[A2k] James Boyle: Obama in Cyberspace (FT)

Thu Jun 18 17:08:12 2009

I will certainly admit that James and other folks have done a terrific
job of portraying this issue as 'publishers vs the people', and not
just any people, blind people (gasp!). And I am sure there has been
plenty of government opposition from this Group B, as you say. But I'd
like to put that aside and refocus on why I don't like the treaty -
the heck with what Group B thinks.

The treaty by itself will obviously not cause one new book to become
accessible or one new book to cross borders. Those challenges will
fall to the agencies who currently provide whatever library and
publishing services for the print-disabled are available in a given
country.

Now, those agencies rely on scarce public money and donations, so they
will have a tough time adding resources to fulfill requests for other
countries, but lets assume they rise to the occasion and we do see
some cross-border trade and even increased production.

What folks on this list might not know, perhaps because they don't
have a lot of actual experience with alternate media, is that
alternate media producers already rely quite a bit on electronic files
provided by publishers to actually produce the braille and other
accessible formats that they do (human-voice audio is still an
exception - for that you just need the book, a reader, and a
recorder).

In other words, while 'getting permission' from publishers is
portrayed as a burden, getting publisher files to actually produce the
accessible material is becoming essential. Why essential? Because it
saves time and money, two of the weakest links in the 'alternat media'
production ecosystem.

So just consider this while you prepare for the next SCCR: blind
people may end up with new exceptions but no new money and possibly
even less support and cooperation from publishers than they already
have - cooperation which is sorley needed to produce braille
ecomically. Also, think of the Kindle issue. As James has pointed out
in detail, Random House was apparently not bothered or moved in the
least by the Reading Rights protest and their subsequent
'denunciation'. Not because they want to hurt the blind, but because
they know that turning off TTS on the Kindle doesn't hurt them at all
- they have Chafee.

Cheers,
Bob

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 4:09 PM, James Love<james.love@keionline.org> wrote=
:
> William is pointing to a statement by the US which was delivered on
> Tuesday the 26th. =A0Perhaps a better PDF of the statement is available
> here:
>
> http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/tvi/usg_wipo_sccr18.pdf
>
> In the Tuesday statement, the US did not express any views at all on a
> treaty. =A0In fact, it managed to avoid saying the treaty proposal
> received any support at all in the US consultations, even though it was
> supported by NFB, Bookshare, DASIY Consortiun, RFB&D, ALA, KEI, PK and
> EFF.
>
> On Thursday, the US joined the Group B opposition to having a treaty
> discussed at the November SCCR 19.
>
> Late Friday (May 29th), after a very difficult negotiation where Group B
> was on the wrong side, the whole SCCR agreed that the treaty would be
> discussed at SCCR 19.
>
> Now the Copyright Office and the WH "look forward" to discussing the
> treaty in November at SCCR 19. =A0 I think this is progress.
>
> Professor Boyle's FT column does describe what the US did in SCCR 18.
> One hopes that the position will continue to evolve in a positive way.
> Indeed, it would be great if the Obama Administration could lead,
> because if it doesn't lead, it will be very hard to get this treaty.
> This requires breaking with (a unified) publishing industry. =A0This
> requires taking the side of consumers against an entrenched lobby. =A0Thi=
s
> requires a new Group B position, or at least a new US position.
>
> Jamie
>
> On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 21:21 +0200, William New wrote:
>> Not sure what conclusion you'll draw but it might be useful to view the =
US
>> statement from the recent WIPO Copyright Committee meeting. Statement
>> available toward bottom of this story in Intellectual Property Watch:
>> http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/05/29/proposed-wipo-treaty-on-visual=
ly-i
>> mpaired-access-gets-deeper-look/
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: a2k-admin@lists.essential.org [mailto:a2k-admin@lists.essential.or=
g]
>> On Behalf Of Robert Martinengo
>> Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 9:00 PM
>> To: Manon Ress; a2k@lists.essential.org
>> Subject: Re: [A2k] James Boyle: Obama in Cyberspace (FT)
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 1:29 PM, Manon Ress<manon.ress@keionline.org> wr=
ote:
>> > Obama in cyberspace By James Boyle
>> ... But the final straw may be the Obama administration's opposition
>> to a proposal on copyright exceptions for the visually impaired. ...
>> It is backed by a number of developing countries and opposed - quietly
>> - by the US and most of the European Union....
>>
>> What is the deal here people? I will pay $10 to the first person who
>> provides proof that the Obama administration opposes, quietly or
>> otherwise, the WBU treaty (that is, a documented comment from a
>> government official, not James Love's tweets from Geneva). Get it
>> right or get off it already.
>>
>> People might want to read what Maria Pallante from the US Copyright
>> Office wrote on Jim Fruchtermans blog:
>>
>> "...In the months ahead, we also will be looking at the Chafee
>> Amendment to see how it (and other provisions of U.S. law) would
>> interact with the treaty proposal that was tabled by Brazil, Ecuador
>> and Paraguay at the WIPO meeting. Because copyright treaties are
>> implemented through the national laws of member states, this is an
>> essential step in analyzing the proposal and one for which the U.S.
>> government will continue to solicit the views of stakeholders...."
>>
>> https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3D5979923&postID=3D196946904149=
3033599&
>> pli=3D1
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>
> --
> James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International
> http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org
> Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.41=
3.6584
>
>