The EU position came out in a proposal for a Joint Recommendation with 9 articles in 11 pages. It is hard to believe but it is worst than the US proposal and it is even worst than nothing. It is an outrageous "roll back" recommendation. It does make clear who's the boss in the commission. The publishers apparently. Their proposal is bold. Here's a quick read:

A new copyright bill in Canada includes extensive provisions about the export of accessible works for persons with a “print disability.” The good news is that they embrace a reasonably good definition of disabilities covered. It goes down hill from there.

The Chapter FIVE (Institutional Arrangements) of ACTA is short. In less than 4 pages (pp 33-36) the negotiators "hereby establish" and "Oversight Steering Committee" (the OSC). Of course all of this chapter can be revisited later (see footnote 73) but let's examine what is proposed now.

When I first heard David Mann representing the World Blind Union at the information session of November 2003 SCCR, call for the "creation of international agreements which would allow the unhindered transfer of accessible material created in one country to blind and partially sighted people in another country", I did not know that this issue had been the subject of a WIPO/UNESCO report in 1983, which had then proposed Model Provisions Concer

Next week (March 8-12) delegates from various developing countries will gather in Washington, DC for a week long "INTERNATIONAL TRAINING FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND COUNTRIES IN TRANSITION ON EMERGING ISSUES IN COPYRIGHT AND RELATED RIGHTS AND ISSUES PERTAINING TO BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED PERSONS" co-organised by the US Copyright Office and WIPO. We hope that at least 6 Myths about the treaty for people with disabilities proposed by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay will be clearly debunked once and for all during the training.

12:45 pm Geneva, Switzerland.

Today, December 15, 2009 at the 19th session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights at WIPO, member states started to consider the proposed treaty to facilitate access to copyright materials for people with reading disabilities. Ecuador, Brazil and Paraguay, the sponsors of the treaty briefly presented their proposal. We then had a break for lunch and attended an informal session. On the table right outside of the main room, I found a joint statement dated of SCCR 17 (November 2008) opposing the treaty.

There will be new participants at the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (Nineteenth Session) Geneva, December 14 to 18, 2009.

Here is the lists of non-governmental organizations, which have requested to be granted observer status in sessions of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), according to SCCR’s Rules of Procedure (see document SCCR/1/2, paragraph 10).

• African Union of the Blind (AFUB)
• All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB)
• Asociación Civil Tiflonexos – Biblioteca Tiflolibros (Tiflolibros),

Attached are several reply comments to the Copyright Office and the USPTO regarding the WIPO draft proposal to facilitate access to copyrighted works for persons, who are blind or have other reading disabilities, in response to the Federal Register Notice of October 13, 2009.

The deadline for filing was Friday, December 4, 2009. Eventually the Copyright Office will publish all of the reply comments on the Internet, and we will provide a link.

We now have comments received from various parties, including:

Washington, DC. December 1, 2009. Five of the nation’s most prominent public interest groups today called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to block the proposed merger by entertainment giants Ticketmaster and Live Nation. DOJ is currently reviewing the merger and is expected to make a decision in the next month. The organizations include Consumer Action, the National Consumers League (NCL), the American Antitrust Institute, the Consumer Federation of America and Knowledge Ecology International.

Now that we know who are the people opposed to an international treaty to facilitate access and sharing of accessible formats of works for blind people and people with reading disabilities, let’s read what their arguments against the treaty are.

I was able to highlight 10 main arguments and you can check in their own words below if you do not believe me: