8/2/2019 Letter to Pirate Evangelist Rick Falkvinge

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Dear Mr. Falkvinge -- The following was sent to MP Mr. Engstrom (whohad posted comments re: WIPO SCCR 22) and was deemed worthy ofneither a reply nor acknowledgement.

I viewed your recent TED talk. I especially liked your line about

not vilifying one's adversaries as that IMHO is happening all too often atWIPO SCCR negotiations by those who advocate for greater copyrightfreedoms.

I also think -- short of changing law or international instrument -- the bestapproach is to use existing law in new or novel interpretation but this hasbeen rejected by persons in the disability rights community.Regards/ JEM

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Dear Sir -- I am the Director of a (very) small US 501c3 Non Profit (NGO)and a US Library of Congress Certified Braille Transcriber.

I recently had an email conversation with Mr. Stephen Davis of the RNIB /President of the DAISY Consortium. He basically said -- in a memo forwhich claims confidentiality -- that the large national organizations for theblind and other print related disabilities would be reticent to employ atactic of using the export/import provisions ofexistingcopyrightexceptions of major WIPO Member countries in a manner which might

provoke a lawsuit from the various intellectual property interests. Iresponded with the following:

I have written to the IPA, AAP, UKPA, Authors Guild, etc. andinformed them directly that I AM in fact reproducing & distributinginternationally Braille renditions of copyrighted material based uponUK (VIP)Act 2002 31A -- I have never had any response. A smallNGO is capable of setting legal precedent just as much as LOC,ONCE, and all the other top-of-the-line outfits that you mention. Iparticularly note your mention of China whose 2001 copyright law

allows for unrestricted reproduction in Braille at Section4 Article22(12)

Have you ever heard in the USA of the late Ms. Rosa Parks? TheUS Civil Rights movement in many ways began when in 1955 Ms.Parks refused to sit at the back of the bus.

I concluded my response with the following:

8/2/2019 Letter to Pirate Evangelist Rick Falkvinge

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I believe you will get your Treaty when the worldwide publishingindustry and those WIPO Member delegations who would opposesuch a Treaty believe that a binding legal instrument is the least ofseveral otherwise disagreeable outcomes and not before -- it is just

the Realpolitik in me.

I wrote late last year on former EU MP David Hammerstein's TACD-IP.org website:

Try-it-and-see-if-you-get-sued is how things often work in the legalarena and takes someone or some organization willing to putthemselves at-risk to establish a test case or precedent andthereby force those who might oppose a binding Treaty to offersome clear rationale for its opposition and not just stall, stall, and

stall some more.

http://tacd-ip.org/archives/518#comments

... and more recently on the latest EU 'grilling' of Commissioner M.Barnier at:

http://tacd-ip.org/archives/581#comments

Finally, I wrote on the DAISY Consortium Forum:

At what point does the collective leadership of the DAISYConsortium, the World Blind Union, and other representatives ofthe world's print disabled population become accountable for thecurrent state-of-affairs instead of just blaming those who wouldoppose any such print disability treaty or legal instrument for theirwillful disregard of non-binding declarations human rights?

So, I for one actually have and am further willing to put myself at risk thatmuch of what is sought in a binding legal copyright exception instrument-- which may never come to pass -- can be achieved or a least betternegotiated by using exiting legislation.

Thank you. / JEM

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