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WIPO Treaty On Copyright Exceptions For Visually Impaired Enters In Force

30/06/2016 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch 4 Comments

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The World Intellectual Property Organization treaty to facilitate access to books in special formats for visually impaired people will enter into effect, as the 20th member state acceded to the treaty today.

As a result of the accessions, the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled will enter into effect on 30 September 2016, according to sources.

The treaty is expected to allow visually impaired people to have better access to books in particular by establishing an exception to copyright and allowing the cross-border exchange of copyrighted books in special format.

The Marrakesh Treaty was adopted in June 2013 in Marrakesh, Morocco (IPW, WIPO, 26 June 2013).

WIPO Director General Francis Gurry in a video message hailed the “good news.” “We now need many more countries to join this treaty,” he said, “so as to create a world in which blind persons truly have the opportunity to participate in literacy in the same way the seeing persons do.”

According to WIPO, Canada was the 20th accession, preceded a day earlier by Ecuador and Guatemala.

“Just four days ago the world’s blind community were celebrating the third anniversary of the approval of the Marrakesh Treaty for visually impaired and print disabled persons,” Christopher Friend, World Blind Union Technical Advisor for the Marrakesh Treaty, told Intellectual Property Watch.

“Yesterday, Wednesday,  celebrations continued with the accession of our 18th and 19th Member States: Ecuador and Guatemala. Today our celebrations go into top gear as Canada delivered its ratification document being the 20th country to ratify or accede to the Treaty,” he said.

“That was the magic number we needed in order for the treaty to become operational. In three months time, on 30th September, the treaty will officially go into force, But only for those 20 countries that have ratified or exceeded to the Treaty so far. There are a further 170 countries whose blind communities implore their governments to ratify or exceed to the treaty without delay so that they also can benefit from a greater accessibility for reading materials and mthe chance to share books across borders with other countries,” he added.

“This is fantastic news,” said Dan Pescod of the World Blind Union, which helped author the original proposal that led to the treaty. “WBU, our friends in civil society and indeed many governments worked hard for many years to get to this point. The book famine continues, however. We therefore need all countries to ratify the Marrakech Treaty without delay. Full ratification will mean that blind, partially sighted and other print disabled people will be able to access vastly more book titles, whether for education and pleasure.”

Teresa Hackett, EIFL Copyright and Libraries Programme Manager, told Intellectual Property Watch:

“Libraries [in the ratifying countries] will be allowed for the first time to exchange accessible format copies, created on demand, with libraries in other countries. This transforms information access for persons with print disabilities and opens doors to knowledge, education, employment and personal development especially for those in the developing world.”

“It also opens doors to funding opportunities for the specialized equipment and training that is needed because, for the first time, there exists an international legal framework to enable the cross-border sharing of accessible formats,” she said. “EIFL looks forward to working with libraries on this global transformation. It’s a truly great day for everyone involved!”

The Marrakesh Treaty contracting parties now are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, South Korea, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Israel, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Paraguay, Peru, North Korea, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay.

 

Image Credits: Flickr – J P Davidson

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Related

Catherine Saez may be reached at csaez@ip-watch.ch.

Creative Commons License"WIPO Treaty On Copyright Exceptions For Visually Impaired Enters In Force" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Filed Under: IP Policies, Language, Themes, Venues, Access to Knowledge/ Education, Copyright Policy, English, Human Rights, WIPO

Comments

  1. john e miller says

    30/06/2016 at 11:46 pm

    From WIPO DG Gurry above: “We now need many more countries to join this treaty,” he said, “so as to create a world in which blind persons truly have the opportunity to participate in literacy in the same way the seeing persons do.”

    Yes and some of those “many more countries” would be those that actually have a large repository of copyrighted books in accessible format that would be available for export because, for right now, there aren’t any. From IP-Watch.org story 20SEP2013 “Negotiators, Stakeholders Tell Tale Of WIPO Marrakesh Treaty Negotiation …” where it was said:

    ” … with this (Marrakesh) treaty that there are going to be a relatively few nations that are going to be the net exporters of the accessible format copies of works. And there are going to be many more that are going to be net importers of those accessible format copies. So the efforts to try to develop level playing fields in trade is what drives these policies — it also was an undercurrent (in)many discussions that took place in Geneva and Marrakesh.”

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. CLIP-ings: July 1, 2016 – CLIP-ings says:
    01/07/2016 at 4:08 pm

    […] Global Literacy Access: Twenty countries have now ratified the Marrakesh Treaty, aimed at increasing literacy and information access for the visually impaired and print disabled through a copyright exception and facilitation of cross-border trade of copyrighted books in special literacy format; the Treaty will take force this coming September. […]

    Reply
  2. The Thursday Book Beat: Black Girls Rock and Now You Can Read All About Them! - Women Write About Comics says:
    07/07/2016 at 3:01 pm

    […] World Intellectual Property Organization establishes treaty to ease visually impaired readers’ access to books […]

    Reply
  3. Marrakesh Treaty Coming in September - Intellectual Freedom Blog says:
    13/07/2016 at 4:45 pm

    […] The twenty current signatories are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, South Korea, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Israel, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Paraguay, Peru, North Korea, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay. […]

    Reply

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