Meet the Stakeholders > Chris Friend

Strategic Objective Leader Accessibility, World Blind Union (WBU); Chair, Global Right to Read Campaign; Programme Development Advisor, Sightsavers International

"314 million people worldwide have a visual impairment and millions more have other impairments which prevent them reading "standard" print works.  Only about five percent of books published are converted to accessible formats such as Braille, large print and audio, and less than 1% in developing countries.

Specialist agencies, and not the publishers themselves, using scarce charitable money, normally do most of this work to make them accessible.

WBU research in 2009 showed that over 90% of these accessible format works have to be produced using exceptions to copyright law.  WBU Member Organisations want to be able to share the accessible books they produce with our colleagues in other countries. That would save money and time, and make more books available.  But currently copyright law makes this difficult or impossible.

The treaty on Copyright and the Visually Impaired proposed by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay, and the "WIPO Stakeholder Platform" together can combine to provide a comprehensive solution to this problem.  WBU is working hard to see both complimentary initiatives come to fruition."