[A2k] Claude Almansi Re: DRM and the World Blind Union's Proposed Treaty for Reading Disabled Persons
Chris Friend
king.henry@btinternet.com
Sun Apr 26 08:24:02 2009
Dear Claude,
It is not the WBU who have failed to put forward juicy business
opportunities but rather the Rights Holders who are too blind to recognise
that the Visually Impaired and other Print Impaired reading community is a
book hungry and an economically viable market segment which they should
serve for their own self-interest.
The VI community totals 165+ million requiring large print (125M low vision
readers) together with an additional 40M blind who would love access to
audio titles. In addition there are hundreds of millions of other elderly
readers who would certainly love to ease the strain on their aging
eyesight by availing themselves of large print books and just think of the
commercial viability of all those rush-hour mainstream reader commuter
traffic journeys in all cities when drivers often listen to books in their
car CDs.
And then you have up to 10% of the population who are to some extent
dyslexic and who certainly benefit from the audio and text combined
accessible Daisy books.
One of these days, probably after we have proved this viability to them with
our Treaty in place, the Rights Holders will come to their senses and
reclaim their economic benefit by taking back the production which
currently has to fall on charitable funding but which under Exceptions gives
them nothing.
Regards,
Chris.
Christopher Friend
WBU Strategic Objective Leader - Accessibility
Chair WBU Global R2R Campaign
Programme Development Advisor
Sightsavers International
-----Original Message-----
From: a2k-admin@lists.essential.org [mailto:a2k-admin@lists.essential.org]
On Behalf Of Manon Ress
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To: a2k discuss list
Subject: [A2k] Claude Almansi Re: DRM and the World Blind Union's Proposed
Treaty for Reading Disabled Persons
From: Claude Almansi <claude.almansi@gmail.com>
Date: April 25, 2009 4:34:17 PM EDT
Subject: Re: [A2k] Re: DRM and the World Blind Union's Proposed Treaty for
Reading Disabled Persons
Thanks for the analogy with the voting machines, in which you are a
recognized expert, Paul. Analogies are useful because they also allow to
formulate differences and thus define concepts more precisely.
In this case, one big difference seems to be that while there was big money
to be made in proposing digital solutions for the application of HAVA, the
WIPO treaty proposed by the WBU offers no such juicy business opportunity.
And as a consequence, people opposing this treaty or similar provisions in
national laws are / have been
A) People fearing in good faith that proceeding by steps might hinder the
fight against DRM and other absurd copyright barriers in general, or
refusing to have a special treatment for a given class of society (you,
Richard, and apparently Jeffrey if I understood his last message
correctly)
B) Mainly: content producers who want DRM to be absolutely protected by law,
DRM sellers, and some people - very few, fortunately - in the accessible
text trade who object to people and reading-disabled people having a wider
autonomous access to books, thus becoming less dependent on their business.
And thus it is difficult to maintain that blind and reading-disabled
people's interests are being exploited for profit in the WBU proposal (apart
from the fact that WBU represents blind people), as they might have been in
the case of HAVA.
Type A objections are legitimate, and not to be discounted as insensitivity
to the needs of blind and reading-disabled people. Of course the main goal
is and remains to get rid of DRM and of copyright barriers that are absurd.
Nevertheless, as I said in a branching off of this discussion that had
stopped going to the main list, enablement to access knowledge and info in
spite of a disability can make a literally vital difference.
So even if securing this should delay the reaching of the main goal, this is
a price worth paying.
Best
Claude
Best
Claude
On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 6:11 PM, Jeffrey A. Williams
<jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Paul and all,
>
> Yep, the disabled, especially the blind or sight impaired, the
> elderly, hearing or speech impaired, and indigent children are far too
> often used and abused in many areas of the political arena by all
> political parties. It's plain disgusting to me, and always has been!
> Than after doing their exploitation to get elected, these same
> political or corporate leaders hold themselves out as outstanding
> citizens and expect us all to treat them as such accordingly. Even
> more disgusting IMHO.
>
> After years of leadership training and education in the US military
> and other higher learning institutions, I cannot and will not
> continent such behavior by elected or appointed political leaders or
> corporate leaders, elected or selected. And if or when the
> opportunity unfortunately presents itself of such disgusting behavior
> that I become aware of, I mince no words what so ever in expressing my
> disgust with same, no matter how much I may like them or if I voted
> for them or not. FWIW, this is what all people, leaders or not should
> do each and every time and band together as well to further enhance
> that good sound principal comes before profit, or political gain and
> anything less is NOT ever expectable.
