Copyright Squabble Threatens Accessibility Boost for the Blind

Ars reports on an international treaty being negotiated that would relax restrictions on versions of books made to be more accessible to blind people. Unfortunately, the MPAA and similar organizations have been lobbying aggressively to have the treaty strengthen copyright protections as well, and could derail the entire process. Quoting: "In principle, the digital revolution should have dramatically improved blind peoples' access to the world's information. ... Unfortunately, copyright law often stands in the way. Legal restrictions on circumventing digital rights management (DRM) technologies can limit the accessibility of e-books. And in some countries, libraries and other non-profits must seek permission from the creator of each work before producing accessible versions of books in other formats. Getting permission is a laborious process that, in practice, means that only a small fraction of available works is ever converted into accessible formats. ... The pending WIPO treaty would change that. It has two core goals that everyone we talked to supports in principle: requiring countries to enact an exception for blind people similar to America's Chaffee Amendment and allowing nonprofit organizations that help blind people to share accessible works across international borders. ... Negotiators had already excluded audiovisual works from the treaty in order to placate the movie studios. But to the frustration of treaty advocates, Hollywood has gotten involved in the negotiations anyway."

Comments

confused

[schneidafunk]

If I own an e-book, how is it illegal to use a text-to-speech program to hear it?

Re:confused

[Shagg]

Because you often have to break the DRM in order for your text-to-speech program to access the content.

Re:confused

[gstoddart]

Why, because someone else could hear it, of course. You could even use it to read to children at libraries, and the right holders wouldn't get any money.

The big problem as the copyright cartel doesn't give a damn about anything but their own profits. They want to force their own veto on all forms of technology lest someone accidentally hear a Brittany Spears song they didn't get paid for.

They're entirely willing to scuttle most forms of technological progress to be damned sure they're in control of it.

The fact that apparently Hollywood is involved in treaty negotiations should tell you it's their interests government is looking out for, not yours.

Re:confused

[Sarten-X]

If your text-to-speech program can read the text, your text-to-text program can copy the text to somewhere else.

Of course, the text-to-speech program isn't illegal, but redistributing the copyrighted text is. The copyright holders recognize that the only remotely-feasible way to stop illegal distribution is to make it difficult to make copies. That means that legally accessing the work becomes collateral damage, but that's perfectly acceptable to a special-interest group like the MPAA. They're not interested in helping the blind. They're interested in helping copyright holders.

Unfortunately, there is no "everybody playing nicely together" lobby.

Re:confused

[Shagg]

They're interested in helping copyright holders.

To be more specific, they're only interested in helping themselves. They couldn't care less about other copyright holders.

Re:confused

[MitchDev]

The reasons to scrap copyright just keeping piling up...

Re:confused

[RevWaldo]

IIRC the other issue was the licensing of audio books, which text-to-speech readers would somewhat compete with.

.

Re:confused

[Shagg]

Yep, that was the excuse given when the authors guild was trying to prevent e-book manufacturers from including a text-to-speech feature.

Re:confused

[EGenius007]

The copyright holders recognize that the only remotely-feasible way to stop illegal distribution is to make it difficult to make copies.

The copyright holders desperately want to believe that there exists a feasible way to stop illegal distribution and that they can do so by diminishing the quality of their product for legitimate customers, in part by making it difficult to make copies. (FTFY).

Re:confused

[idontgno]

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

-- U.N. Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

(My nominee for best quote by any fictional character)

Re:confused

[Khashishi]

Bad laws are almost never repealed by petitions, demonstrations, or legal means. They are only repealed when brave people are willing to break the law. Then, the laws can judged in the courtroom, and hopefully be rendered invalid. Kinda weird system we have, but breaking the law is your patriotic duty.

Re: confused

[cpt kangarooski]

No, copyright doesn't include a right to control works' accessibility to the blind under certain circumstances, meaning that in such a case, there's no right to be licensed. See 17 USC 121. DRM remains a problem, though.

As a blind reader myself

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just like to say thank you to all the hard working dedicated people who make sure that I always have access to accessible ebooks via usenet and torrents, regardless of how many politicians the MPAA buys. And just so it's clear, yes I am really blind, and I am entirely sincere. Were it not for such altruistic individuals, getting my degree would have been much harder.

Progress

[Libertarian001]

MPAA and RIAA... Standing in the way of progress for 100 years. Thank you for continuing to provide added value to our shared culture.

Wront title

[Anonymous Coward]

It should read Greed Threatens Accessibility Boost for the Blind

If you're allowed access to the material...

[girlinatrainingbra]

If you're allowed access to the material..., such as being able to check it out of the library or access it while on the library property or on the library internet connection, then why should there be any limits on transforming the data from one medium to another in order to allow a blind reader to know the words, or to allow automated voice recognition to create captions on the fly to allow deaf library patrons to be able to access and understand movies or disks that do not have intrinsic text captions embedded into the video stream or overlaid on the video itself?
.
That sort of transformative change, on the fly, to allow immediate access and use ought to be fully exempt from "copyright restrictions" just as creating a temporary copy in RAM on a computer as the data is in flight from your internet connection through your computer onto your screen also does not count as copyright infringement!!!!
.
This must be SO frustrating for the people who really need this access!!! How can we fix this? How can we help??? Is there something to be done?? Somewhere to sign up??? Any clues?

Not just the MPAA

[langelgjm]

There are a lot of big name companies opposing this treaty, including ones you wouldn't expect. The "Intellectual property owners association", which is headed up by representatives from Exxon Mobil, GE, and Johnson & Johnson wrote a letter opposing the treaty. Their concern is that they think it sets a bad precedent... get this.. for PATENT law:

By isolating L/Es (limitations and exceptions) from the IP holders’ rights, the VIP (visually impaired persons) treaty negotiations could also set a dangerous precedent for other areas of IP law, particularly patent law.

Source.

Let's ignore the massive expansion of copyright without any mention of fair use through free trade agreements, and complain that the one real attempt to clarify limitations and exceptions is "imbalanced." Also from the letter:

"A balanced approach to copyright protection cannot exist when rights and exceptions are treated separately."

That's true, but not for the reasons they think.

Basically, they are saying they would rather blind people have fewer things to read than to even HINT that copyright protection is currently too strong, since that might possibly induce people to question other areas of IP law, like patents. They ought to be ashamed.