[blindlaw] West Publishing

[Marc Workman]

It might have been a good point if anyone had actually suggested that books 
should be free for persons with disabilities.  Of course, no one said that, 
so it's really not a very good point at all.

The question was whether publishers/content providers had an obligation to 
make their publicly distributed content accessible.  The answer is yes.  For 
some reason that I can't understand this was interpreted as meaning that 
content must be made available for free.

Deeper challenges to the notion of copyright set aside for now, if content 
is accessible, then it should and would be paid for.  Or, alternatively, as 
Steve suggested, it would be borrowed from the library, just as it is by 
sighted citizens.

This bit about demanding content that is free is a complete red herring.

Regards,

Marc
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <ckrugman at sbcglobal.net>
To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 8:24 AM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] West Publishing


> this is a good point. Buying books is just one of the costs of obtaining 
> an education. we have all had to bite the bullet and do it and everything 
> isn't free in the world for anyone let alone people with disabilities.
> Chuck
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "James Pepper" <b75205 at gmail.com>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 1:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] West Publishing
>
>
>> What?  the costs of making a book accessible are excessive.  That is the
>> problem here.  Where do you get the idea that it is easy? Ah you hear 
>> things
>> like you can make DAISY books in Microsoft Word well pal until you 
>> actually
>> do it, you do not realize how much content goes missing.  All of this 
>> free
>> software that is designed for accessibility misses the mark.  Just look 
>> at
>> what we have now.  Are you happy with accessibility now.  Are we all 
>> done,
>> don't need to do any more work on this, everything is accessible now.
>>
>> If it were easy everyone would do it.  The problem here is that there are
>> half a dozen different formats for electronic books, not to mention all 
>> of
>> the free services that create books and each one of them, I repeat each 
>> one
>> of them has to be laid out individually and that means the editors are
>> editing editions over and over again.  Until this gets standardized onto 
>> one
>> format then publishers can challenge these laws telling them they have to 
>> do
>> it for free.
>>
>> West publishing owns their book.  Unless you want to seize people's
>> property, then if they want to sell the product then that is up to them!
>>
>> James
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>
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