[LINK] USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill treaty to protect blind people's access to written material

[Jan Whitaker]

At 09:56 AM 18/11/2009, ARTHUR,Evan (Dr) wrote:

>Jan wrote: <<I wrote to Shorten, so I was confused why I was getting 
>a letter from McClelland
>
>And the answer is because the Attorney General's Department has 
>responsibility for copyright matters in the Australian Government 
>and the Copyright Branch troops are the ones who attend WIPO 
>meetings on this and other issues.

Oh, I get that, but the issue was about impact on PEOPLE for whom 
Bill Shorten has responsibility. Wouldn't you think that his 
department would have wanted to know what was being proposed that 
would threaten their interests? That's why I raised it with him.

Perhaps the stove-pipes need to have a few intersections in them so 
that the policy is actually geared to help people.

I don't know what is going on with ACTA, but I looked at the article 
that didn't have any mention of effects re the current exemptions for 
vision impaired persons or people with other reading disabilities. 
Again, is this a case of stove-pipes? Will our local laws that 
McClelland assures protects those interests, as they currently do, be 
required to be amended to suit the concerns of the media producers? 
That has been a long standing tension with regard to providing 
alternative formats for vision and hearing impaired people, 
particularly with non-Australian products. Kudos to the copyright 
body in WIPO for considering the proposals, but was it any more than 
an acknowledgement and a polite nod? It will come down to how they finally act.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

_ __________________ _