[blindlaw] West Publishing

[Steve Jacobson]

I believe part of the notion that we want publishers to give away work came from the perspective that we are forcing them to pay to have materials 
converted into accessible forms.  In some cases, particularly in areas of math and science, making books truly accessible is not easy nor is it all that well-
defined.  It can mean that the tools they use to print a book won't help them at all to make a book accessible.  For some books to be accessible, it is 
necessary to have descriptions of some drawings as RFBD and others insert into textbooks.  While I readily admit there is some validity to this concern, I 
would also submit that the entire issue of accessibility to printed materials is very new in the scheme of things, and we are still learning.  There needs to be 
some give and take as we figure out the best way to follow.  The printing press was the only game in town for the production of materials for more than six 
hundred years.  There was no way to automate accessibility for us in that process.  Electronic processing of materials has only been around for perhaps forty 
years, and only in the last twenty have blind persons truly had access to computers.  In many cases, accessibility falls out almost automatically from the 
process of publishing books but it some cases it doesn't.  In some cases, having publishers take accessibility into account when they are planning rather 
than after the fact significantly reduces the effort for any particular book.  I believe that what we are trying to do is to increase the awareness level of how a 
little planning can significantly provide us access to books.  At the same time, we are also trying to figure out where the role of the publisher may have to be 
augmented by entities like RFBD.  

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 09:02:44 -0600, Marc Workman wrote:

>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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