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[News] Intellectual Monopolies Still Hurt Blind People, Serve Only Biden+MAFIAA+Lobbyists

  • Subject: [News] Intellectual Monopolies Still Hurt Blind People, Serve Only Biden+MAFIAA+Lobbyists
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:35:55 +0000
  • Followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • User-agent: KNode/4.3.1
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Of Access to Copyright Materials and Blindness 

,----[ Quote ]
| First, in what sense is providing more 
| access to the visually impaired not 
| compatible with US copyright laws? The 
| proponents of this change have gone out of 
| their way to make sure that the access given 
| is within current copyright regimes, which 

| are not serving this huge, disadvantaged 
| constituency properly. And how would it 
| undermine expanded access? It would, 
| manifestly, provide access that is not 
| available now; the publishers have proposed 
| nothing that would address the problem other 
| than saying the system's fine, we don't want 
| to change it.
| 
| But the most telling - and frankly, 
| sickening - aspect of this post is the way 
| its author sets up the rights of authors 
| against the rights of those with visual 
| disabilities, as if the latter are little 
| better than those scurvy "pirates" that 
| "steal" copyright material from those poor 
| authors.
| 
| In fact, *nothing* is being taken, it's 
| simply that these people wish to enjoy their 
| rights to read as others do - something that 
| has been denied to them by an industry 
| indifferent to their plight. And which 
| author would not be happy to extend the 
| pleasure of reading their works to those cut 
| off from it by virtue of physical 
| disabilities?
`----

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/12/of-access-to-copyright-materials-and.html

[A2k] US delegation welcomes views on WIPO Treaty for the blind 

,----[ Quote ]
| Justin Hughes of the US delegation asked 
| that I pass on his email address, so that 
| people can communication with him if they 
| want to express views on the WIPO treaty for 
| disabilities being discussed at the WIPO 
| SCCR 19 this week.
`----

http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/a2k/2009-December/005182.html

Statement of Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) at SCCR 19

,----[ Quote ]
| I represent the Royal National Institute of 
| Blind People (RNIB), which works to serve 
| the 2 million people with sight loss in UK.
| 
| As part of this work, RNIB has a library of 
| some 40,000 books in audio, large print and 
| Braille, which we distribute to reading 
| disabled people.
| 
| Most accessible books are made by specialist 
| organisations like ours, even in cases where 
| publishers provide licenses or the source 
| files. These specialist organisations have 
| limited resources, and are very often 
| charities.
| 
| It should be noted that we cannot even use 
| all our funds to make accessible books! We 
| provide many vital but costly services, such 
| as emotional support and employment advice. 
`----

http://keionline.org/node/729

Digital Economy Bill [HL] 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/001/amend/am001-g.htm

Taking forward the Gowers Review of IP

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/pro-policy/consult/consult-live/consult-gowers2.htm

New Zealand Releases Revamped Three Strikes Proposal

,----[ Quote ]
| The New Zealand government has released a 
| revamped three strikes proposal that 
| incorporates full court hearings and the 
| possibility of financial penalties.  A prior 
| proposal, which would have resulted in 
| subscriber access being terminated without 
| court oversight, was dropped earlier this 
| year following public protest.  The new 
| proposal is essentially a notice-and-notice 
| system where ISPs would be required to pass 
| along alleged infringement notices to the 
| subscriber.  After the third notice, the 
| rights holder could seek up to $15,000 at 
| the Copyright Tribunal for damages 
| sustained.  If the infringements continue, 
| the rights holder could go to court to seek 
| suspension of the subscriber account for up 
| to six months.  
`----

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4622/125/

Openness? Transparency? Not When Biden Gets To Hang With
Entertainment Industry Lobbyists: Press Kicked Out

,----[ Quote ]
| Then we heard that Attorney General Eric 
| Holder was reinvigorating the Justice 
| Department's "task force" on copyright. Why? 
| There's still no indication of any actual 
| harm (both the movie and music industries 
| are growing). Then, Commerce Secretary Locke 
| noted that anti-camcording efforts are an 
| important part of the anti-piracy effort. 
| Funny timing, given the recent fiasco over a 
| young woman arrested for incidental 
| capturing of snippets of New Moon.
| 
| So it started out just great. And then? 
| Well, then the press got kicked out. 
`----

http://techdirt.com/articles/20091215/1307497368.shtml

Holder At White House Summit With Entertainment Executives

,----[ Quote ]
| Vice President Joe Biden led a round table 
| meeting of high ranking government officials 
| and entertainment industry executives at the 
| White House conference center today, where 
| he pledged that the Obama administration 
| would work to combat piracy in the rapidly 
| changing technological age.
`----

http://www.mainjustice.com/2009/12/15/holder-at-white-house-summit-with-entertainment-executives/

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is MPAA

,----[ Quote ]
| What the MPAA wants is for ISPs, for 
| example, to change their businesses "to 
| reflect current realities and adopt modern, 
| flexible systems where they do not exist": 
| how strange, then, that the MPAA is not 
| prepared to do the same by working according 
| to the new digital rules instead of clinging 
| to the old analogue ones...
`----

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/12/hypocrisy-thy-name-is-mpaa.html

Congress Gives $30 Million To Fight 'Piracy'

,----[ Quote ]
| Recent studies have shown that -- despite a 
| massive recession -- both the music and 
| movie industries are having fantastic years. 
| However, both industries are complaining 
| about how they're being "killed" by 
| "piracy." There's no evidence of this of 
| course, but when it comes to copyright, 
| politicians don't seem to believe evidence 
| is necessary.
`----

http://techdirt.com/articles/20091215/1817437375.shtml

Will The Chinese BitTorrent Crackdown Boost Criminals?

,----[ Quote ]
| Recently it became clear that Chinese 
| authorities were going ahead with their 
| planned video site purge. Many BitTorrent 
| sites fell including some of the countryâs 
| largest, but of course none of this changes 
| the demand for free or near-free media. So 
| will the crackdown force those seeking cheap 
| movies back onto the streets?
`----

http://torrentfreak.com/will-the-chinese-bittorrent-crackdown-boost-criminals-091215/

UK Aggregator NewsNow Dumps Newspapers After They Demand Payment To Link To Stories

,----[ Quote ]
| Back in October, we wrote about how various 
| newspapers, under the auspices of the 
| "Newspaper Licensing Agency" were threatning 
| NewsNow, a UK news aggregator that is (in my 
| experience) one of the more comprehensive 
| aggregators out there, but which only shows 
| headlines and links to full stories. It's 
| difficult to see how that would be a 
| copyright violation in anyone's definition 
| of the term or why that should require any 
| kind of license.
`----

http://techdirt.com/articles/20091214/1010557343.shtml


Recent:

  Intellectual Monopolists Scorn the Blind

,----[ Quote ]
| This, then, is the reality of "modern"
| copyright: it fails to serve huge numbers
| of people, many of whom are already
| suffering from discrimination in other
| ways.
|
| Given this situation, various
| organisations are not unreasonably trying
| to facilitate access to copyrighted works
| for those who are visually disabled with a
| new WIPO treaty that would define basic
| rights for this group. Who could object to
| such a humanitarian cause? Well, the
| publishers, of course.
`----

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/12/intellectual-monopolists-scorn-blind.html


USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill treaty to protect blind people's access
to written material

,----[ Quote ]
| Right now, in Geneva, at the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization,
| history is being made. For the first time in WIPO history, the body that
| creates the world's copyright treaties is attempting to write a copyright
| treaty dedicated to protecting the interests of copyright users, not just
| copyright owners.
`----

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/29/usa-canada-and-the-e.html
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