, they say, how to decide with her, if she does not want to talk at all? Well, today I wrote to Apple: the application is better than the audio course, I can, if necessary, change something in it, but I will not delete it.
Now I'm sitting, waiting for what will happen. I don’t understand one thing: I do not use their audio recordings, I do not use the registered Pimsleur trademark. What are their copyrights to words? Maybe someone had a similar experience, what will happen as you think? Maybe I'm wrong and I should listen to them and uninstall applications?