[nfb-talk] Important: Help Keep the Blind Out Of the Literary Ghetto

[Buddy Brannan]

Forward this widely. Cory Doctorow is a heck of a guy.

 From http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/29/usa-canada-and-the-e.html


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USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill treaty to protect blind  
people's access to written material
POSTED BY CORY DOCTOROW, MAY 29, 2009 1:52 AM | PERMALINK
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 ofcopyright 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),  
introduced by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay. 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.

Update 2: Countries that are on the right side of this include, "Latin  
American and Caribbean region including (Uruguay, Argentina, Chile,  
Jamaica) as well as Asia and Africa."

Update 3: Canada is upset with me. That's fine, I'm upset with Canada.

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

PROPOSAL BY BRAZIL, ECUADOR AND PARAGUAY, RELATING TO LIMITATIONS AND  
EXCEPTIONS: TREATY PROPOSED BY THE WORLD BLIND UNION (WBU)

Pedro Paranagu?'s notes in English and Brazilian Portuguese

posted in: CIVLIB ,  COPYFIGHT ,  IF YOU DON'T LIKE SOMETHING CHANGE  
IT ,  INTERNATIONAL,  POLITICS