Deeplinks Blog posts about Reading Accessibility
Earlier this month we wrote about potential malicious behavior in Adobe's e-reader software, “Digital Editions.” There were several independent reports claiming that Adobe's software was sending back to Adobe—in the clear—a list of books read in the software. There were also independent reports that the program was sending back lists of books on an attached e-reader, even if those books had never been opened in ADE itself—in other words, collecting information not just about the book you are reading now, but your electronic library.
Fair use enjoyed a major victory in court today. In Authors Guild v. HathiTrust, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a decision that strongly underscores a fair use justification for a major book scanning program. For those counting along at home, today's decision marks another in a serious streak of judicial findings of fair use for mass book digitization, including Authors Guild v. Google, Cambridge University Press v. Becker, and the district court opinion in the HathiTrust case itself.
This morning the House Judiciary Committee held the latest in a series of hearings designed to set the stage for a deeper dive into copyright law and its discontents. Last week, the Committee heard from the "copyright sector"; this week it was a "tech sector." (We still believe those are essentially meaningless categorizations, but anyway). In sharp contrast to last week's hearing, which was largely populated by the usual suspects — industry association representatives, heads of traditional content corporations and so on — the witnesses this week came from a variety of small to mid-size companies and nonprofits that are experimenting with new technologies and new business models.
There is a chronic lack of material in formats accessible to the world’s visually impaired and print disabled citizens. Visually impaired people face a “book famine” in which 95% of books published in rich countries and 99% in poorer countries are never converted into accessible formats such as audio, large print or braille.1 The fastest way to address this famine is to change the copyright law: create exceptions and limitations that permit shifting of content into formats accessible to the blind, and allow cross-border exchange of content in accessible formats.
The Obama Administration has been slowly ramping up its attention to intellectual property issues. Over the past few months, we've seen an IP "summit" at the White House. We've seen the successful nomination of a new cabinet-level "IP Czar" position. We've seen the announcement of a new DOJ task force for IP issues. What does it all portend?
Unfortunately, many signs suggest that the administration is paying far more attention to the interests of the entertainment industry than to the public good. At the same time, there are a few positive efforts and indications, so we're holding out hope that things could improve.
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