Marrakech Treaty For The Blind Signed; MPAA Unable To Kill It
from the could-it-be? dept
It took decades to get this done, but it appears that a copyright treaty for the blind has been signed in Marrakech, and despite a full court press from the MPAA to further water down the agreement, it appears the final version is closer to what the various public interest and blind groups wanted. Apparently, US and EU negotiators were not thrilled with the outcome, but couldn't fight it any more. The full text hasn't been released yet, but from all the commentary out of Marrakech, it sounds like the MPAA failed to poison this treaty. I'm sure we'll have more on this later, but two things to discuss out of this:- Contrary to the claims of the USTR about how it would be crazy to negotiate agreements like ACTA, TPP or TAFTA with openness on the drafts being considered, this agreement was negotiated with transparency and (mostly) openness. Once again, we see that the USTR is full of it with its lack of transparency.
- There is still a ratification question. Expect the MPAA efforts to now shift to blocking the US from actually ratifying the treaty, which is rather important, since the key part of the treaty is letting creative works for the blind enter into various countries, but most of the books would likely originate from the US....
Filed Under: blind, copyright, fair use, marrakech, ratification, three step
Companies: mpaa
