Week two at the WIPO Diplomatic Conference in Marrakesh
25 June 2013
The WIPO Diplomatic Conference to conclude a Treaty to facilitate access to published works by visually impaired persons and persons with print disabilities has now entered its second week. As of Tuesday 25th June a new text was put on the table to be discussed by Member States and hopefully agreed upon by Friday 28th June. During the final stages of negotiations IFLA is represented in Marrakesh by the Head of our Delegation to WIPO Winston Tabb and Geert Rubens from the Section for Libraries Serving Persons with Print Disabilities. Teresa Hackett from Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) and Jonathan Band from the US-based Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) are also at the conference. All library delegates are currently studying the new text to ensure that any treaty is workable for libraries serving the visually impaired.
As interest in the final outcome has grown over 30 library associations have now signed the Joint statement to urge WIPO Member States to agree an effective treaty for print disabled people. If your organisation would like to sign the Statement please contact Julia.brungs@ifla.org.
Press coverage of the conference has also increased this week. For further reading, please see:
- 'New Draft Text Shows Progress On WIPO Treaty On Books For The Print-Disabled' – IP Watch
- 'Filmmakers’ group tries to reshape treaty that would benefit the blind' – Washington Post
- 'US film industry tries to weaken copyright treaty for blind people' – The Guardian
- '‘Every Book Born Digital, Should be Born Accessible’' – The Global Initiative for inclusive ICTs
- 'The Motion Picture Association's Fight Against a Treaty to Support the Visually Impaired' – Michael Geist
- 'Primer on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired' – The centre for Internet and Society
You can follow plenary sessions using the livestream, and the discussions on Twitter are using the hashtags #wipo and #vipdc