[bksvol-discuss] Re: Pirate lists and Bookshare.org
- From: "Julie Morales" <mercy421@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 16:52:59 -0500
MessageWow! Of course, with the nature of Bookshare, I shouldn't be surprised
that someone would be doing this, but maybe I'm too honest? *smile* Since
you've been kicked off the list, what kinds of measures can you take or are you
taking to find out who's doing this? I'm sorry it has come to this and can
definitely understand your feelings on the matter. Take care.
Julie Morales
To be in your children's memories tomorrow, you need to be in their lives
today. -- Unknown
mercy421@xxxxxxxxxxx
Windows/MSN Messenger (but not email):
mercy0421@xxxxxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 6:04 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Pirate lists and Bookshare.org
I had an interesting experience this last weekend while heading to Tunisia to
speak on building a global library for people with print disabilities (will
post a link to my talk on my blog shortly). I had heard that there was a list
that posts ebooks for blind people, and I signed up for it. I was quickly
kicked off, but not before I found out that people were sharing Bookshare.org
books freely through this list.
Now, I was aware long before Bookshare.org was created that print-disabled
people were sharing books that they had scanned. I don't have a problem with
it, whatever its legal status is. But, when someone shares a Bookshare.org
book on such a list, that's a problem. Our deal with publishers is that we
take copyright law seriously, and they give us a fair amount of freedom to
pursue our mission. Our digital rights management strategy is designed to give
our users tremendous flexibility to use the books for each person's needs. We
call it a "weak locks, strong social pressure" model. But, it means that we
have to suspend folks who we find out have been violating our agreement with
them to not share Bookshare.org books.
Not all publishers like what we do. One person at a leading publisher has
been torpedoing the national conversation around accessible books by claiming
that we and RFB&D are dishonest. This has been only partially successful,
because we have a reputation for taking our obligations seriously. I used to
be able to claim I was not aware of Bookshare.org books being shared illegally.
No longer. And, we are obligated to take action to police this, efforts I'd
rather be spending on improving Bookshare.org and expanding our collection.
We have been working for over a year to get access to the giant book scanning
projects being operated by Amazon and Google. Getting our hands on these books
depends on our ability to represent that we are not a conduit for these books
to be leaked out onto the Internet.
My goal is that people with disabilities all over the world have access to
books that is at least as good as that for people without disabilities. I want
your help to reach that goal. The most important help we need from you is to
respect your agreements with Bookshare.org. Don't pass our books along to
anyone else. And, please don't contribute books to Bookshare.org from a source
other than your own efforts. These parallel efforts will probably go on,
especially for people in countries that don't have laws that provide legal
options for access. But, don't pull Bookshare.org into this. We will be
significantly hampered in our efforts to build access for hundreds of thousands
of people with disabilities if we lose our reputation for respecting our social
bargain with authors and publishers.
Jim Fruchterman
President and CEO
Benetech
480 California Avenue, Suite 201
Palo Alto, California 94306 USA
+1 650 475-5440 extension 106
Fax: +1 650 475-1066
jim@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.benetech.org
The Benetech Initiative - Technology Serving Humanity
Benetech is a nonprofit organization
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