[Nfbf-l] "Finish Line In Sight" for Accessible Copyright Treaty.

[Alan Dicey]

"Finish Line In Sight" for Accessible Copyright Treaty.

After what will have been five years of negotiations, an
international treaty to allow the sharing of accessible
copyrighted material across borders for use by blind and
visually impaired people could finally be signed in 2013, E-
Access Bulletin has learned.

A "roadmap" for formalising a treaty, which would increase
book access for disabled people including blind and visually
impaired people, has finally been approved at this month's
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) general
assembly in Geneva ( http://bit.ly/OqkKxp ).

The roadmap was first presented to a WIPO Copyright
Committee meeting in July, but general assembly support was
not a foregone conclusion after earlier interventions by the
European Union delegation threatened to block progress. Last
December, EU negotiators attempted to add clauses requiring
rights-holders to pre-approve all copyright exceptions, a
condition the World Blind Union (WBU) - a key player in
WIPO negotiations - had warned would render the whole
exercise "close to pointless" (see E-Access Bulletin, December
2011: http://bit.ly/rWAIrV ).

Speaking to E-Access Bulletin about the latest developments
WBU Vice Chair Dan Pescod said: "[This] points to a clear
finish line and provides the means to get there, and we've
never had that before. This is fairly significant in terms of the
seriousness that it demonstrates from pretty much all WIPO
member states in saying, 'all right, let's now get this done.'"

Crucially, the roadmap identifies a timeline for finalising a
treaty, with further work set to take place at WIPO's Standing
Committee on Copyright and Related Rights session in
November and an extraordinary meeting of the general
assembly set for December, as needed to call a diplomatic
conference in 2013.

The next step is to create a text that can become an effective
full treaty, said Pescod. "We don't want a 'trophy treaty' which
we couldn't use on the ground. When all of this is said and
done, the point wasn't to have lots of negotiations, it was to get
a law which allows more books to get into the hands of blind
and other print-disabled people", he said.

Two issues are now key, Pescod said. "One, that it should be a
binding treaty; and two, that the content of the treaty we get is
simple and workable, so that we can actually get people to
receive more books, otherwise the whole thing is futile. We'll
be working really hard with member states to try and make sure
we get the right provisions in this text, so we can really use it
meaningfully."

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