WIPO Campaign EBU and the European Dyslexia Association in the European Parliament's Petitions Committee
On September 7th the European Blind Union and the European Dyslexia Association (EDA) formally submitted petitions to the European Parliament's Petitions Committee. The petition highlighted the fact that by failing to back our call for a binding WIPO treaty to provide better access to books for blind and other reading disabled people, the EU negotiators at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) had not respected the will of the European Parliament.
The Petitions Committee meeting of 3rd October heard our case and the response of the European Commission on the matter.
Raymond Claes, Vice Chair of EDA, Chris Friend, Chair of WBU's Right to Read Campaign, and Dan Pescod, Vice Chair of WBU's Right to Read Campaign, attended the meeting in Brussels. Chris spoke on our behalf, after which the Commission's Head of Copyright, Maria Martin-Prat, replied. Then various MEPs spoke on the matter, before a couple of very brief, unsatisfactory comments from the Commission's Justice DG. Finally, Dan Pescod responded to the Commission.
The Petitions Committee press release on the matter can be found at this link, as well as a link to the video of the session for those interested (our section starts on the video at 15.30 and ends around 16.10).
Chris Friend, chair of the World Blind Union Right to Read Campaign, asked the committee this week: “Do you know what it is to go to a public library and to find that you do not have access to 95 percent of the books?”
Members of Parliament made some strong statements on the issue, according to the committee release. “It is a form of discrimination, people's basic right to education and culture is being neglected,” said MEP Angelika Werthmann (Non Attached, AT). “It is simply unacceptable that a part of society is being denied access to books,” said MEP Peter Jahr (EPP, DE).
“The right to culture is not a commercial matter,” said Victor Boştinaru (S&D, RO) and Sonia Alfano (ALDE, IT). They said that denying access to published works represents a “violation of fundamental rights.” Margrete Auken (Greens/EFA, DK) insisted that the European Parliament “is in favour of a binding law.”
In summary, the Committee found the Commission's arguments and action on the matter to date to be insufficient. All MEPs unanimously and strongly backed our call for a WIPO treaty, and agreed to our request for the matter to be further examined via an oral question in the Parliament's Plenary.Download the official press release on this topic, and read the article on the Intellectual Property Watch site.