>
> Paul Lehto wrote:
>
>> Here's what seems to me to be a relatively direct analogy or
>> "precedent" (in a non-binding sense of that word) for the debate here
>> regarding the intersection of technology and the rights of the
>> disabled, specifically and especially the blind. It's the subject of
>> my expertise over the last five years as first an election law lawyer
>> in the USA and now instead a full time scholar/activist in this area.
>>
>> The crux of the political problem, as well as an issue of equality of
>> rights, is that if rights for the disabled are included in approved
>> final drafts of treaties, these rights then become SELLING POINTS for
>> the treaty as a whole.
>>
>> Under advisement, and after checking with friends who are blind and
>> cognizant of the issues of access to voting, I'm comfortable stating
>> it bluntly as follows:
>>
>> In this context we discuss here, as has been the case specifically in
>> US elections since the year 2002 when the Help America Vote Act was
>> passed by the US Congress, a technological makeover (if you will)
>> that was very hostile to public rights GENERALLY was accomplished,
>> quite suddenly, in the name of the rights of the blind and disabled
>> to vote "in the same manner" as other voters. The issue in this
>> thread differs somewhat in that rights would not purport, exactly, to
>> be equalized, but the underlying point is the same: The (legitimate)
>> rights of the disabled are and were used as a Trojan Horse for things
>> that are and continue to be far more damaging to the public as a
>> whole. (Sorry for the comparisons, but a war that kills 2 million is
>> worse than a war that kills 1 million no matter how uncomfortable the
>> comparison may be for some). Bluntly: the disabled and specifically
>> the blind were, metaphorically speaking, strapped to the front of the
>> corporate tanks that accomplished a wholesale takeover of American
>> elections, making all the vote counting secret, concealed,
>> proprietary, unverifiable, and intrinsically and unavoidably dubious
>> in result. In a phrase, "faith based elections" by corporations were
>> substituted for checks and balances and the public's right to observe
>> vote counts and make sure they are legitimate and on the up and up.
>>
>> Method in the case of HAVA: Technology of some kind is required to
>> assist a disabled (Congress focused on the blind) voter, and HAVA
>> commanded voting "in the same manner" as other voters. This, plus
>> Equal Protection doctrine, plus numerous threats of federal
>> litigation and $4 billion in federal funding led to the rapid spread
>> and entrenchment of secret vote counts owned by corporations as trade
>> secret software.
>>
>> As in our case today, the understandable and legitimate interests of
>> the disabled, especially the blind, were seized in order to
>> accomplish purposes that defeated the public interest as a whole.
>> And in an enormous way, I might add. Secrecy means un-accountability
>> so elections that can't be seen and verified are inherently
>> unaccountable. But who can possibly be infavor of government
>> un-accountable to the governed? Well, the entire US Congress, If it
>> is done FOR THE SAKE OF THE BLIND.
>>
>> HAVA, in 2002 rendered the entire nation blind (as to vote counts) in
>> order to accomplish one of its main objectives of helping blind
>> voters, especially, to vote "in the same manner" as other voters.
>>
>> This happened on the heels of the dubious 2000 US election and one of
>> the first initiatives of the newly selected Bush administration
>> (selected by the US Supreme Court) was, surprisingly, an initiative
>> to assist the disabled. This is one of the few, if not the only,
>> huge expansions of rights for ordinary people in the 8 years of the
>> Bush administration. I'm not aware of anything NEW happening in
>> terms of assembling political power on behalf of the disabled that
>> hadn't already existed for a number of years, and there were
>> literally dozens of noble attempts via litigation under the ADA to
>> secure an independent private ballot for the disabled that were
>> unsuccessful for decades prior to HAVA. Then suddenly, and
>> coincidentally (?) in conjunction with a corporate takeover of public
>> elections, a massive victory for the disabled occurs via HAVA.
>>
>> I believe that Richard Stallman's general approach of seeking justice
>> for all is spot on. The alternative is a kind of divisive divide and
>> conquer politics in which the legitimate rights of the disabled are
>> honored in whole or in part but are, more than that, used to immunize
>> broader invasions of public rights that are in the short and/or long
>> term of far more significance.
