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Accessible eBooks for Equal Opportunity

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

One of their main challenges is that they do not have adequate access to educational materials that are necessary to learn and succeed in school. Accessible ebooks and Bookshare have helped sixth grader Kevin Leong overcome his reading challenges.

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The Road to Accessibility without Borders: Celebrating the One-Year Anniversary of the Marrakesh Treaty

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

One year ago, on June 28, 2013, at a diplomatic conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, the World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO ) agreed on a historic international copyright exception for people with print disabilities. Going forward, new countries that want to abide by the Treaty provisions would need to directly ratify it.

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Upholding The Social Bargain: Bookshare and Copyright Compliance

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

copyright law. The Section 121 copyright exception (often known as the Chafee Amendment after the Senator who introduced it in 1996) makes it possible for Benetech to scan just about any book and make it available to this community. The publishing industry and disability organizations both agreed on this provision of copyright law.

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Bookshare to Convert Open Content Textbooks to Accessible Formats

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

She and her senior policy adviser, Hal Plotkin, are huge fans of Open Educational Resources (OERs), having been involved in starting that movement in community colleges. Our new announcement about the Department granting Bookshare supplemental funding to convert open content textbooks to accessible formats went over very well.

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Fascinating Meeting at the Copyright Office

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Last Friday I spent almost two and a half hours in a wide-ranging conversation with Maria Pallante of the Copyright Office (and two other folks whose full names I didn't write down). copyright exemption for serving the print disabled is commonly called the Chafee Amendment: Section 121 of copyright law. copyright law.

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Lawsuit over denying access to a student with learning disabilities

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

We're up to more than 125,000 users, with over 95,000 books available, and our users are now accessing content at a rate of more than million downloads per year! That's why it's painful to hear about disputes over denying students with very real print disabilities access to these resources. serving students with print disabilities.

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Accessibility and ACTA

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Brief Comments on Accessibility Concerns on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) The disability community should be concerned about ACTA for two reasons: At its core it’s an anti-piracy agreement. The digital measures designed to defeat piracy usually end up equating accessibility with piracy.