[A2k] India: Seminar on Exceptions and Limitations in Copyright — Centre for Internet and Society

[Manon Ress]

quote:
The response to this was prepared by Mr. Rahul Cherian of Indo Juris
Law offices. The response paper drew attention to the fact that half
of the total blind population of the world is in India and that
amounts to a population of more than a crore. In the light of the
economic and logistic considerations of our country, the Copyright Act
should

   1. Expressly include a limitation to permit conversion of books
into accessible formats for visually challenged persons;
   2. Permit conversion by stakeholder organizations as well as
interested family members and friends of beneficiaries;
   3. Adopt a functional definition of disability and not a medical
one as is currently the case in the Persons with Disabilities Act
1995, and extend the benefit of the exception to all persons, who by
reason of any disability are unable to access the work in its original
format;and
   4. Not restrict conversion only to those formats which are
exclusively for the use of blind persons. Visually challenged persons
should be able to make use of available mainstream formats like PDFs
or Word as well.

The paper also dealt extensively with the Treaty for Improved access
for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Other Reading Disabled, which was
proposed by the World Blind Union in WIPO last year and is coming up
again for discussion later this month.
end of quote

From:  http://www.cis-india.org/advocacy/open-standards/accessibility/blog/=
seminar-on-exceptions-and-limitations-in-copyright

  Seminar on Exceptions and Limitations in Copyright

by Sanchia de Souza — last modified May 21, 2009 06:01 PM

This is a report on a seminar organised by the Department of Higher
Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, and Government of
India on 14 and 15 May 2009, in Kochi, Kerala, to look at exceptions
and limitations in copyright. Programme Manager Nirmita Narsimhan, of
the Centre for Internet and Society, attended the seminar.

CIS Programme Manager Nirmita Narsimhan attended a seminar on
exceptions and limitations in copyright, organised by the Department
of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, and
Government of India on 14 and 15 May 2009, in Kochi, Kerala. The
seminar was intended to bring up key issues affecting access to
knowledge, which are to be taken up by the Standing Committee on
Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) at the World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO) later this month. Resource persons identified for
different topics were eminent scholars, academicians and practitioners
across India. The seminar covered eight topics. On each topic, a paper
was presented by a resource person with commentary by an expert in the
field, after which there was an open discussion.

The first day featured, amongst others, a paper presented by Lawrence
Liang, Distinguished Fellow, CIS. He spoke at length on the exceptions
and limitations for education.

The second day featured a paper by Mr. Madhukar Sinha, former
Registrar of Copyright. Mr. Sinha presented on the topic 'Use of works
by visually impaired and other miscellaneous exceptions of use of
works under Indian Copyright Act: Section 52(1) (q), (r), (s), (t),
(u), (v), and (x), (y), (z)'. His paper went into great length on
definitions of visual disability and tried to evolve an economic model
to support conversion of books into accessible formats for the
visually challenged. The paper drew parallels with existing laws and
best practices in different countries, made a detailed analysis of
exceptions for the blind in the light of the Berne three-step test and
the TRIPS agreement, and concluded by recommending that the Copyright
Act should be amended to include exceptions and limitations which
would permit conversion of books into formats in certain special
cases. Mr. Sinha also recommended that India should look at solutions
which go beyond the limits of the Copyright Act to solve such problems.

The response to this was prepared by Mr. Rahul Cherian of Indo Juris
Law offices. The response paper drew attention to the fact that half
of the total blind population of the world is in India and that
amounts to a population of more than a crore. In the light of the
economic and logistic considerations of our country, the Copyright Act
should

   1. Expressly include a limitation to permit conversion of books
into accessible formats for visually challenged persons;
   2. Permit conversion by stakeholder organizations as well as
interested family members and friends of beneficiaries;
   3. Adopt a functional definition of disability and not a medical
one as is currently the case in the Persons with Disabilities Act
1995, and extend the benefit of the exception to all persons, who by
reason of any disability are unable to access the work in its original
format;and
   4. Not restrict conversion only to those formats which are
exclusively for the use of blind persons. Visually challenged persons
should be able to make use of available mainstream formats like PDFs
or Word as well.

The paper also dealt extensively with the Treaty for Improved access
for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Other Reading Disabled, which was
proposed by the World Blind Union in WIPO last year and is coming up
again for discussion later this month.

Please click here to see the complete text of the paper.

The seminar was extremely productive because there was a strong
recommendation and support for the inclusion of a limitation for
conversion into accessible formats for persons with disabilities in
the Indian Copyright Act. All the members present came to a consensus
that the Indian Government should take a supportive stand towards the
Treaty for the Blind proposed by the WBU at the SCCR this month. A
representative of a leading publishing house committed himself to
working towards providing books to certain organizations for the
blind, if they could assure him that those books would be circulated
only to blind persons and not to others.


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Manon Ress
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Knowledge Ecology International
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