Access for Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled Persons (TVI)

South Africa in support of the WIPO TVI Preventing Copyright laws from prohibiting access to information

In developed countries, barely 5% of all published works are available in formats which are accessible to blind people (large print, audio, braille or DAISY) – in developing countries, this number drops to a mere 0.5%. This estimation made by the World Blind Union (WBU) is the root of the current literary crisis known as the Book Famine!

With 314 million visually impaired and other print disabled readers around the world, this lack of access to information is simply unacceptable. So what is being done about this?

On 30 November 2009, the South African National Council for the Blind hosted a workshop on the 'Treaty for Improved Access for Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled Persons' (referred to as the 'TVI'). Delegates represented various organisations servicing the blind and visually impaired communities of South Africa, as well as stakeholders from the private and public sectors, including government departments and academia.

The TVI was adopted by all representatives and supporters of the blind and visually impaired communities who were present, and so, the TVI will be tabled at the World Intellectual Property Organisation's (WIPO) Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meeting on 14 December 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland. The WBU is sending representation to Geneva to present the TVI while Jace Nair, Council's National Executive Director, will represent South Africa's visually impaired community for this event and Department Arts and Culture will support the TVI on behalf of the South African Government.

The TVI's aim is to create a global standard for limitations and exceptions to Copyright in order to allow for cross-border exchange of accessible formats and equitable access to knowledge for millions of blind and visually impaired people around the world.

Research carried out by WBU shows that 95% of all accessible books currently available have been produced, not by the publishers, but by the visually impaired organisations themselves at their own expense - using Copyright Exceptions. Unfortunately the organisations may not share their books, as the Copyright laws prevent them from sharing across country borders. This leads to a lot of duplicated effort, especially in the case of English books. Each country's organisation must produce their own accessible book, which is identical to another country's, but may not be shared. If organisations who were making accessible books could pool their scant resources, such duplication could be avoided and the resources saved could be used to produce many more accessible books

The above is just one of the issues that the TVI, which is supported by South Africa, seeks to address. Council and various role players are also lobbying government for their support of the TVI in Geneva.