Problems with pdf files.

Janina Sajka janina at afb.net
Sat Jan 19 14:02:03 EST 2002


Amanda:

I was aware that more than one view was present in the message which 
prompted me to respond as I did. But, I was not so interested in exactly 
who said what. Rather, I wanted to make a clear and simple statement which 
would not be clouded by the issue of who said what to whom when.
 On Sat, 
19 Jan 2002, Amanda Lee wrote:

> Janina,
> 
> Appears that Geof muddied the waters somewhat as he took my statements out
> of context and inserted his own.  This is why I don't like this form of
> responding to email because it is very easy to distort what the original
> sender intended to say.
> 
> I was basically playing devil's advocate because it goes withoug saying that
> a Copyright is just that and basically unless one modifies the content and
> mis-represents it's intent, there is little that can be done to dictate to
> the end user what he or she does with the information provided.  If no
> ill-intent is demonstrated, it's really in the gray area of what defines the
> boundaries of enforceable law.  This is why I feel certain that if someone
> developed a program which enabled .pdf to be accessed via a Screen Reader or
> other technologies intended for use by an individual who is blind, vision
> impaired or print disabled, that Adobe would have a lot of work to do to
> over-rule access to information which is already provided for under the law
> versus the burden of proof necessary to justify that as persons who need to
> utilize sed information, that we have any other intent.
> 
> Amanda Lee
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina at afb.net>
> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 10:21 AM
> Subject: Re: Problems with pdf files.
> 
> 
> > Let's be clear about this. Whatever you read in any copyright statement is
> > valid only if it falls within the law goveerning copyright. Congress and
> > the courts decide what the law is in the U.S., not copyright holders.
> > Silly statements such as the one below about reading aloud are exactly the
> > kind of industry over-reaching that's going to get the DMCA reopened in
> > Congress one of these days.
> >  On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, Geoff Shang wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, 16 Jan 2002, Amanda Lee wrote:
> > >
> > > > So if I have a colleague print the document and I then scan it with an
> OCR
> > > > program, is that illegal?  Yet I technically would have displayed the
> > > > document in another form.  So I also suppose it is illegal to magnify
> the
> > > > font on the screen so that a low vision person can read it?  Godf
> forbid!
> > >
> > > A friend of mine said that he's seen a copyright licence for a
> particular
> > > PDF document that said that the person did not have the right to read
> the
> > > document aloud.
> > >
> > > Fair use will get killed off if we let it.
> > >
> > > Geoff.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Janina Sajka, Director
> > Technology Research and Development
> > Governmental Relations Group
> > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
> > Chair, Accessibility SIG
> > Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> > http://www.openebook.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> >
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org





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