Proposed WIPO Treaty for Improved Access for Blind, Visually Impaired, and Other Reading Disabled Persons

• Author: Iheanyi Samuel Nwankwo
• Position: LL.B (Nig), B.L, LL.M (Hannover/Stockholm)
• Pages: 203-216

Proposed WIPO Treaty for Improved Access for Blind, Visually Impaired, and Other Reading Disabled Persons

2011

203

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Proposed WIPO Treaty for Improved

Access for Blind, Visually Impaired, and

Other Reading Disabled Persons

and Its Compatibility with TRIPS Three-Step Test and EU

Copyright Law

by Iheanyi Samuel Nwankwo*, LL.B (Nig), B.L, LL.M (Hannover/Stockholm)

© 2011 Iheanyi Samuel Nwankwo

Everybody may disseminate this ar ticle by electronic m eans and make it available for downlo ad under the terms and

conditions of the Digita l Peer Publishing Licence (DPPL). A copy of the license text may be obtained a t http://nbn-resolving.

de/urn:nbn:de:0009-dppl-v3-en8 .

This article may also b e used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License, available at h t t p : //

creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.

Recommended citation: Nwankwo, Proposed WIPO Treaty for Impr oved Access for Blind, Visually Impaire d, and Other

Reading Disabled Persons, 2 (2 011) JIPITEC 203, pa ra 1.

Keywords: Threee Step Test; Vissually Impaired People; Reading Disabled Persons; TRIPS; EU Copyright Law

Abstract: Although the world’s attention has on sev-

eral occasions been turned to the plight of the vision

impaired, there has been no international copyright

instrument that specifically provides for limitations

or exceptions to copyright for their benefit. Such an

instrument becomes imperative amidst the grow-

ing number of persons in this category and the need

to facilitate their access to information that will give

them the opportunity to participate in public af-

fairs. Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Mexico (Brazilian

group) seek to fill this gap by submitting to the WIPO’s

Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights

a draft treaty for Improved Access for Blind, Visually

Impaired and Other Reading Disabled Persons. How-

ever, this proposal has generated a lot of reactions,

resulting in three other such proposals being submit-

ted to WIPO for deliberations. Copyright owners have

also opposed the treaty. Amidst these reactions, this

work seeks to analyze the compatibility of the Brazil-

ian group’s proposal with the TRIPS three-step test,

which has enjoyed a great deal of international rec-

ognition since its inclusion in the Berne Convention.

It also seeks to find its compatibility with EU copy-

right law as harmonized in the Directive 2001/29/EC.

In the end, we conclude that the proposed treaty is in

harmony with the three-step test, and though it has

some variations from the EU Copyright Directive, it

nonetheless shares some underlying objectives with

the Directive and does not radically depart from what

prevails in several EU member states.

A. Introduction

1 Finding the appropriate balance between the crea-

tive incentive of copyright for authors and the inte-

  

work has been a controversial issue for ages.

1

The

current attempt to internationally harmonize limi-



are visually impaired only causes this controversy to

resurface. This battle, which simply consists of the

economic interest of authors to reap the fruits of

their labor on the one hand, and the interest of the

state in providing public access to literary works for

the advancement of knowledge on the other hand,

appears not to have been won or lost even 300 ye-

-

land.2 Although the earliest approach at securing a

license to publish was in the form of a sovereign pri-

vilege,

3

the transposition of such a privilege into a le-

gally recognized right has shown both positive and