sideways look! Was: USA: Online book-sharing service

[Janina Sajka]

No, no, no, no, Ann. Wrong reason. And, yes it does matter.

It is a question of law.

Here's the point. The reason the publishers are happy to go along with 
BookShare, and NLS, and RFB&D, is because these, and other agencies like 
them, take pains to restrict distribution to qualified recipients. The law 
has to do with providing access to published information for people who 
are blind. The general reading public is explicitly excluded. That's why 
you have to authenticate to BookShare, and why you log in with a password, 
and why you get content encrypted.

Now, if some of us turn around and start offering rich xml files to anyone
and everyone, we're going to be in serious trouble with this little apple
cart.

 On Thu, 14 Mar 2002, Ann Parsons wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Steve, that would be too difficult to accomplish well.  So they are
> archiving the stuff in one place.
> 
> Ann P.
> 
> 

-- 
	
				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