International Copyright Concerns for Blind Readers

doc. in inglese introdotto da f.fogarolo su listavista, 31\05\2009, h. 09.20.

Ho ricevuto da una lista americana il testo che segue.
Purtroppo non sono in grado di fare una traduzione, spero
che qualcuno in lista possa farlo per far circolare
adeguatamente in Italia questo interessante documento.
In sintesi, si tratta si un appello della NFB (Federazione
Nazionale dei Ciechi USA) riguardo il dibattito che sta
avvenendo a Ginevra, in sede ONU, per una nuova
regolamentazione del diritto d'autore e che vedrebbe i paesi
ricchi (USA, Canada, UE, Australia, Nuova Zelanda, Norvegia
e, curiosamente, anche Vaticano) opporsi ad ogni tentativo
di riconoscere i diritti di accesso delle persone con
disabilità.
Secondo l'NFB la loro opposizione è sostenuta da una intensa
lobbying di editori che si oppongono fermamente al
riconoscimento formale di qualche minimo diritto anche da
parte dei consumatori e puntano piuttosto ad estendere
quelli dei titolari di diritti d'autore.
Sarebbe importante saperne di più. Anche per capire da chi è
rappresentata l'Italia in questa commissione.

Ed ora, un po' di pubblicità

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frye, Dan (by way of David Andrews
)"
To:
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 9:30 PM
Subject: [Blindmath] International Copyright Concerns for
Blind Readers

Colleagues:

I am circulating a lengthy post regarding efforts to limit
an
international treaty that would allow for rules that
parallel
existing domestic exceptions to the copyright law for blind
people to
govern in an international context. Please help bring
pressure on
authorities by letting President Obama know that these
provisions
would be useful, and ask him to direct his representatives
to abandon
their hostile posture toward aspects of the treaty that
would be
helpful. You may Email your concerns to:

President@whitehouse.gov

The post follows:

Right now, in Geneva, at the UN's World Intellectual
Property
Organization, history is being made. For the first time in
WIPO
history, the body that creates the world's copyright
treaties is
attempting to write a copyright treaty dedicated to
protecting the
interests of copyright users, not just copyright owners.

At issue is a treaty to protect the rights of blind people
and people
with other disabilities that affect reading (people with
dyslexia,
people who are paralyzed or lack arms or hands for turning
pages).
This should be a slam dunk: who wouldn't want a harmonized
system of
copyright exceptions that ensure that it's possible for
disabled
people to get access to the written word?

The USA, that's who. The Obama administration'

US negotiators have joined with a rogue's gallery of rich
country
trade representatives to oppose protection for blind people.
Other
nations and regions opposing the rights of blind people
include
Canada and the EU.

Update: Also opposing rights for disabled people: Australia,
New
Zealand, the Vatican and Norway.

Activists at WIPO are desperate to get the word out. They're
tweeting
madly from the negotiation (technically called the 18th
session of
the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights)
publishing
editorials on the Huffington Post, etc.

Here's where you come in: this has to get wide exposure, to
get cast
as broadly as possible, so that it will find its way into
the ears of
the obscure power-brokers who control national
trade-negotiators.

I don't often ask readers to do things like this, but
please, forward
this post to people you know in the US, Canada and the EU,
and ask
them to reblog, tweet, and spread the word, especially to
government
officials and activists who work on disabled rights. We know
that
WIPO negotiations can be overwhelmed by citizen activists --
that's
how we killed the Broadcast Treaty negotiation a few years
back --
and with your help, we can make history, and create a world
where
copyright law protects the public interest.

I am attending a meeting in Geneva of the World Intellectual
Property
Organization (WIPO). This evening the United States
government, in
combination with other high income countries in "Group B" is
seeking
to block an agreement to discuss a treaty for persons who
are blind
or have other reading disabilities.

The proposal for a treaty is supported by a large number of
civil
society NGOs, the World Blind Union, the National Federation
of the
Blind in the US, the International DAISY Consortium,
Recording for
the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D), Bookshare.Org, and groups
representing
persons with reading disabilities all around the world.

The main aim of the treaty is to allow the cross-border
import and
export of digital copies of books and other copyrighted
works in
formats that are accessible to persons who are blind,
visually
impaired, dyslexic or have other reading disabilities, using
special
devices that present text as refreshable braille, computer
generated
text to speech, or large type. These works, which are
expensive to
make, are typically created under national exceptions to
copyright
law that are specifically written to benefit persons with
disabilities.

..

The opposition from the United States and other high income
countries
is due to intense lobbying from a large group of publishers
that
oppose a "paradigm shift,"

where treaties would protect consumer interests, rather than
expand
rights for copyright owners.

The Obama Administration was lobbied heavily on this issue,
including
meetings with high level White House officials. Assurances
coming
into the negotiations this week that things were going in
the right
direction have turned out to be false, as the United States
delegation has basically read from a script written by
lobbyists for
publishers, extolling the virtues of market based solutions,
ignoring
mountains of evidence of a "book famine" and the insane
legal
barriers to share works.

Obama Joins Group to Block Treaty for Blind and Other
Reading
Disabilities COPYRIGHT EXCEPTIONS AND LIMITATIONS Twitter
feed for #sccr18

With Kind Regards,

***********************
Daniel B. Frye, J.D.
Associate Editor
The Braille Monitor
National Federation of the Blind
Office of the President
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
Telephone: (410) 659-9314 Ext. 2208
Mobile: (410) 241-7006
Fax: (410) 685-5653
Email: DFrye@nfb.org
Web Address: www.nfb.org
"Voice of the Nation's Blind"