[blindlaw] West Publishing

Tue Aug 31 14:21:33 UTC 2010

Hello all,

My two cents is that publishers need to step up and do the right thing.  If 
they have the money to make their stuff available on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, 
and multiple browsers, they should be willing to put in a little bit more 
effort and make a little bit less profit.

Tom
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Johnston" <withat at msn.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 11:49 AM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] West Publishing

> Hello James,
>
> As a law school student, it isn't true that I have the option of not 
> buying a particular publisher's text.  Professors dictate which texts are 
> required- period.  As for an incentive on the publisher's part, there are 
> plenty of things that aren't financially advantageous to companies but are 
> necessary for consumers: take safety laws for example.
>
> Jay
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Marc Workman" <mworkman.lists at gmail.com>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 9:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] West Publishing
>
>
>> James said,
>> You don't have to buy their book, you can use other sources.  They are 
>> not providing a necessary service.
>>
>> Marc says,
>> You don't have to come into my restaurant.  There are other restaurants 
>> with ramps.  I am not providing a necessary service, so I have no 
>> obligation to make my restaurant accessible.  Would you accept this 
>> argument?
>>
>> James said,
>> What is a reasonable accessibility?  That is not defined.
>>
>> Marc says,
>> My guess is you meant reasonable accommodation, but the fact that it is 
>> not defined does not mean service providers are absolved of all 
>> obligations. This is why courts, human rights tribunals, legislators, and 
>> so on exist, to define and clarify concepts like reasonable 
>> accommodation, undo hardship, discrimination, etc.
>>
>> James said,
>> Why should anyone help you if they are not going to be paid to help you. 
>> People have other things to do than to work on making content free to the 
>> blind.
>>
>> Marc says,
>> Why should I build a ramp so you can get in my restaurant? I have other 
>> things to do than to build free ramps for wheelchair users.
>>
>> James said,
>> This is an extremely time consuming effort, it is not easy and you want 
>> it for free.  If there is no incentive to help you other than the sense 
>> of trying to do something good for people and when people like you are 
>> demanding that they do this stuff with no reward then you get what you 
>> have today, nothing complete, content that is partially accessible deemed 
>> to be accessible.
>>
>> Marc says,
>> Building ramps is an extremely time-consuming effort.  It is not easy, 
>> and you want it for free.  Therefore, I have no obligation to make my 
>> restaurant accessible.  Do you think this is an acceptable argument?
>>
>> There is, of course, an incentive.  It's a negative one: if you don't 
>> take reasonable steps to make your product accessible, in accordance with 
>> the law, then you will be penalized, and you will no longer be able to 
>> sell your product.  Sounds like a pretty good incentive to me.  If I'm a 
>> racist, what is my incentive to sell my product to people of different 
>> races? It is certainly not to be nice.  My incentive is the same as that 
>> noted above: if I choose to discriminate, then I can't sell my product in 
>> America, period.
>>
>> You can argue that making printed books accessible costs *too* much, that 
>> it *does* constitute an undo hardship.  I doubt that, but for all I know 
>> it could be the case.  What you can't do, at least not if you want to 
>> consistently maintain that unjustifiable discrimination in the market 
>> place is wrong, is say that, because it's expensive, or because it's not 
>> easy, or because I'm insisting on equal access at an equal price, there 
>> are no obligations to take reasonable steps to make products and services 
>> accessible to all consumers.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Marc
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "James Pepper" <b75205 at gmail.com>
>> To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 8:32 AM
>> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] West Publishing
>>
>>
>>> You don't have to buy their book, you can use other sources.  They are 
>>> not
>>> providing a necessary service.  What is a reasonable accessibility? 
>>> That
>>> is not defined. Oh sure we have section 508 which makes documents 
>>> legally
>>> accessible but not actually accessible. The conditions right now is to 
>>> make
>>> some content accessible to the blind, it does not matter to the law that 
>>> all
>>> of the content is not accessible only parts of it.  And so you have this
>>> horrible situation we have today where content is half accessible, there 
>>> are
>>> gaps and there is no incentive to fix this gap. Why should anyone help 
>>> you
>>> if they are not going to be paid to help you.  People have other things 
>>> to
>>> do than to work on making content free to the blind. This is an 
>>> extremely
>>> time consuming effort, it is not easy and you want it for free.  If 
>>> there is
>>> no incentive to help you other than the sense of trying to do something 
>>> good
>>> for people and when people like you are demanding that they do this 
>>> stuff
>>> with no reward then you get what you have today, nothing complete, 
>>> content
>>> that is partially accessible deemed to be accessible.  You have to rely 
>>> on
>>> organizations that are overeloaded with work to get out the content. 
>>> That
>>> is the state of things today.
>>>
>>> James
>>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 4:09 PM, Marc Workman 
>>> <mworkman.lists at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> James said,
>>>>
>>>> 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!
>>>>
>>>> Marc says,
>>>> Is it up to them if they don't want to sell their books to black 
>>>> people? If
>>>> you decide to sell your goods to the public, their are constraints 
>>>> placed on
>>>> you.  Someone may own a restaurant, but ownership does not mean that 
>>>> she has
>>>> no obligation to make the restaurant wheelchair accessible.  I think 
>>>> it's a
>>>> legitimate argument to say that publishers who sell their books to the
>>>> public have obligations to take reasonable steps to make their products
>>>> accessible to people with print disabilities.  If taking these steps
>>>> constitutes an undo hardship, which you seem to imply, then that's 
>>>> another
>>>> question, but insisting on reasonable accommodations is not the same as
>>>> seizing property.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Marc
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Pepper" <b75205 at gmail.com>
>>>> To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 2:00 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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>>
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>
>
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