Today 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.
1. Our CEO, Jim Fruchterman, participated in the drafting process of the proposed World Blind Union treaty under discussion at the World Intellectual Property Organization. We support the treaty and recommend that the United States support this treaty.
2. The main benefit of this treaty will be to extend the benefits of the enlightened approach demonstrated by the United States in adopting the Section 121 exemption, to all people with print disabilities worldwide, through setting global norms around disability access. We think the benefits to society will be especially notable in less developed countries.
3. A secondary benefit of the treaty will be to increase cross-border access and cooperation around accessible materials, reducing the need for duplicative and expensive work. Cross-border importation might well represent the majority of accessible works made available to people with disabilities in many developing countries.
4. The publishing industry consistently fails to make accessible materials available for sale, even when it’s possible and there’s a high degree of willingness on the part of people with disabilities and schools to pay for such materials. The recent Amazon/Authors Guild dispute has pointed out to people with disabilities how dangerous it is when their civil rights are easily trampled via assertion of contractual rights, when authors demanded the silencing of the read-aloud function on the Amazon Kindle and this function was disabled within a month.
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