Author: Manon Ress

These are the draft conclusions regarding the audiovisual performances. The delegates had very few comments, so what you see here is more or less what the final paper will look like.

Protection of audiovisual performances

11. The Committee expressed its appreciation for the seminars organized by the Se. and encouraged the Sec to continue that activity

12. The Committee reaffirmed its commitment to work on developing the international protection of performances in audiovisual media.

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These are the draft conclusions distributed by the chair regarding item 5 of the agenda (i.e. limitations and exceptions). The paper was distributed before the lunch break (1-3pm). The delegates are consulting on it and will come back at 3pm. The final text will be modified of course but this is a good start.

SCCR 18 DRAFT CONCLUSIONS OF THE SSCR prepared by the chair
Limitations and exceptions

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Today I filed my comments to the United States Copyright Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Accessible Works and Standards, a topic related to the provision of access to copyrighted works for blind or other persons with disabilities.

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The following is my report from the April 7, 2009 Reading Rights Coalition demonstration in front of the NYC offices of the Authors Guild, regarding text to speech for Kindle 2.

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The groups below represent 15 million Americans who cannot read print because of blindness, dyslexia, spinal cord injury and other print disabilities. Reading disabled persons affected by the Authors’ Guild request to remove the text to speech function on Kindle 2 include school children, the elderly, professionals, university students, returning veterans, and yes, your neighbors, family members and friends.

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This note discusses the issue of who should benefit from a WIPO treaty for reading disabled persons. Should it only be people who are blind and visually impaired, as some propose, or should it be more inclusive with regard to other disabilities?

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The following is the KEI letter to the US Department of Justice on the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation.

February 25, 2009

US Department of Justice
Antitrust Division

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
E-mail: antitrust.atr@usdoj.gov

Re: Opposition to Ticketmaster/Live Nation Merger

To whom it may concern:

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Yesterday, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary had a hearing before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights on “The Ticketmaster/Live Nation Merger: What Does it Mean for Consumers and the Future of the Concert Business?

LINK http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/subcommittees/antitrust.cfm

The witnesses were:

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Over the weekend, I looked at a small section of one of my bookshelf at home.

As in my previous blog, I wrote down the titles and author names for all of the books, and then checked on Bookshare.org to find out what is actually available for reading disabled persons. For purposes of this survey, I considered all books on Bookshare of “fair or above quality” (the lowest of 4 categories that include publisher’s quality, excellent and good), as “being available.”

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Today, I checked the books on my bookshelves at work. I found 69 books. 9 of them are available in formats accessible to the reading disabled in the US and 1 is available to the print disabled worldwide.

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