Law Commons^™

Copyright And Disability, Blake E. Reid

Publications

A vast array of copyrighted works—books, video programming, software, podcasts, video games, and more—remain inaccessible to people with disabilities. International efforts to adopt limitations and exceptions to copyright law that permit third parties to create and distribute accessible versions of books for people with print disabilities have drawn some attention to the role that copyright law plays in inhibiting the accessibility of copyrighted works. However, copyright scholars have not meaningfully engaged with the role that copyright law plays in the broader tangle of disability rights.

Beyond The Marrakesh Vip Treaty: Typology Of Copyright Access-Enabling Provisions For Persons With Disabilities, Caroline B. Ncube, Blake E. Reid, Desmond O. Oriakhogba

Publications

This paper builds upon the evidence drawn from a scoping study on access to copyright works by persons with disabilities. It identifies and discusses specific access‐enabling technologies for persons with aural, cognitive, physical, and visual disabilities and how they are affected by the exercise of exclusive rights. It shows how, and the extent to which states' ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled (Marrakesh Treaty) has enabled the making of accessible format of copyright works for persons with disabilities. To this end, the paper examines …

Copyright Crime And Punishment: The First Amendment's Proportionality Puzzle, Margot Kaminski

Publications

The United States is often considered to be the most speech-protective country in the world. Paradoxically, the features that have led to this reputation have created areas in which the United States is in fact less speech protective than other countries. The Supreme Court's increasing use of a categorical approach to the First Amendment has created a growing divide between the US. approach to reconciling copyright and free expression and the proportionality analysis adopted by most of the rest of the world.

In practice, the U.S. categorical approach to the First Amendment minimizes opportunities for judicial oversight of copyright. Consequently, …

The Marrakesh Treaty For Visually Impaired Persons: Why A Treaty Was Preferable To Soft Law, Margot E. Kaminski, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid

Publications

This paper addresses the debates leading up to the recently adopted international treaty on copyright exceptions for the visually impaired, the Marrakesh International Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. This treaty was successfully adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in June 2013.

Leading up to the negotiation of this instrument, multiple UN member states pushed for the instrument to be negotiated as soft law instead of a treaty. We argue that making this instrument soft law would have precluded its success. WIPO thus correctly chose to …