I’m not, or can’t go to this but do what you must to get the word out! |
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), introduced by
Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay. 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's 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.
Update 2: Countries that are on the right side of this include,
"Latin American and Caribbean region including (Uruguay, Argentina,
Chile,
Jamaica)
as well as Asia and Africa."
Update 3: Canada is upset with me. That's fine, I'm upset with Canada.
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.
Source:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/29/usa-canada-and-the-e.html
