EBU statement upon the vote in the Legal Affairs Committee on Marrakesh Treaty legislation

The European Blind Union thanks the European Parliament for its continuous strong support

We are happy that there has been a legislative agreement in the EU which opens the door for swift EU ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty. The agreement means that cross-border exchange of copyrighted books will be legal without the permission of rightsholders for non-profit uses to serve blind and visually-impaired persons. This political agreement establishes  in the EU a mandatory exception to copyright for the sharing of books accessible for blind and other visually-impaired persons.

At the same time we regret that this agreement allows EU member states to impose a “tax on accessible books” or a “compensation right” to be paid to rightsholders as we consider this in contradiction with the right-to-read objectives of the Marrakesh Treaty. We shall oppose this unfair application of payment schemes in the transposition of these EU laws into EU member state legislation. They are falsely called "compensation schemes" because there is no economic loss to be compensated and governments never have shown any substantial damage done to publishers by accessible formatted works.

The EBU will work hard to make sure the Directive and Regulation approved today means an important movement toward ending the “book famine” that deprives visually-impaired persons  access to the majority of  reading material that is published. This legislation is specially relevant because it is in the EU (along with the USA) where the majority of accessible formats exist in major languages. This legislation along with the Marrakesh Treaty will mean greater access to education, culture and social integration for  millions of visually impaired persons in Europe and around the world.

The next crucial step is for the European Parliament and the Council to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty and to deposit this ratification in Geneva at the World Intellectual Property Organization.  We call upon this to be done with no further delay.

David Hammerstein, Marrakesh Treaty Advocate for EBU.