[A2k] WIPO Meeting the Needs of the Visually Impaired Persons (July 13 in Geneva)

[Claude Almansi]

The texts of the speeches made this morning at the WIPO "Meeting the
Needs of the Visually Impaired Persons: What Challenges for IP?"
that Manon Ress announced (see her e-mail below) will be added on the
WIPO site, Christopher Friend told me.

So just some quick impressions for the time being, not chronologically:

In spite of the exclusion of people with other reading disabilities
from the  title of the reunion, the fact that they were stakeholders
in the same issue was clearly repeated by several speakers. During
question time, an ambassador (1) pointed out that illiteracy due to
lack of educational opportunities was also reading-disabling.

H.E. Mr. Babacar Carlos Mbaye, Ambassador, Permanent Representative,
Permanent Mission of Senegal to the United Nations Office and other
International Organizations in Switzerland, Geneva reminded us that
the question of needs of sight and hearing disabled people vs
copyright has been discussed since the 1980's, and that it was high
time to find a solution.

Mr. Douglas George, Director of Intellectual Property, Information and
Technology Trade Policy Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, Ottawa, seemed to favor letting each country find
its own solution, in spite of the fact  that
- Mr. Chris Friend, Strategic Objective Leader Accessibility, World
Blind Union (WBU), London, - Mr. Dipendra Manocha, Director, Regional
Resource Centre, Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY)
Consortium, New Delhi and
- H. E. Mr. Mario Matus, Ambassador, Permanent Representative,
Permanent Mission of Chile to WTO, Geneva
had previously very clearly explained the transnational dimension of
the copyright barrier impeding the use of  existing accessible
resources (the point of this transnational dimension was taken up in a
question from the audience).

Same incomprehension (refusal?) of this transnational dimension from
Mr. Herman Spruijt, President, International Publishers Association
(IPA), Geneva, who advocated a solution like  the Dutch one:
agreements rather than restrictions to copyright. On the other hand,
in contrast with other representatives of publishers (for instance at
the WIPO SCCR meeting in may), he at least showed an awareness of the
need to adapt to technological evolution, and of the marketing
potential of accessible texts. However, when Federico Heinz asked him
about publishers disabling text-to-speech in Kindle texts, he answered
that Amazon had forgotten to negotiate the "audio rights".

Subjective impression: while Chris Friend and Dipendra Manora clearly
illustrated economic aspects of enabling access to texts for everybody
that would also benefit the text producers by opening new markets, the
latter seem to still prefer a strict IP-retentive, obstructionist
policy.  This seems suicidal, which is their business, in a way; but
miserere colic <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11469078> is not a
pleasant way to go.

Best

Claude Almansi

(1) sorry, I didn't catch his name or the country he represents. Maybe
someone else can complete?

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 5:03 PM, Manon Ress<manon.ress@keionline.org> wrote=
:
> http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/2009/vip_ge/
> Meeting the Needs of the Visually Impaired Persons: What Challenges
> for IP?
> International Conference Centre Geneva (CICG) Geneva, July 13, 2009
> (from 9 to 10.30 a.m.)
> Background
>
> The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is organizing a
> meeting on the needs of visually impaired persons and the associated
> IP challenges on Monday, July 13, 2009, from 9 to 10.30 a.m., at the
> International Conference Centre Geneva (CICG).
>
> The proliferation of digital technologies has added a new dimension to
> the question of how to maintain a balance between the protection
> available to right owners, on the one hand, and the needs of specific
> user groups on the other hand. User groups which seek to benefit from
> reasonable exceptions and limitations to copyright protection include
> more than 160 million blind or visually impaired persons around the
> world.
>
> The meeting will provide a forum for stakeholders to discuss, in
> practical terms, how the intellectual property system can best meet
> the needs of visually impaired people by improving timely access to
> copyright-protected content.
>
> The event is open to the public.
> General Information
>
> The Conference will be held at Room I, International Conference Center
> Geneva (CICG), 17, rue de Varemb=C3=A9, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland. Further
> information.
> Program/Presentations
>
> The provisional program is available and will be updated regularly.
> Speakers=E2=80=99 presentations will be added at a later stage.
> Registration [on-line registration]
>
> No registration fee is required for this meeting.
>
> Deadline for registration: June 30, 2009
> Press Accreditation
>
> =C2=A0 * Media Accreditation Form [PDF] [DOC]
>
>
> *************************************************************************=
**
> Manon Ress
> manon.ress@keionline.org
> Knowledge Ecology International
> 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
> Tel.: =C2=A0+1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673
>
>
>
>
>
>
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