Digital copyright and disability discrimination: From braille books to bookshare

Suzor, Nicolas P. and Harpur, Paul D. and Thampapillai, Dilan (2008) Digital copyright and disability discrimination: From braille books to bookshare. Media & Arts Law Review 13(1):1.

Full text available as: PDF - Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or other PDF viewer.

Abstract

In Australia, blind people are able to access texts in braille and books on tape, but the demand for these media is decreasing. Blind people today are increasingly reliant on texts in electronic form, and these are much less readily available in Australia. Electronic texts are more portable and less cumbersome than large braille volumes, and are much faster to navigate than audio recordings. However, in Australia it is difficult for blind people to get access to a wide range of electronic texts and there exists no scheme enabling such access. At the same time sighted people are using electronic text and other digital media at an ever-increasing rate. In order to approximate the same level of access as sighted people, blind people require access to accessible electronic versions of all published material. The authors suggest that given the legal imperatives of Australia’s domestic legislation, treaty obligations and social values, that there exists a moral imperative to create a scheme providing blind people with access to digital print media.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Status:	Published
Keywords:	copyright access accessibility blind print disability human rights disability discrimination
Subjects:	390000 Law, Justice and Law Enforcement > 390300 Justice and Legal Studies > 390303 Human Rights 390000 Law, Justice and Law Enforcement > 390100 Law > 390114 Intellectual Property
ID Code:	13337
Deposited By:	Suzor, Nic
Deposited On:	17 April 2008
Alternative Locations:	http://nic.suzor.com/_media/publications/2008-digital_copyright_and_disability_discrimination_2008_13_1_malr1.pdf, http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/cmcl/malr/index.html
Copyright Owner:	Literary copyright held by Suzor, Harpur, Thampapillai. Published edition copyright held by LexisNexis.
Copyright Statement:	Thanks to the MALR and LexisNexis, this paper is available here under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 (AU) licence. Attribution must be to the authors and the publisher (first published by LexisNexis and MALR).