copyright
Six Myths about the treaty for people with disabilities that should be debunked next week?
Submitted by Manon Ress on 5. March 2010 - 15:44Next 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.
The American Council of the Blind (ACB) & the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) comments on treaty for access
Submitted by Manon Ress on 14. November 2009 - 11:43The American Council of the Blind (ACB) and the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) submitted their comments in response to a Notice of Inquiry put forth by the United States Copyright Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). ACB is a leading U.S. consumer organization of blind or visually impaired individuals. Access to information is a critical area of interest for ACB, and expanding the availability of accessible format materials is viewed as highly beneficial to the blindness community in the United States and throughout the world.
LCA, EFF, and COSLA filed comments regarding the treaty to facilitate access and sharing for people with reading disabilities.
Submitted by Manon Ress on 14. November 2009 - 6:24The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) consists of the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries.
Collectively, the ALA, ACRL and ARL represent over 139,000 libraries in the United States employing approximately 350,000 librarians and other personnel.
Benetech & Bookshare file with LOC and USPTO on WIPO treaty for reading disabilities
Submitted by Manon Ress on 13. November 2009 - 20:51Today Benetech, a leading Silicon Valley technology nonprofit and operator of the Bookshare online library for people with print disabilities submitted comments to the US Copyright Office and the USPTO on the topic of access to copyrighted works for people with print disabilities. Here are the major points, the submission is attached at the end of this blog.
KEI, ICDRI, AHEAD, NYBIDA and Lighthouse file comments on WIPO treaty for reading disabilities
Submitted by Manon Ress on 13. November 2009 - 13:34Today five groups filed the attached comments to the U.S. Copyright Office and the USPTO regarding the WIPO draft proposal to facilitate access to copyrighted works for persons, who are blind, have visual impairments and other reading disabilities in response to the Federal Register Notice of October 13, 2009.
The comments were signed by
- Dr. Manon Ress, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
People vs. Authors Guild
When Amazon released the Kindle 2 electronic book reader on February 9, 2009, the company announced that the device would read e-books aloud using text-to-speech (TTS) technology. Under pressure from the Authors Guild, Amazon has announced that it will give authors and publishers the ability to disable the text-to-speech function on any or all of their e-books available for the Kindle 2.
Copyright Limitations & Exceptions, and User Rights
Submitted by Manon Ress on 12. August 2009 - 17:34KEI's work on limitations and exceptions to the exclusive rights of copyright owners covers a wide range of issues, in many different fora. KEI has worked on reading disabilities, education, libraries, the relationship between copyright L&E and technical protection measures or DRM technologies, the scope of fair use, and rights of creative communities to reuse and re-purpose works, access to out of print or orphaned works, compulsory licensing of copyrighted works, the control of excessive pricing, and limits on the use of contracts that undermine user rights.
Group B efforts to block discussion of treaty
Submitted by James Love on 29. May 2009 - 2:17Group B has offered amendments to a proposed conclusion for the WIPO SCCR 18 meeting. The amendments are designed to eliminate any agreement to discuss a treaty for blind and reading disabled persons at the next meeting of the SCCR. The United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, the Holy See (the Vatican), the members of the European Union and other high income countries have joined in this statement. Later the EU offered an even blunter opposition to the treaty proposals. I have blogged about our disappointment in the Obama Administration on the Huffington Post here.
