Copyright Squabble Threatens Accessibility Boost for the Blind 61
Ars reports on an international treaty being negotiated that would relax restrictions on versions of books made to be more accessible to blind people. Unfortunately, the MPAA and similar organizations have been lobbying aggressively to have the treaty strengthen copyright protections as well, and could derail the entire process. Quoting:
"In principle, the digital revolution should have dramatically improved blind peoples' access to the world's information. ... Unfortunately, copyright law often stands in the way. Legal restrictions on circumventing digital rights management (DRM) technologies can limit the accessibility of e-books. And in some countries, libraries and other non-profits must seek permission from the creator of each work before producing accessible versions of books in other formats. Getting permission is a laborious process that, in practice, means that only a small fraction of available works is ever converted into accessible formats. ... The pending WIPO treaty would change that. It has two core goals that everyone we talked to supports in principle: requiring countries to enact an exception for blind people similar to America's Chaffee Amendment and allowing nonprofit organizations that help blind people to share accessible works across international borders. ... Negotiators had already excluded audiovisual works from the treaty in order to placate the movie studios. But to the frustration of treaty advocates, Hollywood has gotten involved in the negotiations anyway."
Re:confused (Score:5, Informative)
Because you often have to break the DRM in order for your text-to-speech program to access the content.
Not just the MPAA (Score:5, Informative)
There are a lot of big name companies opposing this treaty, including ones you wouldn't expect. The "Intellectual property owners association", which is headed up by representatives from Exxon Mobil, GE, and Johnson & Johnson wrote a letter opposing the treaty. Their concern is that they think it sets a bad precedent... get this.. for PATENT law:
By isolating L/Es (limitations and exceptions) from the IP holders’ rights, the VIP (visually impaired persons) treaty negotiations could also set a dangerous precedent for other areas of IP law, particularly patent law.
Source [keionline.org].
Let's ignore the massive expansion of copyright without any mention of fair use through free trade agreements, and complain that the one real attempt to clarify limitations and exceptions is "imbalanced." Also from the letter:
"A balanced approach to copyright protection cannot exist when rights and exceptions are treated separately."
That's true, but not for the reasons they think.
Basically, they are saying they would rather blind people have fewer things to read than to even HINT that copyright protection is currently too strong, since that might possibly induce people to question other areas of IP law, like patents. They ought to be ashamed.
Re: confused (Score:4, Informative)
No, copyright doesn't include a right to control works' accessibility to the blind under certain circumstances, meaning that in such a case, there's no right to be licensed. See 17 USC 121. DRM remains a problem, though.