Blind people

Thursday, July 31, 2014

5:03 PM

Marrakesh Convention- that codifies exemptions to

copyrights to benefit blind and vision-impaired readers.
India has become the first country in the world to ratify it

seven long years have elapsed since New Delhi ratified (it was
one of the earliest to do so) the United Nations Convention for
the Disabled.
1. The current treaty of the World Intellectual Property
Organization removes legal restrictions on the conversion
of published works into any one among a range of
alternative formats which the blind and vision-impaired
may access.
2. Ratifying countries are required to enact domestic laws to
overcome their own copyright limitations to further this
objective.
3. The treaty also eases hurdles for cross-country exchange
of books in different formats so as to overcome the cost of
duplication.
India amended its copyright law in 2012 broadly on the lines
of the Marrakesh Treaty.
Hence,
the most direct benefit from its ratification of the latter would
be the access to literature that is converted overseas.
WIPO has just launched the Accessible Books Consortium to
provide technical support for the production of suitable
formats and to create a global database of such transcriptions
and to encourage publishers to participate in this initiative.
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and to encourage publishers to participate in this initiative.

The worst-affected are people in developing countries, which
are home to 90 per cent of the worlds blind population,
according to the World Health Organization
The treaty will not enter into force internationally unless it is
ratified by at least 20 countries.

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