Hi thom. I am actually looking into getting hold of The Dark tower at the moment, and have also gone through the hiddiously tortuous and long winded process that it takes to get stuff from the National Libruary of Congress exported to the Uk, (which isn't helped by the fact that the Rnib are useless).
I was however just giving it as an example. In the Uk, there is absolutely no governmental backing or funding for the production of accessible books, and quite a few publishers just reffuse to allow tvarious charitable organizations permission to reccord their books, simply on the off chance that they might, at some point in the future wish to produce a commercial audio copy themselves, and thus any reccordings the charities did would, supposedly hurt their sails. In the Us However, as far as I understand it, sinse production of audio books (and maybe braille as well), is both funded and backed by the government, this sort of arguement doesn't come up. I'll skip my long anti-capitalist wrant here, but suffice it to say the situation really! annoys me! then of course, there's the problem that publishers often abridge what commercial audio books they do produce, sometimes I think abridging books should be punishable by abridging the culprit, ----- with an axe! And finally there's the issue we've already touched upon here, the problem that three quarters of blind people are over the age of 65, which is only made moree acuteby the charities intense lack of resources and (in the case of the Rnib), severe lack of knolidge of things like book genres and series continuity as well. I'm extremely sorry for the offtopicitude here, it's just that this is one issue that really! gets on my whick! Beware the Grue! (especially when wranting). dark. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org> Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 6:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility > Hi Dark, > Quite true. Different governments have different copyright laws > regarding these things so one must always keep that in mind. > However, for your specific problem with the dark tower series can't you > order them over say Amazon.com and listen to the audio tape or cd > versions that have already been made by American companies like Books on > Tape, Random House, Simon & Chooster, etc? > True it would cost some money, but at least you could get it without > going through some governmental garbage to get it. > > Dark wrote: >> Unfortunately thom, that very much depends upon the country's legal >> system >> and how reasonable the government are prepared to be as reguards >> accessibility issues and writing new legislation. the Us government does >> tend to be better than the english govenrment in this respect. For >> instance, >> there are various books (Steven King's Dark tower series for example), >> which >> can't be produced in audio overhere simply because the publishers might >> want >> to release a commercial audio tape version at some point! >> >> For more info see this Site: >> http://www.booksbeforewedie.com/ >> >> Then again, it's not really surprising sinse most of the theoretical work >> reguarding the practice and implementation of equality is done in the Us, >> and very much in the Us theoretical traditions as well. >> >> Initially, I actually wanted to deal with questions about disability and >> equality in my Phd thesis, however the more literature I read on the >> subject, the more I've come to realize that there needs to be some work >> done >> on the very basic, day to day, ethics of disability and interpersonal >> relations ffirst, so that's what I'm probably going to be writing about. >> >> Many appologies for the offtopicitude here and me going all professional >> philosopher on y, it's just that this discussion is getting remarkably >> close >> to my own area of expertees ------ assuming of course it's possible to >> have! >> expertees in Philosophy, ;D. >> >> Beware the grue! >> >> Dark. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Thomas Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org> >> Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:07 AM >> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Forcing accessibility >> >> >> >>> Hi Dark, >>> Yes, I think challenging some of the laws, hard to do, is one of the >>> only ways of making any headway. >>> I am all for copyrights, but sometimes they tend to stomp out those who >>> don't have an equal or near equal access to that content. >>> As far as games go I'd like something put in to the existing copyright >>> laws that is similar to the written materials. It can only be copyed or >>> used in an accessible manner or specialised format for blind and >>> visually impaired or something like that. At the national level it would >>> go over any company license agreement if the audio content or whatever >>> was used in a specialised format for the blind, etc... >>> >>> >>> Dark wrote: >>> >>>> As far as legal issues go, I do believe there is some mileage to >>>> campeign >>>> for changes here, sinse some laws are clearly and simply unfair. >>>> >>>> For instance, one charity which reccords audio books here in the Uk has >>>> to >>>> borrow books directly from their public library. while their local >>>> library >>>> will freely let them exceed the lone period on books, if they get a >>>> book >>>> on >>>> interlibrary lone from the national British Library they are forced to >>>> pay >>>> the standard charge when keeping a book for an extended period, even >>>> when >>>> recording books. this makes it almost impossible for them to produce >>>> any >>>> book not available in their local public library. Sinse they don't have >>>> the >>>> cash to pay the extra lone fees it would take. >>>> >>>> Imho, this is certainly a case where the law, or at least the national >>>> British Library policy, is in error and should deffinately be changed. >>>> >>>> All the best, >>>> >>>> Dark. >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org >>>> To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can >>>> visit >>>> http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make >>>> any subscription changes via the web. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org >>> To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can >>> visit >>> http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make >>> any subscription changes via the web. >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org >> To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can >> visit >> http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make >> any subscription changes via the web. >> >> >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org > To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can > visit > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make > any subscription changes via the web. _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
