Books for the Blind - you need to support this!

About 60 countries have exemptions to their copyright laws that allow copyright works to be converted into the special formats needed by visually impaired people, including Braille, large print and digital audio books  But these exemptions don't apply worldwide, and the special formats can't be transferred from one country to another.  The result is that visually impaired people have limited access to written material that most of us take for granted.  Even if a suitable format is created in one country, it can't be exported to another country.  Each country has to repeat the work again.  That is expensive, and that's why people with visual impairment don't have access to as many books as the rest of us.

Now a new international treaty has been agreed at a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) conference which would solve these problems anywhere in the world.  But it won't come into force until a certain number of countries ratify it.  If the USA ratifies it, this would encourage other countries.  But there are people in the USA who don't want it to happen.  The main objector is likely to be Hollywood,  which has been lobbying President Obama.  Film makers fear that there the new treaty would be abused by film pirates.

I appeal to the best traditions of the USA.  Lobby your polititians now to ratify this vital new treaty.  If the treaty is adopted, if someone in Britain converts a book for the visually impaired in Britain, it would immediately be available to US citizens.  It would no longer have to be converted for each country separately.  And people in poor countries would have the  same access.

We aren't trying to steal your films to show to blind people!

The treaty is called the "Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled"