The Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill will amend existing UK copyright legislation to make special allowances for the visually impaired, allowing the conversion of material to an alternative format without infringing copyright.
The difficulty for the visually impaired of “discovering information on the internet” is among a list of examples given by Rachel Squire, the MP in charge of the Bill, as a catalyst for the relaxation in copyright law. Other examples include problems of learning in the classroom, enjoying books for leisure and discovering the latest news.
Under the new law, single accessible copies of a work may be made by or on behalf of a visually impaired person for their personal use without first seeking the permission of the copyright owners and without infringement of copyright.
The Bill also makes provision for multiple accessible copies to be made for and distributed to visually impaired people without seeking the permission of the right holders, although this right is restricted to educational and not for profit organisations.
There are restrictions on the new rights. For example, if a DVD has been made with technical anti-copying protections, any accessible copies supplied to visually impaired people must equally be protected by those measures. The Bill does not say how the technical measures are to be overcome to make the accessible copies in the first place – an issue which is left to the EU’s Copyright Directive.