European Parliament Committee Willing To Push Back On Copyright When It Comes To The Blind

If you go through a timeline of the history of copyright law over the last two centuries, one thing is clear: it has only moved in one direction, and one direction only. That is that it has repeatedly been changed to take away more and more consumer rights and to ratchet up copyright law to greater and greater levels. The only exception I can think of was the US government's decision to make all federal government documents public domain, rather than granting them copyright. While important, this was still a minor move. Update: Thanks to one of the copyright scholars in the audience for pointing out a few other cases of pushback against copyright, including the 2002 TEACH Act which included some small exceptions for distance learning, as well as a variety of countries rolling back perpetual copyright.

For the past few years, there has been one other push, happening via WIPO, that would push back just slightly on copyright law when it came to books for the blind (in Braille). Basically, this treaty makes it easier to get books in Braille for the blind. Who could possibly be against such a thing? Well, of course the RIAA and the MPAA, who fought against it claiming that a treaty like this would "begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms."

This was especially hilarious, considering that it came from two organizations that remain massively strong supporters of ACTA -- which has done a tremendous amount of damage to the "existing global treaty structure of copyright law," by going around it entirely, and created an agreement that was very much "at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms."

However, it appears that the WIPO treaty is actually getting some traction (even if just a little bit), and MEP Christian Engstrom is noting that the legal affairs committee JURI in the European Parliament has unanimously adopted an amendment that supports the treaty. It still appears to have a long way to go, but as Rick Falkvinge notes, this is "the first time in several decades" that "politicians voted unanimously that the public’s access to knowledge and culture is more important than the copyright monopoly." It is a very small thing, but considering how rarely our elected officials are even willing to consider such a move, it's noteworthy.

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Kelly Carlson Sara Foster Natassia Malthe Victoria Silvstedt Hilary Swank