[nfbwatlk] International Copyright Concerns for Blind Readers

[Frye, Dan]

Colleagues:
 
I am circulating a lengthy post regarding efforts to limit an
international treaty that would allow for rules that parallel existing
domestic exceptions to the copyright law for blind people to govern in
an international context. Please help bring pressure on authorities by
letting President Obama know that these provisions would be useful, and
ask him to direct his representatives to abandon their hostile posture
toward aspects of the treaty that would be helpful. You may Email your
concerns to:
 
President at whitehouse.gov
 
The post follows:
 
Right now, in Geneva, at the UN's World Intellectual Property
Organization, history is being made. For the first time in WIPO history,
the body that creates the world's copyright treaties is attempting to
write a copyright treaty dedicated to protecting the interests of
copyright users, not just copyright owners.

At issue is a treaty to protect the rights of blind people and people
with other disabilities that affect reading (people with dyslexia,
people who are paralyzed or lack arms or hands for turning pages). This
should be a slam dunk: who wouldn't want a harmonized system of
copyright exceptions that ensure that it's possible for disabled people
to get access to the written word?

The USA, that's who. The Obama administration'

s negotiators have joined with a rogue's gallery of rich country trade
representatives to oppose protection for blind people. Other nations and
regions opposing the rights of blind people include Canada and the EU.

Update: Also opposing rights for disabled people: Australia, New
Zealand, the Vatican and Norway.

Activists at WIPO are desperate to get the word out. They're tweeting
madly from the negotiation (technically called the 18th session of the
Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights) publishing
editorials on the Huffington Post, etc.

Here's where you come in: this has to get wide exposure, to get cast as
broadly as possible, so that it will find its way into the ears of the
obscure power-brokers who control national trade-negotiators.

I don't often ask readers to do things like this, but please, forward
this post to people you know in the US, Canada and the EU, and ask them
to reblog, tweet, and spread the word, especially to government
officials and activists who work on disabled rights. We know that WIPO
negotiations can be overwhelmed by citizen activists -- that's how we
killed the Broadcast Treaty negotiation a few years back -- and with
your help, we can make history, and create a world where copyright law
protects the public interest.

I am attending a meeting in Geneva of the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO). This evening the United States government, in
combination with other high income countries in "Group B" is seeking to
block an agreement to discuss a treaty for persons who are blind or have
other reading disabilities.

The proposal for a treaty is supported by a large number of civil
society NGOs, the World Blind Union, the National Federation of the
Blind in the US, the International DAISY Consortium, Recording for the
Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D), Bookshare.Org, and groups representing persons
with reading disabilities all around the world.

The main aim of the treaty is to allow the cross-border import and
export of digital copies of books and other copyrighted works in formats
that are accessible to persons who are blind, visually impaired,
dyslexic or have other reading disabilities, using special devices that
present text as refreshable braille, computer generated text to speech,
or large type. These works, which are expensive to make, are typically
created under national exceptions to copyright law that are specifically
written to benefit persons with disabilities.

..

The opposition from the United States and other high income countries is
due to intense lobbying from a large group of publishers that oppose a
"paradigm shift,"

where treaties would protect consumer interests, rather than expand
rights for copyright owners.

The Obama Administration was lobbied heavily on this issue, including
meetings with high level White House officials. Assurances coming into
the negotiations this week that things were going in the right direction
have turned out to be false, as the United States delegation has
basically read from a script written by lobbyists for publishers,
extolling the virtues of market based solutions, ignoring mountains of
evidence of a "book famine" and the insane legal barriers to share
works.

Obama Joins Group to Block Treaty for Blind and Other Reading
Disabilities COPYRIGHT EXCEPTIONS AND LIMITATIONS Twitter feed for
#sccr18

 

With Kind Regards,

 

***********************
Daniel B. Frye, J.D.
Associate Editor
The Braille Monitor
National Federation of the Blind
Office of the President
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
Telephone: (410) 659-9314 Ext. 2208
Mobile: (410) 241-7006
Fax: (410) 685-5653
Email: DFrye at nfb.org
Web Address: www.nfb.org <http://www.nfb.org/> 
"Voice of the Nation's Blind"