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The Case for Copyright Exceptions and Fair Use

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

For on January 17, 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that consumers could tape their favorite TV shows and watch them later without the copyright holder’s consent. Universal City Studios, Inc., Universal City Studios, Inc., copyright law. This ruling by the Supreme Court in Sony Corp. of America v.

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Fair Use Victory Advances a Future of Accessibility for All

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

HathiTrust, a unanimous three-judge panel concluded that digitizing books in order to enhance research and provide access to individuals with print disabilities is lawful on the grounds of fair use —that is, a limitation and exception to the exclusive rights granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work ( Section 107 of the U.S.

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Bringing Millions of Books to Billions of People: Making the Book Truly Accessible

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Literacy and access to knowledge underpins just about every social good, from education, to economic development, to health, to women’s empowerment, democracy and respect for human rights. To bring the power of books to everybody on this planet, we must make books truly accessible. Third, the print book is not universally accessible.

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Towards Global Access for the Print Disabled

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

A Policy Update from an engineer, Jim Fruchterman of Benetech June 8, 2010 The international copyright negotiations in Geneva around a proposed Treaty for the Visually Impaired (“TVI”) have been steadily heating up. Counterproposals have been made, governments have been engaging with rights holders, consumers and NGOs (or not!)

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Big Meeting on the Treaty this Week!

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

The goal of the Treaty is to make a copyright exception for the blind and other people with disabilities that stop them from reading print, and to make import and export of accessible content legal. My core point: Don’t put up bureaucratic barriers to access. The biggest challenge for access is that it’s expensive.

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Receiving the 2013 Migel Medal

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

The other recipient this year was Kay Ferrell, Professor of Special Education at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, who won the Medal for her tremendous work with and on behalf of children and youth who are blind and visually impaired. That treaty should replicate the successful copyright exception here in the U.S.

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Austria conference on access technology

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

This is an academic conference on access technology, full of researchers trying out new things that will help people with disabilities. My first day was hanging out at the Young Researchers seminar, which was organized by Professors Paul Blenkhorn (the UK's first professor of access tech) and the ICCHP host Klaus Miesenberger.

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