On May 8, 2019, the United States joins the list of 82 member nations that have fully ratified the long-awaited Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. If you are wondering exactly what that means, you are not alone. This document outlines the basic provisions and implications of the treaty, especially as it affects the Bookshare community.
Background
The Marrakesh Treaty was adopted to amend copyright law that prevented access to print works for print-disabled people. Only about 7% of published works are made available globally in accessible formats, and in the developing world, where 90% of blind and visually impaired people reside, the figure is less than 1%. This problem is partly due to limitations created by copyright law – limitations that the Treaty seeks to remove. The key changes to the law ensure that an accessible format copy may be made and supplied to a print-disabled person or an institution, such as a library, within a country or across a national border to another ratifying nation.
Timeline of Ratification
- June 27, 2013: The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled, was adopted by the member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Marrakesh, Morocco
- October 2, 2013: U.S. signs treaty as a contracting party
- September 30, 2016: Marrakesh Treaty entered into force with 20 member states.
- October 10, 2018: The Marrakesh Treaty Implementation Act (MTIA) was signed by President Trump. The MTIA amends Section 121 of U.S. copyright law so that its terms are consistent with the Marrakesh Treaty and improve access to accessible materials
- May 8, 2019: U.S. obligations go into effect
Changes to U.S. Copyright Law Expand Types of Literary Works
Section 121 of the U.S. copyright law has been updated and expanded to include dramatic works and musical scores in accessible formats.
What Does this Mean for Bookshare Members in the U.S.?
Bookshare members in the U.S. already have access to over 700,000 books in 47 languages. In the coming months, Bookshare will be able to import books from other Marrakesh-ratifying countries and make them available to Bookshare members in the U.S.
What Does this Mean for Bookshare Members in Marrakesh-Ratifying Countries Outside the U.S.?
Bookshare already shares 600,000 books (out of our total collection of 700,000) with members around in the world. We can do this because of the generosity of our publishing partners – they provide us with an electronic copy of a book and they give us broad distribution rights, often including international distribution rights. The Marrakesh Treaty allows us to add approximately 100,000 more books to the collection that we can share with eligible individuals in other Marrakesh-ratifying countries. These books were previously available to U.S. members only.
The Treaty is a game changer for developing countries, many of whom have a limited number of books in accessible formats like braille. These countries will be able to import books from countries with large existing libraries. For example, Marrakesh Treaty-ratifying countries in Latin America can import Spanish-language books from Spain. Countries that use English in business and academia can import books from large collections developed in English-speaking countries. This free movement of accessible materials in dozens of different languages addresses the book famine – the lack of accessible reading material – for eligible people in every Marrakesh-ratifying country.
What’s Next?
Benetech engineers have been working diligently to prepare the Bookshare platform for the import and export of books. At the same time, we are working with other libraries around the world to make even more books available. We have the opportunity to offer millions of titles to millions of people in the format they want on a device they already have.
I am hopeful that expanding the accessible materials available to people with disabilities will cause “ripple effects” of increasing supply and demand. As the supply of accessible materials increases worldwide, additional countries will see the value and ratify the treaty. Publishers, in turn, will offer more books in accessible formats in order to reach a larger user base. The increased number of consumers—especially in developing nations—will stimulate the demand for books and for low-cost electronic devices.
Ending the Book famine for Blind and partially sighted people around the world is a significant game changer for all. But I think that the impact will be especiallly significant in developing countries where there are very limited resources and access to Literature in accessible format, but also in smalller developed countries such as my Country of Denmark will the access to more English literature be highly appreciated. I have been a very happy bookshare user for about ten Years, and I look forward to be able to access even more books in the future. As the access to Danish accessible books are comparatively limited when comparing to what Bookshare Offers, I will also in the years to come be a very happy bookshare reader.. Now it is just to sit back and wait for the day where the US book selection and other English language books become available for me. I hope the Bookshare team will soon be ready for Marrakesh ratified countries !
Keep up the great work that you do for ending the Book famine and the advocacy you do for making all publishers offering their books in accessible formats either for us to read through Bookshare or to buy in an online bookshare just like everyone else.
I live in Australia, which has ratified the Marrakesh Treaty. The selection of books available to me on Bookshare is still the same as last week. Will I soon be able to access more books through Bookshare that were previously unavailable to me due to copyright restrictions?
Theodore: the short answer to your question is yes! We are in the process of researching Australia’s unique legal requirements for Marrakesh Treaty implementation as our engineering team performs the necessary back-end software updates to Bookshare to make the ~90,000 U.S. scanned titles available to members in other Marrakesh Treaty-ratifying countries. We expect this work to be completed this summer. Check this Marrakesh Treaty info page for an announcement when the books are available: https://benetech.org/about/resources/marrakesh-treaty/
Thanks for replying to my message. Will the books supplied by publishers also be affected by the Marrakesh Treaty and now be available in Australia as well, or just the scanned books?sent a
The books provided under publisher agreement are not impacted by the Marrakesh Treaty. The distribution rights for those books are governed by our contracts with the publishers, and the rights they grant to us under those contracts take precedence. So, you are correct in that the US-scanned titles will now become more widely available due to Marrakesh.
I am a blind college student in the United States, I am so glad this was ratified in America. Thank you Bookshare creators for creating accessible content. Can’t wait to see what the future will bring with regard to the accessibility of foreign language materials.
Hi! Thank you a lot for your hard work. There has not been any updates on this in your blog. What I read in the comments is that the changes were going to happen in the summer of 2019, but I’m still seeing a lot of the books that I’d like to access are unavailable in the Netherlands.
Has there been an update on the timeline? If so, could you please share?
Thanks!
Parham: Thank you for your question. The answer is complicated and varies depending on the country, but here is a basic answer. There are two main reasons why you would see books in the Bookshare collection that you are not able to access from the Netherlands.
1) The most likely reason has to do with the permissions publishers have for the books they give us under contract. Almost 90% of our content is provided by publishers; however, that content is provided under contracts with the publishers and they can only give us the territory rights that they have. The terms of these contracts supersede any other provisions of law such as the Marrakesh Treaty. Thus, if a publisher sends us a book for which they do not have distribution rights in the Netherlands, you would see it in the collection but legally we are not able to let you download it.
2) The other complication has to do with the requirements for Marrakesh to be fully implemented in every EU country. According to our research, every country in the EU not only has to ratify the treaty, but they also have to modify their national copyright laws to put the provisions of the treaty into effect.
Hope that helps! We are in the process of providing a more detailed update on the implications of the Marrakesh Treaty, so stay tuned.
Hello Laura. Any updated news regarding your previous update from April yet?