[A2k] David Kravets: U.S. Industry Fights to Keep Blind People in the Dark | Threat Level | Wired.com

[Manon Ress]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/blind_block/

U.S. Industry Fights to Keep Blind People in the Dark

    * By David Kravets Email Author
    * December 11, 2009  |

    * Categories: Copyrights and Patents, Digital Millennium Copyright
Act, intellectual property

A broad swath of American enterprise ranging from major software
makers to motion picture and music companies are joining forces to
oppose a new international treaty that would make books more
accessible to the blind.

On Monday, dozens of nations will meet in Geneva to consider adopting
the WIPO Treaty for Sharing Accessible Formats of Copyrighted Works
for Persons Who are Blind or Have other Reading Disabilities. The
proposal (.pdf) before a subcommittee of the roughly 180 World
Intellectual Property Organization members would sanction the cross-
border sharing of DRM-protected digitized books that tens of thousands
of blind and visually disabled people read with devices and tools like
the Pac Mate, Book Port and Victor Reader.

=93This treaty would be the first one that is not done for the copyright
owner, but for the user of the works =97 for the blind to make a
copyrighted work accessible,=94 says Manon Ress, a policy analyst at
Knowledge Ecology International, a Washington, D.C.-based human rights
lobby that helped spearhead the proposal.

But that prospect doesn=92t sit well with American business. The U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, the nation=92s largest lobby representing three
million businesses, argues that the plan being proposed by Brazil,
Ecuador and Paraguay, =93raises a number of serious concerns,=94 (.pdf)
chief among them the specter that the treaty would spawn a rash of
internet book piracy.

The treaty also creates a bad precedent by loosening copyright
restrictions, instead of tightening them as every previous copyright
treaty has done, said Brad Huther, a chamber director. Huther
concluded in a Dec. 2 letter to the U.S. Copyright office that the
international community =93should not engage in pursuing a copyright-
exemption based paradigm.=94

Echoing that concern, the Motion Picture Association of America and
the Recording Industry of America told the Copyright Office last month
that such a treaty would =93begin to dismantle the existing global
treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an
international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-
settled norms.=94

The proposal before the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and
Related Rights could free up thousands of book titles to millions of
blind people in WIPO-member nations =97 without payment to the publisher.

Many WIPO nations, most in the industrialized world including England,
the United States and Canada, have copyright exemptions that usually
allow non-profit companies to market copyrighted works without
permission. They scan and digitize books into the so-called universal
Daisy format, which includes features like narration and digitized
Braille.

The Daisy Corp. Consortium, a Swiss-based international agency,
controls formatting worldwide and has some 100 companies under its
direction across the globe. The largest catalog rests in the United
States, in which three non-profits, including the Library of Congress,
host some half million digital titles produced by federal grants and
donations.

As it now stands, none of the nations may allow persons outside their
borders to access these works, which are usually doled out for little
or no charge. The treaty seeks to free up the cross-border sharing of
the books for the blind.

=93People who oppose copyright exemptions oppose exemptions on principle
that there should be no exemptions of copyright law,=94 says George
Kerscher, Daisy=92s general secretary. =93They should have sole right and
discretion to do what they want with their intellectual property. To a
great extent, the opposition to the treaty is based on that principle.=94

To receive any reading materials, the blind and disabled must prove
their condition, he said. In the United States, Knowledge Ecology
International estimates about 5 percent of published books have been
transformed to the Daisy format.

Google is the only major U.S. corporation to side with the blind in
the international tussle. In filings with the Copyright Office, the
company called for American copyright holders to see past their
doctrinal opposition to weakening copyright protections.

=93We are concerned that some of the comments are simply stating
opposition to a larger agenda of limitations and exceptions,=94 (.pdf)
Google=92s chief copyright officer, William Paltry, wrote this month.
=93We believe this is an unproductive approach to solving what is a
discrete, long-standing problem that affects a group that needs and
deserves the protections of the international community.=94

Not surprisingly, U.S. book publishers are the harshest critics of the
proposal. The Association of American Publishers, which represents
about 300 publishers large and small, argue the treaty is not
necessary. The publishers suggest the blind and disabled should pay
for their materials =96- the only way the market for such products could
flourish.

=93Under the proposed draft treaty, where it appears that privileged
copies could be made even where accessible versions were commercially
available, copyright owners would have understandable doubts about the
wisdom of investing in the production of accessible versions for the
market,=94 the association=92s vice president, Allan Adler, wrote the
Copyright Office on December 4.

=93Under these circumstances, publishers not unreasonably hesitate and
wonder whether they can expect such a market to flourish when
potential customers would still have the option of relying upon a
statutory exception to get an accessible version of a work without
having to pay for it,=94 (.pdf) Adler added.

Dan Burke, a 52-year-old blind man from Montana and a self-described
=93book worm,=94 does not agree with the publishers.

Burke, a victim of a retinal disease that blinded him decades ago,
often acquires books and poems at Bookshare, an online non-profit
offering about 60,000 titles in exchange for $50 in annual dues and
other volunteer work. Burke says none of the rank-and-file
commercially available e-readers, including the Kindle, are adequately
equipped for the blind.

=93You have to be able to see to use these, to turn the machine on and
navigate menus,=94 says Burke.

Amazon, however, said this week that it would soon produce a blind-
accessible Kindle, one with an audible menu and large font for the
visually impaired.

But Amazon, the Kindle=92s maker, gives book authors the option of
disabling the read-aloud function, notes Burke, a board member for the
National Federation of the Blind, which supports the treaty. The
Authors Guild, an advocacy group for writers, argued earlier this year
that reading a book aloud counts as an unauthorized public performance.

=93Information is what we want. Information is the power to become
economically viable members of society,=94 Burke said. =93This is a world
in which if you don=92t have money you usually don=92t have access.=94

Dan Burke, a Montana blind man, reads via a Pac Mate with a
refreshable Braille display

Photo: Courtesy of Dan Burke

***************************************************************************
Manon Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Il vaut mieux remuer une question, sans la d=E9cider, que la d=E9cider,
sans la remuer. (Pens=E9es, essais, maximes et correspondance de J.
Joubert  p.249)
Translation: It is better to debate a question without settling it
than to settle a question without debating it