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The Road to Accessibility without Borders: Celebrating the One-Year Anniversary of the Marrakesh Treaty

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

One year ago, on June 28, 2013, at a diplomatic conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, the World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO ) agreed on a historic international copyright exception for people with print disabilities. Thus far, more than 75 countries have signed the Treaty, and in June India became the first country to ratify it.

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Fascinating Meeting at the Copyright Office

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Last Friday I spent almost two and a half hours in a wide-ranging conversation with Maria Pallante of the Copyright Office (and two other folks whose full names I didn't write down). copyright exemption for serving the print disabled is commonly called the Chafee Amendment: Section 121 of copyright law. copyright law.

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Mobilizing Impact at the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Judy Heumann (left) moderating the panel on empowering the world''s billion people with disabilities On the second day of the CGI Annual Meeting, I announced Benetech’s Commitment to Action : Leveraging Technology to Bring Books to the Blind in India. Our commitment was selected as an exemplary approach to addressing a global challenge.

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Bookshare without Borders: #1/3

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

We’re grateful to our socially responsible publishing partners who give us world rights to their titles, even though they are not required to do so under international copyright law. This is a most exciting development: it means that anyone with a cheap MP3 player or a phone that plays MP3s can have access to our books.

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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. Bureaucratic barriers to utilizing a copyright exception, as proposed by some publishers, makes the cost even greater.

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Commercial Availability: The Poison Pill for Marrakesh Treaty Implementation

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

That’s the lobbying position of some companies in the intellectual property field when implementing the new Marrakesh Copyright Treaty. Our experience successfully building Bookshare under the United States copyright exception, which has no such commercial availability limitation, informs this strong opinion.

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Donor Spotlight: Lavelle Fund for the Blind

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

We first extended Bookshare services internationally in 2008 with the launch of Bookshare in India. Of course, in India and other developing countries, the gap is even larger. As part of this project, we are working with our lead Indian partner, the DAISY Forum of India, as well as other Indian disability organizations.

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