Why Is It Illegal To Send Braille Books Across Borders?

That's the question that Jina Moore explores in an interesting piece for Foreign Policy -- particularly pertinent because at a conference beginning tomorrow, the World Intellectual Property Organization will decide if it will proceed with a treaty that would dismantle a nonsensical ban on sharing accessible texts from one country to another. The American publishing industry opposes the treaty (because of its "current language"), and the Obama administration has not taken a stance one way or another; official statements amount to equivocations. Because WIPO has a consensus-based decision-making process (a fact that amazes me), the U.S. needs to back the treaty, or it's toast.

One of the issues here is a copyright exception (or lack thereof) that would allow organizations "to copy, in a variety of accessible formats, a copyrighted work without getting permission from or paying a fee to the copyright holder." Moore explains.

"Accessible books" includes Braille print copies, but the more important issue is digital files. Specially coded audio books allow the blind to navigate between chapters, bookmark their reading, and otherwise interact with a text as a sighted person might with a print volume. There are also various text-to-speech programs that can adapt a book for a visually impaired reader. All of these are based on digital files that blind resource organizations say would be easy to share with visually impaired readers, if not for the current regulations.

"Let's say the United States produces the book," says Melanie Brunson, executive director of the American Council of the Blind.  "Canada has to produce their own version; England has to produce their own version; Australia has to produce its own version, even though all of them are producing it in English Braille or an English talking book."

That's no small thing. Take Britain's most lately beloved literary export, Harry Potter. It cost the National Braille Press in Boston roughly $80,000 to set and print one volume of the series, though the work had already been done in other countries. Pescod says the resources his Royal National Institute of the Blind used to duplicate a single Harry Potter text could have paid for another four titles in Braille and another seven accessible audiobooks.

It sounds like a lot of red tape and a whole lot of money. And what's at stake here?

Current copyright regulations are contributing to a global "book famine" for blind or visually impaired readers, who number around 285 million, according to the World Blind Union (WBU). The WBU estimates that less than 1 percent of all titles are available in accessible formats in the developing world, and only 7 percent in the developed world. Only 8,517 books are accessible to the blind in Chile, Columbia, Mexico, Nicaragua and Uruguay combined, according to the WBU, yet Argentina has 63,000 accessible titles and Spain has 102,000. Spanish, of course, is a national language in each of those countries, but current copyright law doesn't permit Spain or Argentina to share its converted texts.

So, basically, a huge number of people, especially those living in developing countries, have very little to read, and those of us in wealthier countries can't legally donate materials to them. This doesn't just diminish their ability to read for fun (though I'd argue that's significant enough), but to advance in school and in the workplace. It's the systemic suffocation of the talents and skills of people who are visually impaired.

This story, incidentally, is exciting my interest in how books, especially of the literary ilk, are translated into Braille, or in audio formats specifically tailored to visually impaired people. What books are chosen for Braille conversion, and why? How does the rate of fiction books Braille-ized compare to nonfiction, and poetry? "Classic" authors and contemporary authors? Are there multiple translations of some texts available? What makes a Braille version of a book "good" or "not good," and what kind of training do the translators go through? I realize this is a tangent that assumes a certain amount of resources (and laws)  for Braille books to even exist, but ... I'm curious. If any readers can point me to stories or information about this, let me know.

Comments

[jina]

Anna, thanks for sharing my story! Here's things I gleaned about this in answer to your question:

Technology is definitely going to revolutionize what's available. Already there are more text-to-speech books available via eReaders than there were, and though there have been issues with that in the early days of eReaders, it's getting better. Allan Adler, of the American Association of Publishers (not pro-treaty), explained to me that standardizing eBooks into open formats, like ePub3 and HTML5 is going to make a big, big difference. The further we get from proprietary digital formats, everyone seems to agree, the more accessible books will become.

Melanie Brunson at the American Council of the Blind said people who convert books try to do make sure "It's not all Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts." But there's always a lag.

Brunson and other said many VIP (visually impaired) libraries have a hard time keeping up with the number of non-English-first speakers who need reading assistance. And of course books published abroad can't be brought in VIP here, unless the treaty is passed or someone here negotiates an exception with the publisher abroad.

Braille books are actually a minority of the books read by the visually impaired; Braille literacy in the US isn't actually very high. More people are reading with audiobooks -- some even with commercially available audio books, and accessibility to them is about purchasing power (and ease on the Internet, etc). But lots of people still prefer DAISY books, a special format of audio book for the visually impaired that helps them navigate sections of text, describes illustrations and diagrams, etc.

One really interesting kicker: Bookshare, a terrific online library for the visually impaired, can use volunteer labor from book lovers, who proof the text files from which Bookshare's audio books are produced. If you're willing to read and proof at the same time, drop them a note!

[Anna Clark]

Oh my gosh, this is amazing and thorough. Thank you!!

For what it's worth, here are 10 of the "most popular" books on Bookshare:

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Hunger Games
Diary of a Wimpy Kid #1
The Outsiders
The Giver
Of Mice and Men
Hatchet (!!)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid #3
Catching Fire (2nd in Hunger Games trilogy)
The Hobbit

I guess it's not really surprising that nearly all these books target young people.

[sb]

I will say, as I work with Dyslexic children- I know that many children (and probably adults, too) with reading or attention disabilities also use Bookshare, I think the current reading trends has more to do with this population than the vision-impaired. It is a great resource for all, though!