Sri Lanka: Eye-opener for a more enlightened world

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Eye-opener for a more enlightened world
June 10, 2009
 
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is poised to change the world. For the first time in its history, WIPO, the UN agency that creates and administers patent, trademark and copyright treaties, will consider the establishment of a Treaty that would harmonize copyright exceptions to enable reading-disabled persons to get access to the written word.

At the 17th session of WIPO's copyright committee in November last year,World Blind Union (WBU) proposal titled “WIPO Treaty for the Improved Access for Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading-Disabled Persons” was made available by the WIPO Secretariat.

Six months after the WBU first submitted its proposal; the governments of Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay adopted the WBU text as their own and formally tabled a Treaty for Reading-Disabled Persons May 25.  These governments noted that the Treaty text “presents possible ways and means of facilitating and enhancing access to protected works for the blind, visually impaired, and other reading disabled persons. Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay recognize the merit of dealing without delay, but with careful deliberation, with limitations and exceptions that would allow people with disabilities, such as the visually impaired, to access, publish and distribute works that are accessible to them”.

The main aim of the treaty is to allow cross-border import and export of digital copies of books and other copyrighted works to persons who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic or have other reading disabilities, using devices that present text as refreshable Braille, computer generated text to speech or large type. These works, which are expensive to make are typically created under national exceptions to copyright law that are specifically written to benefit persons with disabilities.
According to the most recent WHO figures, 314 million people live with visual impairment; 45 million of these are blind, of whom 90 per cent live in low-income countries. The number of books accessible to the reading disabled is small everywhere relative to what “sighted” persons can read, and in developing countries including Sri Lanka such works are extremely rare.

At the 18th session of the WIPO copyright committee held in May 2009 in Geneva, every regional group in the developing world, especially the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States, expressed support for advancing work on this proposal.

Lined up against the cause of reading disabled persons were the industrialized countries including Australia, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and most surprisingly the Vatican.  The rich country bloc argued that discussion of a Treaty for Reading Disabled Persons was “premature” and endeavoured to delay the timely discussion of the Treaty proposal. This opposition was instigated by the juggernauts of the publishing industry who oppose any paradigm shift from business as usual.

Despite the odds, Brazil, Ecuador, and Paraguay, in concert with many countries of the Global South and supported by range of actors including the World Blind Union, Bookshare, the Daisy Consortium, Knowledge Ecology International, International Federation of Library Associations
(IFLA) and others succeeded in placing the Treaty for Reading Disabled Persons on the agenda of the next WIPO SCCR meeting in November. Sri Lanka, as group coordinator of the Asian Group at WIPO, should lend its unequivocal support to the Treaty proposal of Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay. This Treaty proposal marks the first time substantive negotiations may take place at WIPO to reform the architecture of the international copyright system to address the needs of the blind, visually and reading disabled persons. Sri Lanka, as bloc leader of the Asian Group, a prestigious responsibility which involves coordinating the positions of a group of countries including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Singapore, South Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Thailand and Malaysia, should lend its name and co-sponsor the initiative of Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay. It is a moral imperative.

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Equal, not Separate, Reading Rights - http://www.readingrights.org/  
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