[blindlaw] Why print-disabled people shouldthanktheAuthorsGuild...

Mon Apr 6 14:18:06 UTC 2009

Though I don't question Mr. Martinengo's expertise, I would clarify a
couple of facts.  He wrote one report for the state of Maryland that had
some impact on getting a college textbook law passed here.  College
students in Maryland still do not have accessible textbooks.  As for
Georgia, Mr. Martinengo was hired to create an accessible textbook
center to aid state wide access for Georgia's college students.  I am
not sure how well that project is working but it seems that he has been
trying to leave Georgia almost sense he arrived.  The center and its
procedures may be well in place though.

I would also point out that most of the framework in which the access to
books issue has played out requires the benevolence of the publishing
community.  In the k-12 context, publishers must provide electronic
files for conversion into formats such as Braille, but there are no
penalties if they don't do so.  In other contexts, those wanting to
provide accessible books request electronic copies from publishers that
publishers may or may not provide.  There is no way to make them provide
these files at all.  This means that individuals like Robert Martinengo
worry about offending publishers on any level.  If publishers are
angered, forget about getting files for conversion.  I understand that
caution but think this is quite a different issue.

The Kindle 2 allows users to choose between two methods of content
delivery, print to a screen or text to speech.  The latter opens huge
doors for us because if we can actually get at this content through text
to speech, whatever Amazon makes available to the nondisabled public is
also made available to us so long as we can pay the book purchase price.
I don't ever see the sort of models that Robert Martinengo is working
with offering that potential for access.  In my view, it would be best
for the community if Mr. Martinengo kept his opinions to himself and
continued his work.  Our success on this issue will result in access to
the printed word that would have been hard to imagine 20 or 30 years
ago.  We might be setting a new access paradigm and Mr. Martinengo's
caution will only get in the way.
Jim McCarthy 

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Chris Danielsen
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 4:33 AM
To: 'NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Why print-disabled people
shouldthanktheAuthorsGuild...

James,I think you are right that negotiation with copyright holders is
important. However, one should always negotiate from a position of
strength.
What we are doing here is that instead of going to the authors and
publishers and saying "Please be kind enough to give us more books," we
are firmly telling them that people who buy books, in whatever format,
have the right to read those books, and that there's a difference
between making a derivative work and simply converting a book into a
format that is more convenient for the user. The argument the Authors
Guild is making is not only wrong but entirely inconsistent with the
positions that most authors and publishers have taken in the past. For
example, no one claims that a blind person who buys a book, scans it and
processes the scan with OCR software, then reads the result with TTS is
violating anyone's copyright.
But the Authors Guild's new argument opens the door to just that kind of
thinking, and believe it or not there are still publishers who are
enemies of access and would like to further restrict what the blind and
others with disabilities can do to make books accessible. There are even
people who like to bluster about seeking the repeal of Chafee. I think
we are going to have to play a little good cop, bad cop here in order to
make sure our rights are vindicated. On the one hand, we must be willing
to talk directly to authors and publishers, which is one of the reasons
we are going to the LA Times Festival of Books. On the other hand, we
must also put pressure on them by taking our case to the court of public
opinion and standing firm on our principles.

I object to this blog post for a couple of reasons. For one, the case
that the Authors Guild is right is not nearly as clear-cut as Mr.
Martinengo makes it out to be. I don't dispute that he has done great
work for access, but I think he should think twice about adopting so
unquestionably an argument that limits access. I realize of course that
he's in a difficult position, as are people like the good folks at
Benetech; they have to work with publishers in order for their
operations to be successful. But I think he should avoid subscribing to
dubious principles. Secondly, I absolutely think he should avoid saying
that the disabled should thank the Authors Guild for anything at this
point. Whatever his intent, it sounds patronizing and paternalistic.

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of James Pepper
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 1:16 AM
To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Why print-disabled people should
thanktheAuthorsGuild...

The author of that blog is an expert in making textbooks accessible to
the blind for the state of Georgia and Maryland.  Robert Martinengo.  He
actually is on the side of accessibility and he makes a point, you are
going to have to deal with the copyright holders.

Right now publishers convert books to Daisy but they are the ones doing
it and Kindle did this work without their permission.  They just did it
and created a new format for publication without asking anyone, without
receiving any permission from the publishers to take their content and
make it readable in this format.

Kindle is not the only format out there and given the recent
developments in making Talking books we are going to see a lot more
content.

I think that if everyone would calm down about this and just directly
poll the publishers you may find that as long as they are not pushed
into this, they will continue to create Daisy Books.  They have enough
problems right now with sales.

And what I do not understand is why anyone would be against Kindle
because the books are not free, you have to pay for them, so with Kindle
they would get a royalty on converting books to be accessible.
In Daisy format they have to do this at their own expense.

Of course the flip side of all of this is that publishers have always
had the option to not publish their work.  It is their work.  So there
needs to be an attitude in all of this of negotiation because providing
books in Daisy format has been a voluntary effort and they could easily
go back to the days of straight text files, unformatted but compliant to
Section 508 regulations, instead of formatted Daisy, Talking books or
Kindle.

James Pepper
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