[NABS-L] Proof of Purchase

[sarah at sarahblakelarose.com]

Chris, first, get your own texts from Bookshare, etc. Do not let DSS do this for you. You can have your own accounts in your own name and you should absolutely do this at this stage in your life. There is no need for DSS to liaison between these agencies for you.

What DSS is talking about is scanning books for you. These offices require proof of purchase because universities are not actually covered by the Chaffee Amendment, but you yourself are allowed to have a scanned copy of the text for your personal use. They are covering their legal boundaries here. Under the Chaffee Amendment, a nonprofit institution whose mission is to produce alternative texts for people with reading disabilities can do so without seeking permission. Many universities are not established with this type of structure and mission statement. So they must rely on other aspects of the copyright law which grant you access rights, this being your own personal right to possess a copy of the text you need.

HTH.


Rev. Sarah Blake LaRose
http://www.sarahblakelarose.com
Accessible instruction in Biblical languages

-----Original Message-----
From: NABS-L [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chris Nusbaum via NABS-L
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 5:28 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Cc: Chris Nusbaum <cnusbaumnfb at gmail.com>
Subject: [NABS-L] Proof of Purchase

Hello All:

I hope this email finds each of you enjoying a smooth start to your spring semester! It seems that, on this first day of classes for me, I find myself stumped on an accessibility question which I'm hoping you can help with. I received an email this morning from my DSS coordinator asking me to provide her with a "proof of purchase" for each of my textbooks. She says that students who receive alternative accessible copies of books are still required to buy the books from the campus bookstore in order to avoid copyright infringement on the part of the DSS office. As far as I understand, if DSS obtains a book from an accessible online resource such as AccessText, Bookshare, or Learning Ally, the Chaffee Amendment would protect them from copyright problems. Furthermore, if they get the accessible book directly from the book's publisher, the publisher is granting them access to the text, which should also protect the college from copyright problems. But my DSS coordinator is telling me I still need to buy my books from the Campus Store anyway.

So, can anyone explain how this works? Do I really need to buy the print books if I already got them from DSS in an accessible format? If I do need to buy them, what do I do with the print books once I get them? It seems like it would be a waste to buy a perfectly good book only for it to sit on my desk as I read the accessible copy which DSS got somewhere else. I want to do all that I need to in order to get access to my textbooks, but I also don't want to spend money unnecessarily. Thank you in advance for helping me make sense of this.

Chris Nusbaum

Sent from my iPhone


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