Today NGOs were given 3 minutes for an opening statement. This is the text I used. Jamie
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Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) is a non-profit organization concerned with human rights. KEI wishes the delegates luck on a successful outcome. We are grateful for the work by the Secretariat on this issue, from top to bottom.
We will discuss our concerns about the negotiations.
There is a disparity between the lofty language in this hall, and the efforts to narrow user rights taking place downstairs, in the closed meeting.
Commercial Availability restrictions on exceptions, rarely implemented in national laws, are costly to implement. In practice, commercial availability restrictions require complex evaluations of the reasonableness of prices, and the accessibility and interoperability of commercial formats. These problems are dramatically expanded if applied to every export market.
Any notification of commercial availability should include a discussion of interoperability requirements, to ensure that a work deemed “accessible” can be used on different devices, and with a high level of usability.
Fair use and Fair practices are important, for publishers, for sighted persons, and also for blind persons. Reed-Elsevier is lobbying here to get rid of fair use, but claiming fair use as a defense in a case alleging infringement of copyrights on court briefs.
We should reflect on things that have been left out of the treaty.
Because of motion picture lobbying efforts, deaf persons are eliminated as beneficiaries. After deaf persons were removed, the motion picture industry asked that audiovisual works be excluded. Educators, employers and professions increasingly rely upon audiovisual works, which often can be made more accessible. These exclusions are a shame for a UN body.
Contracts should not be used to eliminate the user rights of blind people The article on contracts was first made weaker, and then eliminated altogether.
Exceptions for commercial entities, have been removed. Mass digitalization projects have created millions of copies of works, and the treaty should be flexible enough to ensure that those millions of works are available to blind people everywhere, not only in those living in a few countries.
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What else is wrong?
There are efforts to expand the 3-step test for blind persons in ways that exceed its scope for sighted persons.
There are efforts to create all sorts of new treaty rules that make the exceptions narrow, complex and difficult and costly to use.
This treaty should aim high, not low. This treaty should demonstrate the best of our values, and not be an illustration of the corrupting influence of special interests.