Obama Sides With Blind in Copyright-Treaty Debate

[The Straight Story]

Obama Sides With Blind in Copyright-Treaty Debate

picture-10The Obama administration announced Tuesday it supports loosening international copyright protections to enable cross-border distribution of special-format reading materials for the blind, a move that puts it at odds with nearly all of U.S. industry.

The government announced its support for the underlying principle of the WIPO Treaty for Sharing Accessible Formats of Copyrighted Works for Persons Who are Blind or Have other Reading Disabilities. The announcement was made in Geneva (.pdf) before a subcommittee of the the World Intellectual Property Organization, which has about 180 members.

The move comes as a broad spectrum of American enterprise, ranging from major software makers and book publishers to motion picture and music companies, have opposed the proposed international treaty that would make books more accessible to the blind. The chief complaint is that the treaty creates a bad precedent by loosening copyright restrictions, instead of tightening them as have every other international copyright treaty.

“We recognize that some in the international copyright community believe that any international consensus on substantive limitations and exceptions to copyright law would weaken international copyright law,” Justin Hughes, a Department of Commerce senior adviser, told the WIPO on Tuesday. “The United States does not share that point of view.”

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/obama-blind-treaty/