[bksvol-discuss] International volunteers
- From: <Jim@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:36:02 -0700
Thanks, Monica, for doing such a good job of setting forth our position.
We have had legal advice to be cautious about international volunteers,
mainly on copyright compliance grounds. But, I have high hopes that we
will be able to make progress on this. We've certainly been chipping
away at this, mostly in the context of permissions from publishers to do
so.
For example, we have had a partnership with Tiflolibros in Argentina to
get books in Spanish for Bookshare.org use. These books are prepared by
volunteers, but Tiflolibros gets publisher permission in writing for
each such book put in our collection. We are also piloting two projects
with disability groups in India right now, also based on getting
permissions.
Over the longer term, we might be able to expand international
volunteers in a number of ways. For example, as we grow international
members (with disabilities), we might be able to come up with ways to
have them volunteer, especially on local content. But, copyright is
different in every country, and it's hard for us to spend the time to
figure out what's possible, even though we have a contingent of pro bono
international lawyers available to us through the Lex Mundi Pro Bono
project. Right now, we're asking them to concentrate on permissions
work. Perhaps we could redesign the volunteer process to only process
small portions of different books, making piracy of entire books
unlikely?
Jim Fruchterman
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