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Accessible ebooks and Bookshare have helped sixth grader Kevin Leong overcome his reading challenges. Thanks to e-book technology, Bookshare today serves over 300,000 students with a collection of more than 300,000 accessible books – the world’s largest library of its kind. What can be done today to build this accessible tomorrow?
We’re against piracy, and have made commitments to authors and publishers to encourage compliance with copyright law. Stopping fund raising and subscription revenue for Bookshare, the largest online library for people who have print disabilities. Bookshare is an online library for people who can’t read standard print books.
The world has finally moved beyond just electronically creating books that are then distributed as ordinary print books to actually delivering digital ebooks. In technical terms, this means that the next version of the DAISY format, version 4, will be the same as EPUB3, the main format used by commercial publishers of ebooks.
For example, our Bookshare online library for the blind, uses several different social enterprises to do data entry and proofreading work on textbooks. Our partners proofread the text, fixing mistakes and adding accessibility, and ship us the files back to add to our Bookshare library. We scan the books in the U.S.,
This is totally the “how sausage and law are made” view, so don’t read this unless you want to know more about global accessibility in detail! WIPO has a mandate from its member states, and is working to address the need to change laws and get more accessible books flowing. law works: the one that made Bookshare possible.
Such action, the Court decided, didn’t constitute copyright infringement because it was fair use , that is, a limitation and exception to the exclusive rights granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. It also underscores just how critical a balanced copyright law is for technology innovation. copyright law.
Benetech’s Bookshare library is living proof that real, transformative change happens through partnerships and by helping people unleash their talents and energies. The Bookshare breakthrough was to put our users in charge of the collection; we created a crowd-sourced library built by and for the people it serves. copyright law.
As the operators of Bookshare in the USA, which was made possible through a great exception in our copyright law here, we would love to make all of our books available to people with qualifying disabilities around the world. We expect that many of the big issues with the current text will get ironed out this week. For what am I advocating?
Bookshare, Benetech’s pioneering digital library for people with print disabilities, celebrated its 10th birthday last night with a terrific party that was attended by many of our long-time friends and supporters. copyright law. As a result, we quickly became the largest online library for people with print disabilities.
Wouldn''t that create more demand for our Bookshare online library? We all want the same ebook that people without disabilities buy (sorry, I mean license) to work perfectly well for people who are blind, physically disabled or dyslexic. civil rights laws succeeds, people with disabilities will be yet again be denied equality.'
Benetech's largest social enterprise is the Bookshare online library for people who are blind or otherwise disabled when it comes to reading print. copyright law. The publishing industry and disability organizations both agreed on this provision of copyright law. At Benetech, our commitment is to uphold that social deal.
To explain our approach, let’s look at Bookshare , our accessible online library for people with print disabilities. The Bookshare breakthrough put our users in charge of the collection with a crowd-sourced library built by—and for—the people it serves. copyright law.
We’re against piracy, and have made commitments to authors and publishers to encourage compliance with copyright law. Stopping fund raising and subscription revenue for Bookshare, the largest online library for people who have print disabilities. Bookshare is an online library for people who can’t read standard print books.
Right now, we have multiple law school clinics that would love to tackle new projects with us, projects we actually have but lack the bandwidth to pursue. The DMCA 1201 ruling on ebook access through DRM circumvention was clearly aimed at us: should we take up the challenge? when we bring them to developing world countries.
Twelve years ago, the Fund made its first grant to Benetech, in support of the then newly launched Bookshare , our accessible online library for people with disabilities that get in the way of reading print, including visual impairments and dyslexia. government and states like Texas. In 2013, with the most recent (and fourth!)
As the nonprofit operator of Bookshare ,the world’s largest online library for people who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic, or have a physical disability that prevents them from reading books, Benetech strongly recommends the ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty. . · It is politically popular. . · It is politically popular.
copyright exemption for serving the print disabled is commonly called the Chafee Amendment: Section 121 of copyright law. copyright law. I actually think they’re getting less by stopping people from buying ebooks who are unlikely to buy audio books at higher prices. The Chafee Amendment The U.S. national experience.
While E Ink-based e-readers had been popular overseas for some time, the Kindle — combined with Amazon’s Kindle Store for buying ebooks, usually for a significant discount over their ink-and-paper counterparts — helped popularize the concept in the US for the first time. In March 2011, Amazon announced the Amazon Appstore for Android.
Bookshare International Library We’re always thinking about new ways in which Benetech could go deeper and help many more people. Bookshare , our flagship literacy program, is the world’s largest accessible library and currently serves more than 230,000 members with visual and learning disabilities.
However, as the founder of the Bookshare online library, we have a great deal at stake in how the Treaty gets implemented. Plus, it will especially help countries with less-developed libraries and services for people with disabilities by making it easier to tap large collections (like Bookshare) in other countries. Articles 5 and 6.
Betsy Beaumon I recently had the honor to speak at the first-ever Braille Summit , hosted on June 19-21, 2013 by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) and Perkins School for the Blind. federal law supports braille instruction. Accordingly, U.S. This is important here in the U.S.,
The miracle of ebooks What if we had the ability to overcome these accessibility barriers, barriers that affect most of humanity, not just people with identified disabilities, wouldn’t we have the moral obligation to act? We can use the same ebook file to deliver the content ten different ways. We can do better!
Libraries for people who are blind or dyslexic are the primary source of accessible books in audio, large print or braille. But, some companies want to empty the library shelves and insist that only books that can’t be purchased are allowed to be stocked in such libraries. Bookshare was created under the Section 121 U.S.
What if we could scan once, proofread the resulting scan, and share that ebook with tens of thousands of eager readers? Gerry quickly did the legal research and came back to explain that my idea, which seemed like it should be illegal, was 100% permitted under an obscure provision of the copyright law! Gerry was like a father to me.
The first was the ebook. Fundamentally, the Arkenstone Reader allowed blind people to create their own personal ebook as a text file that could be read in something like Microsoft Word. These formats now underpin the ebook industry of today. The Bookshare breakthrough depended on three innovations. Fast forward to today.
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