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# Doctorow's plea for disabled rights from WIPO, Geneva
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/doctorows-plea-for-disabled-rights-from-wipo-geneva/
- Published: 2009-05-28T15:05:45.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T23:01:24.000Z
- Author: cory doctorow
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 19:57

I am attending a meeting in Geneva of the World Intellectual Property  
Organization (WIPO). This evening the United States government, in  
combination with other high income countries in "Group B" is seeking to  
block an agreement to discuss a treaty for persons who are blind or  
have other reading disabilities.

The proposal for a treaty is supported by a large number of civil  
society NGOs, the World Blind Union, the National Federation of the  
Blind in the US, the International DAISY Consortium, Recording for the  
Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D), Bookshare.Org, and groups  
representing persons with reading disabilities all around the world.

The main aim of the treaty is to allow the cross-border import  
and export of digital copies of books and other copyrighted works in  
formats that are accessible to persons who are blind, visually  
impaired, dyslexic or have other reading disabilities, using special  
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...

The opposition from the United States and other high income  
countries is due to intense lobbying from a large group of publishers  
that oppose a "paradigm shift," where treaties would protect consumer  
interests, rather than expand rights for copyright owners.

The Obama Administration was lobbied heavily on this issue,  
including meetings with high level White House officials. Assurances  
coming into the negotiations this week that things were going in the  
right direction have turned out to be false, as the United States  
delegation has basically read from a script written by lobbyists for  
publishers, extolling the virtues of market based solutions, ignoring  
mountains of evidence of a "book famine" and the insane legal barriers  
to share works.

Follow the story on [BoingBoing](http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/29/usa-canada-and-the-e.html?ref=opendemocracy.net).