World Intellectual Property Organization negotiators should address the...
World Intellectual Property Organization negotiators should address the impediments to reproducing and distributing copyrighted materials in formats accessible by the visually impaired without addressing other copyright-related agendas, said MPAA and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) in a joint…
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statement Thursday. The process behind WIPO’s Visually Impaired Persons Treaty should have the two goals of “creating exceptions and limitations in copyright law which allow published works to be converted into formats accessible to the blind and print disabled, and permitting accessible copies of published works to be shared across international borders,” the groups said. While seeking to accomplish those goals, “this important Treaty must not be a vehicle for extraneous agendas,” they said. NFB President Marc Maurer said those extraneous agendas include eliminating or expanding copyright protections. Some parties are looking to accomplish either of those goals through this treaty, but they're irrelevant to the central goal of increasing materials available to the visually impaired, he said on a call with reporters Thursday. MPAA CEO Chris Dodd said negotiators should ignore irrelevant copyright issues such as discussions of fair use and technological protection measures. “Put this very complicated, this very contentious issue aside, and get the treaty done,” he said. Maurer cited the Harry Potter series as a copyrighted work that’s in high demand but has to be reproduced in an accessible format in every country rather than distributed across borders. “We have to reproduce [the books] in the U.S. even though they've been reproduced in the U.K.,” he said. Negotiators should establish a system so those seeking to reproduce copyrighted works in formats for the visually impaired don’t find “that the tests outweigh the practicality of reproduction,” Maurer said. It’s important to keep the costs of reproduction low, “so that we can get more literature in more people’s hands,” he said.