A German publishing house is using its clout in Bulgaria to attack a website that legally makes texts available for blind people. Previously, the publisher tried to shut down the site and was pilloried for it; in revenge it is using the Bulgarian police to harrass the site's maintainers.
On the 9th of May the Bulgarian publishing house 'Trud', owned by
the German media group Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, sends a
letter threatening with a lawsuit the specialized web library for
blind people – bezmonitor.com (its name means 'without a monitor').
The publishing house claims that they own the copyrights for
certain classical Bulgarian books and translations of foreign-
language ones, which appear on the website in files in ASCII
format, which is good for reading by audio programs, that do it
instead of people, who cannot see. The creator of the website,
Victor, who is also blind is supporting it on his own and without
any financial profit. Although he removes the texts in question, he
mentions this case to his friend Dr. Grigor Gatchev, who is
recognized translator, an author and well-known blogger…Bulgarian citizens as well as organizations of the blind people,
such as Association 'Eyesight' and the National Library for the
Blind 'Louis Braille' inform all Bulgarian media on the behavior of
publishing house 'Trud', which itself owns a few major daily
newspapers. 'Trud' tries to prevent the story from becoming public,
as the owner of the publishing house is also a director of the
Union of the Bulgarian Publishers. And most major media outlets do
keep silence. However fewer small independent newspapers voice
people's outrage.Publishing house 'Trud' is furious and wants revenge contacting the
main department for combating organized crime to demand the closure
of the website although the texts in question are long gone. The
department, although a state institution, already has a very bad
reputation for serving corporate interests and having made illegal
arrests on previous cases. A phone call from the department to the
blind programmer of the website, Victor, makes him remove all texts
under the fear of arrest, which although completely illegal and
immoral, would put Victor's health in danger.
(Thanks, Nikola!)
Update: Antonia has posted lots more about this in Bulgarian and English:
1. Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) owns the two biggest daily newspapers in Bulgaria (Trud and 24 Chasa), as well as several weeklies and special editions. The combined circulations of Trud and 24 Chasa are greater than that of all the other dailies in our country. Yes, WAZ is a monopolist as it holds about 70 to 80% of the print media market in Bulgaria.
2. Recently Trud have started an online 'knowledge' site znam.bg — they are putting texts of classic books there but the access is paid. Any reader should send a short message via cell phone in order to obtain a login. Furthermore the site is all scripts, flash and stuff and is pretty unreadable for text browsers. Surprise, surprise! Such as the ones used by the blind.
When contacted the developers of znam.bg said: "Yes, we know there are other e-libraries, but we are going to make the best one and there will be no need for the others to exist". Once a monopolist, always a monopolist…
