Showing posts with label ease copyright restrictions on blind and visually impaired persons' access to digital formats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ease copyright restrictions on blind and visually impaired persons' access to digital formats. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Stevie Wonder to UN: Ease Copyrights for the Blind; ABC News via Associated Press, 9/20/10

Bradley S. Klapper, ABC News via Associated Press; Stevie Wonder to UN: Ease Copyrights for the Blind: Stevie Wonder urges UN diplomats to pass treaty helping the blind or face his musical wrath:

"Stevie Wonder pressed global copyright overseers on Monday to help blind and visually impaired people access millions of science, history and other audiobooks, which they cannot read in electronic form.

The blind singer told the U.N.'s 184-nation World Intellectual Property Organization that more than 300 million people who "live in the dark" want to "read their way into light," and the current copyright system denies them an equal opportunity...

But the problem of access for such copyrighted material goes to the heart of a growing crisis in the world of copyright protection, as the Internet increasingly muddies laws that were created for traditional media. Whereas wide exceptions exist for books in Braille, WIPO officials say there is confusion over how these benefits can be translated into the digital age."

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11679443