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The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights just finished meeting in Geneva. One of the main topics of discussion was a treaty proposal that would standardize copyright exceptions around the world to benefit blind readers. While there was strong support for the treaty by NGOs and many national governments, there were also competing initiatives put forth by the US and the European Union. Apparently the meeting ended in something of a stalemate.

While the stated goal of the treaty is laudable – readers with disabilities should have equal access to the written word as non-disabled readers – there has been little discussion of how copyright exceptions might impact the ebook market. The premise of the treaty is that publishers are not making books accessible to the disabled, so other organizations should be able to do so without the permission of the copyright owner (see the Chafee Amendment for the US exception), as well as share books with other countries, which the US law doesn’t address.

Concurrent with all this, disability advocates are pushing for commercial ebooks to be accessible (there are several Teleread posts on this). And the DAISY Consortium, which promotes accessibility, is now fully intertwined with the IDPF, and thus ePub (note: there is a piece of assistive technology for the disabled called EasyReader that now reads unencrypted ePub aloud). So the question becomes, is an international treaty that promotes copyright exceptions in conflict with the desire to see the commercial ebook market become accessible?

The answer is yes, and one example as to why can be found in comments made during last years Kindle TTS blow-up. Several authors who opposed Kindle’s unregulated TTS pointed out that disabled readers already had ‘access’ to their works thanks to the US copyright exception. The point is, even though a particular book may not be available in an accessible format, authors had already donated the rights to do so – the ‘exception’ has become the rule.

As Telereaders know from experience, the ebook market is currently a crazy quilt, barely accessible to the average consumer. If readers with disabilities and their advocates want the ebook market to embrace them, they must embrace the ebook market, which may mean backing off the push for an international treaty. As indicated by the results of the last SCCR meeting, its not looking like they will be able to have it both ways.

7 COMMENTS

  1. I’m all in favor of having books accessible to everyone. Our books are available on read-out-loud for Kindle and even for Microsoft Reader (anyone remember Microsoft Reader?). I’m also in favor of people paying for the books. If governments want to provide a subsidy for the handicapped, perhaps they should raise taxes and offer cash, which would allow the handicapped to buy what they need most. Forcing authors and publishers to provide this subsidy does not reduce costs to society, it transfers those costs from the general public to an already (in my opinion) underpaid minority.

    So, yes to accessibility. Not so much to rules that would make it okay for anyone to claim a right to books I, and my authors and artists, have labored over.

    Rob Preece
    Publisher

  2. Yet you’re willing to offer up as a solution the government taking money from other people who have labored over it so that the government can, theoretically, give it to the disabled to buy your books? Is that what I’m hearing?

  3. Hey Joe,
    I know you are a busy guy, fixing the web and all, but please let me know which of my ‘facts’ are inaccurate, so that all may benefit from your enormous intellect.
    Thanks,
    Bob

    Ps. to Rob, I’m glad someone gets it.

  4. Rob Preece wrote:

    “I’m all in favor of having books accessible to everyone. . . . I’m also in favor of people paying for the books.”

    I’m afraid that’s closing the barn door after the horses have left. Your books are being read for free in many places. Are you saying that you want to withdraw your books from libraries? Or have the government give library readers cash that they can spend at bookstores, where they’ll probably buy more prominent authors than yourself?

    Libraries are godsends to publishers and authors: a reader who would only stick to tried-and-true favorites at the bookstore will take a chance with an unknown author at the library, precisely because the library book is free. Then, if they like the book, they’ll likely recommend it to all their friends, some of whom will buy the book. Libraries offer excellent PR for small presses and mid-list authors.

    See what I write below about why this isn’t an issue of free books versus an individual buying a book from a publisher; this is an issue of free books versus no access to library books.

    Bob Martinengo wrote:

    “So the question becomes, is an international treaty that promotes copyright exceptions in conflict with the desire to see the commercial ebook market become accessible?”

