[nfb-talk] new accessibility to materials

[T. Joseph Carter]

It's worth noting that electronic book isn't well defined here.  For
example, audible.com books are DRM-encoded and that DRM could prevent them
from being used in a lawful manner (ie, on a playback device that doesn't
support audible.com books..)  I'd want to go and read the text of the law
as amended before doing it, but this could make a piece of software that
stripped out the DRM from such books legal.

The same goes for Apple's ITMS-purchased audio books, for which software
already exists, but was illegal to use in the United States.  (Noting of
course that ITMS is only really accessible using a Mac with VoiceOver at
present, unfortunately, so it doesn't apply to most of us here.)


I can't imagine that this means RFB&D books will no longer need to be DRM
encoded.  The only reason I can imagine that they are now is that RFB&D
lawyers don't believe DAISY format as an open standard does not meet the
legal definition required to permit them to be exempt from Copyright
restrictions.  I still wish they'd follow more the BookShare model.


On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 12:36:34PM -0600, Steve Jacobson wrote:
> Mike,
> 
> I don't know if anyone tried to answer this or not.  I was hoping that someone with more of a legal background would do so.  However, from what I know, the 
> implications are that if someone publishes an electronic book that can only be used with inaccessible software, but if it could be accessed if the security could be 
> broken, this would be permitted if the user were blind.  At least at one time, there were some electronic books which were specifically locked up so screen readers 
> could not read them because the publishers felt this competed with their separate audio editions.  In the past, there were many difficulties with reading PDF 
> documents because of security settings.  While this has been resolved to some extent, it still occasionally happens.  I assume that this decision could have 
> implications there, too, but I'm no lawyer.