[Missouri-l] Fw: [acb-l] FW: Cory Doctorow: USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill treaty to protect blind people's access to written material

[Jeanne Fike]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mitch Pomerantz" <mitch.pomerantz at earthlink.net>
To: "'ACB Discussion List'" <acb-l at acb.org>
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 2:27 PM
Subject: [acb-l] FW: Cory Doctorow: USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill 
treaty to protect blind people's access to written material


> FYI:
>
>
> Mitch
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Manon Ress [mailto:manon.ress at keionline.org]
> Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 2:41 AM
> To: RRC
> Subject: Cory Doctorow: USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill treaty to
> protect blind people's access to written material
>
> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/29/usa-canada-and-the-e.html
>
> USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill treaty to protect blind people's
> access to written material
>
> Posted by Cory Doctorow, May 29, 2009 1:52 AM
>
> Right now, in Geneva, at the UN's World Intellectual Property 
> Organization,
> history is being made. For the first time in WIPO history, the body that
> creates the world's copyright treaties is attempting to write a copyright
> treaty dedicated to protecting the interests of copyright users, not just
> copyright owners.
>
> At issue is a treaty to protect the rights of blind people and people with
> other disabilities that affect reading (people with dyslexia, people who 
> are
> paralyzed or lack arms or hands for turning pages).
> This should be a slam dunk: who wouldn't want a harmonized system of
> copyright exceptions that ensure that it's possible for disabled people to
> get access to the written word?
>
> The USA, that's who. The Obama administration's negotiators have joined 
> with
> a rogue's gallery of rich country trade representatives to oppose 
> protection
> for blind people. Other nations and regions opposing the rights of blind
> people include Canada and the EU.
>
> Update: Also opposing rights for disabled people: Australia, New Zealand,
> the Vatican and Norway.
>
> Activists at WIPO are desperate to get the word out. They're tweeting 
> madly
> from the negotiation (technically called the 18th session of the Standing
> Committee on Copyright and Related Rights) publishing editorials on the
> Huffington Post, etc.
>
> Here's where you come in: this has to get wide exposure, to get cast as
> broadly as possible, so that it will find its way into the ears of the
> obscure power-brokers who control national trade-negotiators.
>
> I don't often ask readers to do things like this, but please, forward this
> post to people you know in the US, Canada and the EU, and ask them 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 -- that's how we killed the Broadcast
> Treaty negotiation a few years back -- and with your help, we can make
> history, and create a world where copyright law protects the public
> interest.
>
>     I am attending a meeting in Geneva of the World Intellectual Property
> Organization (WIPO). This evening the United States government, in
> combination with other high income countries in "Group B" is seeking to
> block an agreement to discuss a treaty for persons who are blind or have
> other reading disabilities.
>
>     The proposal for a treaty is supported by a large number of civil
> society NGOs, the World Blind Union, the National Federation of the Blind 
> in
> the US, the International DAISY Consortium, Recording for the Blind &
> Dyslexic (RFB&D), Bookshare.Org, and groups representing persons with
> reading disabilities all around the world.
>
>     The main aim of the treaty is to allow the cross-border import and
> export of digital copies of books and other copyrighted works in formats
> that are accessible to persons who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic 
> or
> have other reading disabilities, using special devices that present text 
> as
> refreshable braille, computer generated text to speech, or large type. 
> These
> works, which are expensive to make, are typically created under national
> exceptions to copyright law that are specifically written to benefit 
> persons
> with disabilities...
>
>     The opposition from the United States and other high income countries
> is due to intense lobbying from a large group of publishers that oppose a
> "paradigm shift," where treaties would protect consumer interests, rather
> than expand rights for copyright owners.
>
>     The Obama Administration was lobbied heavily on this issue, including
> meetings with high level White House officials. Assurances coming into the
> negotiations this week that things were going in the right direction have
> turned out to be false, as the United States delegation has basically read
> from a script written by lobbyists for publishers, extolling the virtues 
> of
> market based solutions, ignoring mountains of evidence of a "book famine"
> and the insane legal barriers to share works.
>
> Obama Joins Group to Block Treaty for Blind and Other Reading Disabilities
>
> COPYRIGHT EXCEPTIONS AND LIMITATIONS
>
> Twitter feed for #sccr18
>
> ***************************************************************************
> Manon Ress
> manon.ress at keionline.org
> Knowledge Ecology International
> 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
> Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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