>>
>> The counter-argument, if made, that I am insufficiently sensitive to
>> the conditions of the blind is off base entirely because (1) I am not
>> denying those interests but granting them and weighing them as
>> required by the demolition derby of rights-dynamic created by the
>> treaty negotiators themselves (not by me), and (2) at least, and for
>> sure, in the case of elections I give here as an example, the
>> principle of one person one vote invalidates the weighting of the
>> rights of the blind to vote (in the several millions) as being of
>> greater weight than the right to know on the part of all the people
>> as a whole whether or not they have a real democratic election, or
>> not.
>> One person's vote is of enormous value, yet the value of the vote
>> counts as a whole, presuming 130 million people vote, is at least 130
>> million times greater than the individual's right, as sacred and
>> inviolable as that right is (or is required/supposed to be).
>>
>> It just so happens that I was recently (in the last ten days or so)
>> in the hospital with an eye infection and was literally blind for a
>> period of time. I don't equate my experience to that of permanent
>> blindness, but I only mention it to say that I'm not insensitive to
>> the problems experienced by the blind.
>>
>> I had a lot of hesitation at first to attack the constitutionality of
>> HAVA specifically because it can be politically perceived as
>> attacking disabled rights. But I've, with reluctance, gotten over
>> that, because of the many tens of millions of people who have, quite
>> literally, given their lives and shed their blood IN THE NAME of the
>> freedom that ONLY elections can give. No matter my respect for the
>> disabled, that will not deter me from protecting and defending the
>> integrity of elections, EVEN IF IT MEANS throwing out HAVA as a whole
>> as unconstitutional, which is precisely what the German Federal
>> Constitutional Court did in March 2009 with regard to the German
>> Voting Act, requiring the elections to go back to public visible
>> counts, and specifically holding that NO AMOUNT of purported
>> government checks, audits or tests could substitute for the
>> requirement of public observation. Public observation of vote counts
>> is the indispensable check and balance because only the public can
>> provide that role -- the government can't check and balance, audit,
>> investigate or whistleblow on itself in elections -- the very process
>> that determines the government's own composition, power, and taxing
>> authority.
>>
>> Yes, horrible injustices and problems are experienced by the
>> disabled, including especially the blind. But in my area of election
>> law at least, I say we should not engage in this divisive competition
>> or demolition derby of rights. But if we do, in my area, given that
>> even illegal and false wars are largely if not totally justified in
>> the name of democracy/freedom, there's no problem amassing enough
>> injustice, death, etc. on the other side of the scale to defeat the
>> rights of the disabled to COUNT THE VOTE (as opposed to cast one).
>> It's one area that the blind, by its very nature will never be able
>> to participate in, meaningfully, without excluding many many more.
>>
>> But, as I hear Mr. Stallman saying, let's not go there -- let's not
>> have the blind vs. others internecine warfare but instead stand
>> shoulder to shoulder for the rights of all.
>>
>> I can't claim to be a DRM specialist as I can election law. But my
>> experience (down the road 7 years after passage of something roughly
>> analogous) is that there IS NO big government or corporate burst of
>> mercy and compassion for the disabled. If you succeed, you're being
>> at the very best tolerated and at worst totally being used. And it
>> looks in both cases, to me, as a case of being used.
>>
>> I can totally understand why the disabled community would seize the
>> opportunity for such access, and why it would be incredibly hard
>> indeed to resist that carrot, but I can say for sure that the
>> diability community was an unwitting tool of a corporate takeover of
>> American elections, and this formula does not bode well where it is
>> not part of a much broader liberalization of rights for all, whether
>> or not joined with a couple smaller concessions here and there....
>>
>> Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor
>>
>> On 4/24/09, Richard M Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>>> - Exceptions for disabled people are not a danger for universal
>>> rights.
>>> On the contrary there cannot be a real universalism without
>>> compensation
>>> measures. And, yes, theses measures mean sometimes "hurting"
>>> other valid
>>> people : in French a special compensation income for disabled
>>> people who
>>> cannot work is founded by taxes paid by valid working people ;
>>>
>>> This is a different kind of issue. You are talking about spending
>>> money to help disadvantaged people in purely material ways. I agree
>>> with you about that.
>>>
>>> Here we are talking about a freedom that everyone is entitled to,
>>> which has been denied to all, and a campaign to win that freedom
>>> only for the disabled instead of for all of us.
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> A2k@lists.essential.org
>>> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Paul R Lehto, J.D.
>> P.O. Box #1
>> Ishpeming, MI 49849
>> lehto.paul@gmail.com
>> 906-204-2333
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>
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--
Claude Almansi
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