The World Intellectual Property Organization's Treaty to Faciiitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired. Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities (the "Treaty for the Blind") has finally passed, after many years of hard work by copyright activists and activists for the rights of people with disabilities.
They were fought, tooth and nail, by the big copyright groups, who were shameless in their willingness to use people with disabilities as pawns in their ideological war on the idea that anyone should be able to do anything with a copyrighted work without explicit permission. The Motion Picture Association was especially terrible here — a new low for an industry that has made a lobbying career out of plumbing the depths of depravity.
My congratulations to all the copyfighters who made this unprecedented treaty come to pass: the World Blind Union and Dan Pescod (especially!), Knowledge Ecology International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation — all of you. As a former WIPO delegate, I can say that this is an unbelievable shift in the way that the UN makes copyright policy.
What's more, it was a (mostly) open process, in sharp contrast to the sinister closed-door process that the Obama administration has insisted upon for the Trans Pacific Partnership and other copyright treaties. Bravo to all of you for setting an example of how copyright policy can be crafted to uphold human rights.
To the shameless lobbyists at the MPA, remember: if you live long enough, the odds are good that you, yourself, will become print disabled. We are all only temporarily sighted. The treaty you tried to wreck was aimed at some of the most vulnerable, information-impoverished people in the world — and someday, you will join them. For shame. When you see your old parents next, think of them, and what you tried to do to them, and the people of their generation, for the sake of a few extra pennies and some macho gamesmanship.
Marrakech Treaty For The Blind Signed; MPAA Unable To Kill It
