Copyright Industries Oppose Treaty For the Blind 135
langelgjm sends in a piece from Wired, which details the background of a proposed treaty to allow cross-border sharing of books for the blind — a treaty which is opposed by an almost unified front of business interests in the US, with the exception of Google. "A broad swath of American enterprise ranging from major software makers to motion picture and music companies are joining forces to oppose a new international treaty that would make books more accessible to the blind. With the exception of Google, almost every major industry player has expressed disapproval of the treaty, which would allow cross-border sharing of digitized books accessible to the blind and visually impaired. Google's chief copyright counsel believes the industry-wide opposition is mainly due to 'opposition to a larger agenda of limitations and exceptions... We believe this is an unproductive approach to solving what is a discrete, long-standing problem that affects a group that needs and deserves the protections of the international community.'"
the bottom line (Score:4, Informative)
having read more than this article about it:
copyright holders, for the most part, are against ANYTHING that decrease their rights in any form. doesn't matter if it's for blind, crippled orphans. they should pay too. slippery slope and all that. in one of the articles the mafiaa lawyer actually said that. slippery slope in decreasing any copyright restrictions. they have worked too hard to get them increased to see things start going the other way....
gods, i hate the monkeys on this planet sometimes...
Screw the blind on principle (Score:5, Informative)
we already have this in the United States (Score:5, Informative)
bookshare.org legally operates out of an exemption from copyright law that allows the visually impaired to subscribe to a library of ebooks in an accessible format. (DAISY)
I imagine the treaty just extends this internationally.
--Sam