Fondazione LIA
LIA
Fondazione LIA is a non-profit organization that promotes the culture of accessibility in the publishing field.
ID: 803836850082-42
Lobbying Activity
Response to Evaluation of “Marrakesh” Directive and Regulation
8 May 2023
Since many years prior to the implementation of the EU Marrakech Directive, in Italy numerous publishers have been actively collaborating in different ways with specialized organizations (in many cases now Authorised Entities (AE) for the purpose of adapting books into various accessible suitable formats. Fondazione LIA, created in 2014, is an example on how this collaboration can work: it was created by the Italian Publishers Association in collaboration with the Italian Blind and Low Vison People and has many publishers, the Italian Dyslexia Association andthe Library for the Blind People Regina Margherita of Monza (an AE), among its institutional members. Fondazione LIA is actively involved, at national and international level, in fostering this collaboration to create more and more accessible books, in particular in view of the implementation of the European Accessibility Act in 2025. Similar initiatives based on the collaboration between Publishers Association, publishers and AE to achieve the goals defined by the EU Act are now in place in many other EU countries. The EU Act, approved in parallel with and independently from, the EU Marrakech Directive, has significantly transformed the requirements in the field of digital publications as it requires that ebooks and all the actors of publishing value chain (distributors, online stores, reading solutions, digital rights managements solutions) should comply with defined accessibility requirements. This will lead to a wide availability of accessible commercial books, created as Born Accessible and made available to print impaired readers at the same time of the first publication, making the same catalogue available to everyone. This transformative aspect should, in our opinion, be taken into account during any review of the aforementioned Directive and Regulation. It should be recalled that Art. 3 of the Marrakech Directive, authorises beneficiaries and AEs to make any act necessary to make an accessible format copy of a work, which clearly mean that when a work is already accessible no acts are authorised under the exception. Recital 8 provides clarification on this: The mandatory exception should also limit the right of reproduction so as to allow for any act that is necessary in order to make changes to or convert or adapt a work or other subject-matter in such a way as to produce an accessible format copy. Therefore, Recital 14 does not mean that AEs are always allowed to make an alternative format copy when the commercial version meets the needs of the beneficiaries, it does only cover the case when, in good faith, an AE is not aware of the existence of the commercial accessible. Saying that AEs should not be charged with additional burden for the prior verification of the existence of born accessible copies of the works, is a way to confirm that when they are informed, the production of an alternative format copy makes no sense. The review should rather be the occasion for a fruitful coordination between the two important EU legislations: the Marrakech Directive and the European Accessibility Act. The cooperation between AEs and publishers should be further fostered to provide the broadest access to books to all.
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