Everything to Everyone [Inside Higher Ed]

Busy day on the listservs yesterday with parallel conversations taking place on DSSHE, ICU, and Alt-Media around issues of alternate-text production with asides continuing the conversation around copyright issues. Members of the Alt-Media list are aware of my interest (and views) on such issues as is anyone who visits this blog. I believe this is an important area for us to understand as part of our professional responsibilities and it does not get nearly as much attention as it deserves. I do not expect any of us to be copyright experts - but having a basic understanding the issues is very important - and especially true in todays digital era.

With such in mind, I want to bring to your attention the article Everything to Everyone by Tarleton Gillespie in todays issue of Insider Higher Ed.

Unlike battles around digital music that have occupied the courts’ attention of late, [the Google] case will be of vital importance for the academic community. What is at stake is the possibility of a digital database of all written knowledge, and the question of who gets to produce it and under what conditions. But the case will live or die not on the question of the value of such a database to users, but on the narrower legal question of whether Google has the right to scan the books to begin with.

Dr. Gillespie's comments make me wonder how soon the textbook version of the RIAA will come sniffing around our alt-text productions? It could happen folks - if the RIAA is willing to go to the lengths they have for a few downloaded tunes the copyright equivalent may be planning to come after one of our high-profile bretheren in order to set an example. The American Foundation for the Blind saw this as a possibility a couple of years ago when they responded to the Copyright Office's Notice of Inquiry with respect to proceedings mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and again last year as they sought an extension to the exemption for literary works.

AFB understands and remains firmly committed to insuring the rights of producers of digital materials. However, we are equally committed to insuring non-infringing, fair use of materials in all of these formats including access to the technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.

The American Library Association has also chimed in:

Although many federal and state laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are generally construed to guarantee access to library materials and services, the current copyright laws do not ensure that librarians can easily purchase accessible versions of library materials for patrons. This disconnect between the accessibility mandates in federal law and the limits imposed by the copyright law make providing accessible library materials a daunting task for many librarians.

For an extremely good overview of all this - in language that even I can understand - take the time to read The Soundproof Book by Kerscher and Fruchterman.

I ran into a DRM issues just today. A blind student eMailed me with a request to convert a book she purchased at eBooks.com. I was able to download the .pdf but unable to convert it to .txt for use with her BrailleLite. The book can be read using the Adobe Reader - but this is a Doctoral candidate working on her Dissertation for goodness sake - being forced to plod along with the crappy Adobe "accessibility features" is insulting. Digital it may be - but certainly not what we consider to be accessible.

I figured someone out there had cracked the eBooks DRM but a quick search came up with nothing. The student and I eMailed durring the day and realized it will be easier just to buy the darn thing and scan it. My search, however, did provide me with a couple of interesting links. One brief blog post on why DRM is bad for books and another chronicling one poor souls efforts to actual purchase, download, and use a digital book.

eBooks.com cannot be blamed for not anticipating that a blind Ph.D. student would one day need this particular title in a format accessible with her refreshable braille display. Who woulda thunk it? But that is precisely the problem with all of this - few outside of our profession understand what is meant by accessibility. Why should this student have to go through such hassles to read this or any book in a manner that will allow her to access and make use of it just as easily as any of her sighted colleagues? What will it take for entites to understand that just because a textbook is digital does not mean it is accessible.