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