[A2k] Australia opposes treaty to enhance access of blind people to copyright material | EFA

[Manon Ress]

http://www.efa.org.au/2009/05/29/australia-opposes-treaty-to-enhance-access=
-of-blind-people-to-copyright-material/

Australia opposes treaty to enhance access of blind people to
copyright material
Posted by Nic | Copyright, Digital Economy | Friday 29 May 2009 11:56 pm

Cory Doctorow is reporting that Australia is part of a group of
countries that are opposing a treaty that would ensure that people
with a print disability have greater access to published copyright
material.

The draft treaty (MS Doc; Google cache here) includes several
important clauses, including:

     * an exception to copyright infringement for non-profit supply of
accessible versions of works to which a person with a print disability
already has access in a non-accessible form;
     * a statutory licence for reasonable for-profit supply;
     * an exception to anti-circumvention law to allow blind persons
to break technological locks that make the work inaccessible; and
     * most importantly, an exception that allows importing and
exporting of accessible versions of copyright works, enabling them to
be distributed to blind people in other countries.

Please help us ensure that people with a print disability have access
to published copyright material in an accessible form by raising
awareness and contacting the Attorney-General=92s Department.

This is an important proposal before WIPO, and has the support of the
World Blind Union as well as many other NGOs. Whilst some of the goals
of the treaty may be implemented at a national level, WIPO support
means that signatories will be prompted to amend their laws much
quicker. WIPO support is also likely to be required in order to
introduce the import/export exception, which is likely to
significantly reduce the very significant overheads that countries
face in digitising books and creating accessible versions of works.

Australia forms part of Group B, which opposes the treaty, and
includes the US, Canada, New Zealand, the Vatican and Norway in
opposing the treaty. We have not seen an official statement by the
Attorney-General=92s Department on whether Australia supports the treaty
or not. We can hope that Australia is able to lead the way in
expressing support and lobbying other countries in Group B to support
the proposed treaty. The AGD has reportedly said that it will hold
public consultations on the treaty - now is the time to write and
ensure that our representatives know that Australians want improved
access for blind people and those with other reading disabilities.

Cory Doctorow has asked us to

     reblog, tweet, and spread the word, especially to government
officials and activists who work on disabled rights. We know that WIPO
negotiations can be overwhelmed by citizen activists =97 that=92s how we
killed the Broadcast Treaty negotiation a few years back =97 and with
your help, we can make history, and create a world where copyright law
protects the public interest.

Accordingly, please take the time to write to the Attorney-General=92s
Department and express your support for greater access to published
material for people with a print disability. We at EFA strongly
believe that it is simply not acceptable that blind people are denied
access to published material to any greater extent than sighted
people. The treaty that is being proposed greatly simplifies the
responsibilities of countries worldwide to remove barriers to access
for blind people and proposes to introduce a new exception making it
easier for accessible copies of books to be distributed to where they
are needed.

I, along with my colleagues Paul Harpur and Dilan Thampapillai, have
previously written about the difficulty that blind users have
accessing copyright material in Australia. Paul Harpur has been
diligently following up this work with further research on how
Australian universities can help blind students by providing clear
text copies of printed material. In the paper we published, we noted
the complicated and limited nature of Australia=92s statutory licence
and limited exceptions in favour of people with print disabilities. We
argued for the establishment either of a government funded digital
repository or for the creation of an exception in Australian copyright
law to allow markets to provide accessible formats of works where
publishers refused to do so. EFA reiterated these sentiments in our
submission to the Digital Economy Future Directions paper.

More on Twitter: #sccr18.
Thanks to Gwen Hinze and the folks at the EFF for continuing to apply
pressure for reading accessibility. See further: Reading Rights
Coalition and Knowledge Economy International.

***************************************************************************
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