    You’ve offered one answer; let me offer another:

    No, because one of the buyers of commercial e-books is libraries, and at this stage, access to e-books at public libraries remains extremely limited.

    For many children and for low-income disabled persons like myself, what is being offered is not an alternative to buying an e-book with our own money; what is being offered is an alternative to going to a public library and staring at the books, thinking, “Gee, I wish I could read these.”

    (Actually, I have a scanner and OCR program, so I can turn most library books into electronic text, but that’s only because of the generosity of friends. Most low-income disabled people don’t have my good fortune.)

    Let me give your readers a sense of how bad the library situation is. Here is a list of three of my favorite authors. The first number shows how many books are available commercially by that author (which I can all borrow via interlibrary loan). The second number shows how many are available in e-book format at my public library. Without the Chafee Amendment, these are the only books that I would have easy access to as a low-income partially sighted person, if I didn’t own a scanner.

    * * *

    Mary Renault: 14 books available commercially; 0 e-books available at my public library.

    Patricia A. McKillip: 26 books available commercially; 0 e-books available at my public library.

    Robert A. Heinlein: 56 books available commercially; 0 e-books available at my public library.

    * * *

    Now here’s what the Chafee Amendment offers me. The first number is for books available at the National Library Service for the Blind, the only public library service for the blind in the U.S. The second is for Bookshare.org, an online service for the disabled that started up several years ago. I’m going to smoosh together the results for audio books, electronic braille, and the electronic format DAISY, because frankly, when you’re blind, you can’t be picky about format; you just want to read the darn text.

    * * *

    Mary Renault: 8 books available at the NLS; 6 books available at Bookshare.

    Patricia A. McKillip: 9 books available at the NLS; 19 books available at Bookshare.

    Robert A. Heinlein: 9 books available at the NLS; 45 books available at Bookshare.

    * * *

    These books wouldn’t be available without copyright exceptions for the disabled in the U.S. Organizations for the blind would have to go through a torturous process of permissions to publish any alternative-format books for the blind. Can you imagine if public libraries had to ask permission from publishers before they were allowed to loan print books? Most publishers today would go all paranoid and say, “No, no – that will cause us to lose sales.”

    If it reaches the point where there are as many accessible e-books available at public libraries as there are books that non-disabled readers can easily access, then we can talk about whether copyright exceptions are causing libraries to buy less e-books. We haven’t come anywhere near that point yet.

    As for the practical matter you raise: I really don’t think that disabled people giving up the right to access books for free – which, as I’ve said, every non-disabled person possessess – will cause publishers to say, “Hurrah! Now we have motive to make e-books acceessible to the blind!” I think pressure needs to be brought to bear on both fronts, because most publishers (I say as a publisher) are naturally inclined to be lazy and greedy. I don’t believe that free access to books by the disabled is going to cause the commercial e-book market to the disabled to collapse – has free access to library books caused non-disabled readers to stop buying books? But publishers will think that this will happen if one puts such an idea in their heads.

  5. Rob Preece wrote:

    “I’m all in favor of having books accessible to everyone. . . . I’m also in favor of people paying for the books.”

    I’m afraid that’s closing the barn door after the horses have left. Your books are being read for free in many places. Are you saying that you want to withdraw your books from libraries? Or hav e the government give library readers cash that they can spend at bookstores, where they’ll probably buy more prominent authors than yourself?

    Libraries are godsends to publishers and authors: a reader who would only stick to tried-and-true favorites at the bookstore will take a chance with an unknown author at the library, precisely because the library book is free. Then, if they like the book, they’ll likely recommend it to all their friends, some of whom will buy the book. Libraries offer excellent PR for small presses and mid-list authors.

    See what I write below about why this isn’t an issue of free books versus an individual buying a book from a publisher; this is an issue of free books versus no access to library books.

    Bob Martinengo wrote:

    “So the question becomes, is an international treaty that promotes copyright exceptions in conflict with the desire to see the commercial ebook market become accessible?”

