Brazil, Australia Ratify Marrakesh Treaty For Visually Impaired, Seven To Go 17/12/2015 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Last week, the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty which is expected to facilitate access to special format works for blind and visually impaired people gained two more ratifications, bringing the accession to the treaty to 13. The treaty will enter into force three months after the accession of the 20th member. Brazil ratification Marrakesh Treaty On 11 December, Brazilian Ambassador Marcos Galvão ratified the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled during the meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related-Rights (SCCR). This instrument “has a special meaning for my country,” said the Ambassador. “It was Brazil that together with Paraguay and Ecuador responded to the call made from associations” of blind people back in 2009, and “presented the initial proposal on this matter.” “Clear evidence of the importance of this treaty for us is the fact that this is just the second time in our history that a treaty is incorporated in our national legislation with the level of a constitutional amendment,” he said. And on 10 December Australia also ratified the treaty. According to a joint press release by the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Trade and Investment and the Minister for Social Services: “Ratifying this treaty is an important part of the Government’s commitment to supporting Australians with disability. Accessible format materials are essential to ensuring all Australians can engage fully in school, work and our communities.” “By improving access to large print, braille and audio materials in the Indo-Pacific, the Marrakesh treaty will also support economic and social development in our region,” they said. WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said at the SCCR on 11 December that the entry into force of the Marrakesh Treaty in 2016 “is certainly a real one and it’s one of our principal objectives as Secretariat.” Image Credits: WIPO Flickr Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related Catherine Saez may be reached at csaez@ip-watch.ch."Brazil, Australia Ratify Marrakesh Treaty For Visually Impaired, Seven To Go" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
john e miller says 17/12/2015 at 11:23 pm The hearings on Marrakesh Treaty ratification contained the following (begin): MONDAY, 10 AUGUST 2015 CANBERRA Page 10 WALTER, Mr. Andrew, Assistant Secretary, Civil Law Division, Commercial and Administrative Law Branch, Attorney-General’s Department ACTING CHAIR: They (The Australian Society of Authors) were also concerned that the proposed the treaty would permit the reproduction of copyrighted works for people with print disabilities without recourse to the copyright holder. Is that the case? Mr. Walter: Again, the treaty allows us to use the current licensing system that we have in the act, which is set up to provide exactly that mechanism: to link rights holders through a licensing provision to the use of those provisions . I think that is a fairly broad interpretation of the act. I do not think how we give effect to it and how we will continue to give effect to it will lead to that disconnect. (end) So if Australia’s ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty still maintains the licensing provisions of Australia’s current Copyright Act, that is a major change to the definition of ‘Authorized Entities’ in the Marrakesh Treaty as adopted. Reply