Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

That’s the lobbying position of some companies in the intellectual property field when implementing the new Marrakesh Copyright Treaty. Libraries for people who are blind or dyslexic are the primary source of accessible books in audio, large print or braille. We simply act to ensure the person who needs an accessible book can get it.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 7, 2013

have been asking about the Treaty of Marrakesh (formal name: The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities. Ultimately, this community should have equal access to all of the books that are needed for education, employment and social inclusion.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 13, 2009

I think it’s time to write a series of short essays on the struggle for accessible books, starting with this brouhaha. In it, we pointed out the irony that the first generation of ebook readers being inaccessible to blind people. Ebooks on PCs have had text-to-speech capabilities for years (although not always enabled).

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 7, 2013

While we’re extremely proud of our achievements in the field of accessibility and disability rights, we know that we’ve just scratched the surface of what we could possibly do to bolster parity of access to information by people with disabilities. The second principle is sourcing locally relevant content.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

The latest session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) just concluded last week. Content contained in square brackets in the draft is still being negotiated, and the remaining content is assumed to be agreed (at least, we certainly hope so!).

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

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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Copyright India Library United States 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 3, 2011

One of these sub-themes is “Accessibility: removing barriers and promoting disability-inclusive development.” Of course, accessibility is right up Benetech’s alley and the focus of our Literacy program. Thousands of ebooks pour into the library from over 168 publishers and textbook requests are fulfilled every month.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 26, 2014

One of their main challenges is that they do not have adequate access to educational materials that are necessary to learn and succeed in school. Accessible ebooks and Bookshare have helped sixth grader Kevin Leong overcome his reading challenges.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 23, 2014

Technology currently serves privileged groups through tools that provide access to education, literacy, health, and justice. With Bookshare, our student members can access and read the books they need—in the classroom, at home, and on the go—and have a fair opportunity to succeed at school just like their peers without disabilities.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

We’re operating at the forefront of copyright limitations and exceptions, both in the United States and globally. We’re deep believers in the benefits of openness, which means we publish open source software and create open content under Creative Commons licenses. We serve human rights activists in more than 100 countries.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

We’re against piracy, and have made commitments to authors and publishers to encourage compliance with copyright law. We provide accessible ebooks that can be spoken aloud, turned into Braille or large print. We write software for people with disabilities as well as human rights and environmental groups. And then they go away.

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eBook China Copyright Library 277

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2010

Few publishers was open to Creative Commons licensing and to giving away the content for free online. From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to license The Participatory Museum using Creative Commons and give away the content for free online. I want everyone to be able to use the content and make derivative works.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

DECEMBER 8, 2011

We’re against piracy, and have made commitments to authors and publishers to encourage compliance with copyright law. We provide accessible ebooks that can be spoken aloud, turned into Braille or large print. We write software for people with disabilities as well as human rights and environmental groups. And then they go away.

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eBook Copyright China Law 107

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 13, 2011

Bookshare Hits 100,000 Members Boy reading at a computer with teacher in the background.Since the beginning of 2009, we’ve tripled the number of people with disabilities Bookshare is serving with our accessible library of ebooks. We just added 847 books to the collection in one day—that’s more than we used to add in a month!

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