    You’ve offered one answer; let me offer another:

    No, because one of the buyers of commercial e-books is libraries, and at this stage, access to e-books at public libraries remains extremely limited.

    For many children and for low-income disabled persons like myself, what is being offered is not an alternative to buying an e-book with our own money; what is being offered is an alternative to going to a public library and staring at the books, thinking, “Gee, I wish I could read these.”

    (Actually, I have a scanner and OCR program, so I can turn most library books into electronic text, but that’s only because of the generosity of friends. Most low-income disabled people don’t have my good fortune.)

    Let me give your readers a sense of how bad the library situation is. Here is a list of three of my favorite authors. The first number shows how many books are available commercially by that author (which I can all borrow via interlibrary loan). The second number shows how many are available in e-book format at my public library. Without the Chafee Amendment, these are the only books that I would have easy access to as a low-income partially sighted person, if I didn’t own a scanner.

    * * *

    Mary Renault: 14 books available commercially; 0 e-books available at my public library.

    Patricia A. McKillip: 26 books available commercially; 0 e-books available at my public library.

    Robert A. Heinlein: 56 books available commercially; 0 e-books available at my public library.

    * * *

    Now here’s what the Chafee Amendment offers me. The first number is for books available at the National Library Service for the Blind, the only public library service for the blind in the U.S. The second is for Bookshare.org, an online service for the disabled that started up several years ago. I’m going to smoosh together the results for audio books, electronic braille, and the electronic format DAISY, because frankly, when you’re blind, you can’t be picky about format; you just want to read the darn text.

    * * *

    Mary Renault: 8 books available at the NLS; 6 books available at Bookshare.

    Patricia A. McKillip: 9 books available at the NLS; 19 books available at Bookshare.

    Robert A. Heinlein: 9 books available at the NLS; 45 books available at Bookshare.

    * * *

    These books wouldn’t be available without copyright exceptions for the disabled in the U.S. Organizations for the blind would have to go through a torturous process of permissions to publish any alternative-format books for the blind. Can you imagine if public libraries had to ask permission from publishers before they were allowed to loan print books? Most publishers today would go all paranoid and say, “No, no – that will cause us to lose sales.”

    If it reaches the point where there are as many accessible e-books available at public libraries as there are books that non-disabled readers can easily access, then we can talk about whether copyright exceptions are causing libraries to buy less e-books. We haven’t come anywhere near that point yet.

    As for the practical matter you raise: I really don’t think that disabled people giving up the right to access books for free – which, as I’ve said, every non-disabled person possessess – will cause publishers to say, “Hurrah! Now we have motive to make e-books acceessible to the blind!” I think pressure needs to be brought to bear on both fronts, because most publishers (I say as a publisher) are naturally inclined to be lazy and greedy. I don’t believe that free access to books by the disabled is going to cause the commercial e-book market to the disabled to collapse – has free access to library books caused non-disabled readers to stop buying books? But publishers will think that this will happen if one puts such an idea in their heads.

  6. Dusk,

    When you write “…without copyright exceptions for the disabled in the U.S. Organizations for the blind would have to go through a torturous process of permissions to publish any alternative-format books…” you are overlooking the fact that the NLS and RFB&D were in business for decades befoe the Chafee Amendment (plus you are being melodramatic).

    Permissions are essential to the publishing industry, and a copyright exception should be seen as a last resort. Treaty or no treaty, blind readers should expect to be asked to frequently re-justify the need for exceptions, especially as ebooks become more prevalent.

    You make a good point that access is also in the hands of the reader, in that scanners and OCR software are cheap and plentiful. Lets get one thing straight – accessibility is mostly an economic issue. Their are plenty of poor people with less access to books than some blind people.

    My point is that publishers need economic incentives to publish in accessible formats, and a ‘global copyright exception’ is hardly incentivizing (sp?).

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