On November 23, 2009, Pablo Lecuona from Tiflolibros Argentina sent a letter to Kareem A. Dale, the Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy, asking the Obama Administration to support the WIPO Copyright treaty for the blind, visually impaired and people with reading disabilities. Mr. Lecuona has also submitted this letter to the U.S. Copyright Office, and the USPTO as a reply in the request for comments on the WIPO Treaty proposal. Among other things, the Tifloibros letter says:
If the WIPO Treaty for people with reading disabilities is enacted, Tiflolibros will be able to share more than 45,000 Spanish language works in accessible formats with people who are blind or have other reading disabilities living in the United States.
The full text of the Tiflolibros Letter to Kareem Dale follows:
Kareem A. Dale
Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy:
Via email:
Re: Support for the WIPO treaty to facilitate access and sharing of works for people with reading disabilities
Dear Mr. Dale:
My name is Pablo Lecuona and I am the president and co-funder of Tiflolibros, an online library for Spanish speaking blind and reading disabled persons based in Argentina.
I am writing to ask for the United States government’s support for a WIPO treaty to facilitate access and sharing of works for people with reading disabilities.
Tiflolibros has the largest collection of spanish works in accessible formats for Spanish speaking persons in the world. At present, 92 percent of new Spanish language accessible works produced by Tiflolibros are done under our national copyright exception, 5.5 percent are books that are in the public domain, and only 2.5 percent are produced under voluntary licenses from copyright owners.
Most of the accessible works produced in the United States are available only on English. I believe there are more than 28 million people in the United States that speak Spanish at home. For Spanish speaking persons with reading disabilities, there are relatively few books available in accessible formats.
If the WIPO Treaty for people with reading disabilities is enacted, Tiflolibros will be able to share more than 45,000 Spanish language works in accessible formats with people who are blind or have other reading disabilities living in the United States.
Tiflolibros would also be able to share its extensive collections of accessible Spanish language works with other countries, including but not limited to the eighteen Spanish speaking countries in Latin America, including the many countries where accessible works are extremely scare.
If the WIPO Copyright treaty fails, Tiflolibros will legally only be able to share approximately 6,000 works with persons living outside of Argentina.
It is a human rights imperative for all Spanish speaking persons around the world that the treaty succeeds, so that Tiflolibros can share all of its accessible works with other countries, and Argentina can import works we do not have from the United States, Spain and other countries with large collections.
Sincerely,
Pablo Lecuona
Tiflolibros Argentina
Address: Adolfo Alsina 2604 (1090) – Buenos Aires – Argentina
Tel. (54-11) 4951-1039
e-mail: Tiflolibros@tiflolibros.com.ar
Web: http://www.tiflolibros .com.ar
A project of Tiflonexos Asociación Civil