The Librarian of Congress issued a ruling supporting the right of people who
are blind or partially sighted to gain full access to electronic books
(eBooks). The ruling provides an exemption to the 1998 Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA), making it legal to circumvent any encrypted or
protected features that render the text inaccessible for the specialized
computer technologies used by people who are visually impaired to read
electronic text.
"This ruling upholds the fundamental right to read for all people," said
Carl Augusto, President of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB).
"The emerging electronic book technologies have the potential to make
published information more accessible and usable to people with visual
impairments. By removing barriers to utilizing eBooks, the Library ensured
all people can continue to enjoy the benefits of progress."
This ruling is the result of a concerted advocacy effort by AFB involving
testimony and evidence to show that approximately 50 percent of currently
published eBooks are inaccessible for people who are blind or partially
sighted.
"This is a major victory, but there is more work to do,"
continued Augusto. "AFB will continue to work with Congress, the Librarian
and publishers to ensure future titles are fully accessible for people with
visual impairments." DMCA, which became U.S. law in 1998, makes it a felony
to develop or use technology to get around security provisions of various
classes of intellectual property including software, ebooks, DVD movies and
audio, among others.
The Librarian's ruling provides an exemption for: "Literary works
distributed in eBook format when all existing eBook editions of the work
(including digital text editions made available by authorized entities)
contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the eBook's read-aloud
function and the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a
specialized format." Additional information about the DMCA and on this
ruling, including copies of all testimony, can be found on line at,
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/.
--
Ann K. Parsons
email: [log in to unmask]
WEB SITE: http://home.eznet.net/~akp
"All that is gold does not glitter.
Not all those who wander are lost." JRRT
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