Hi Dark, Believe me I know exactly how you feel about access and copyright laws. I've had to put up with access issues with certain printed books and materials here in the US even though the laws here are pretty flexible regarding distributing printed materials in accessible formats. Still, there are cases, such as roll playing game source books, where its not always easy to get them in an accessible format because APH, NLS, and Learning Alley don't do roll playing game guides and source books. I found that out the hard way.
I remember a few years ago back when the New Jedi Order was still coming out in paperback naturally Wizards of the Coast followed suit by releasing an expansion to the Star Wars roll playing game by putting out two very thick books on the New Jedi Order. There was the New Jedi Order Source Book which I needed because it included updated stats for main characters like Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, Kip Duron, Jason and Jana Solo, etc. Plus all the new information on the YUUzhan Vong weapons, ships, etc. Then, there was the New Jedi Order Campaign Guide which had several prewritten campaigns to play. While I didn't specifically need the Campaign Guide, seeing as I had read all the books as they came out, it still was going to be helpful in getting into the NJO universe. I certainly didn't want to scan all that stuff so I called up my local NLS library. I asked the librarian about the two books, she looked it up on their computer, and told me they weren't available. Then, she proceeded to list all the New Jedi Order books on tape which wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want the novels but the game books, and as it turned out they didn't have any Star Wars roll playing game source books at all. All they had was the novels. Well, then I called up Learning Alley, formally RFB&D, and got the same response. They didn't have them, but if I wanted to send them two copies of the books one of their readers could read it onto tape. Now, I'm not sure why they need two copies of the book, but instead of buying two books I'd have to buy four books, two copies of each, just to have Learning Alley put them on audio tape. It was cheaper just to buy the books and scan them myself. Which is exactly what I'm going to do. As far as drivethrurpg.com I've checked and they don't have any of the Star Wars source books. However, that doesn't mean that Amazon or somewhere else doesn't have some of them in epub or pdf format. I'd have to check that out before I start scanning like a mad man and make them available on my website. Anyway, what I'm basically doing now is seeing if there is a legal way to distribute them. I'm pretty sure there is given that Bookshare, the NLS, APH, Learning Alley, etc can redistribute any book to blind and low vision citizens of the USA in some accessible format. However, as I understand the US copyright laws it has to be in a proprietary or specialized format only accessible to the blind and not sighted users. For example, books from the NLS are recorded at a slower spead and they create four tracks by recording in mono, one track in the left channel and the other in the right channel, which requires a special player to play. Therefore while it uses a common technology like audio tape it is done in such a way that only someone with the right kind of tape player can use it. Now, in the digital age places like Bookshare, Learning Alley, and NLS have adopted Daisy as the special format for e-books. Apparently using formats like html, text, pdf, etc aren't proprietary enough for the copyright laws so they have designed an electronic format just for blind materials. As long as I redistribute them in Daisy I should probably be alright as far as US copyright law goes. However, you did give me a good idea. One way to protect myself is to simply zip the scanned files, put a password on it, and will send people the password upon request rather than using Daisy. That might work because in order to join Learning Alley, Bookshare, or the NLS you have to supply some proof of blindness. While I wouldn't be that strict I could at least insure that the people who get the books belong to Audyssey or the Audiogames.net forum which should satisfy the publishers I'm not just handing them out to anyone and am trying to regulate who does and does not get them. Cheers! On 6/14/12, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > personally I'm of the opinion that after 20 years of trying to get > accessible rp books, fantasy literature etc and being repeatedly stone > walled on the issue, copywrite can kiss my rear end! > In around the year 2000 I bought a cd which contained word documents of all > > the old D&D 2nd edition books in order to start tabletop rping, however of > course once I started i found that 3rd edition had replaced 2nd. I then > wrote a letter to wizards of the coast asking if they sold any accessible > versions of the D&D 3rd ed books, explaining that I was a blind person and > so couldn't read their printed copies. > > Their entire response was as follows: > > "Dear Mr. Hewitt. > > We have no plans at this time or in the future of producing electronic > copies of our works. Thank you for your interest. yours sincerely etc etc" > > Well, thanks a Heap! I therefore had to muddle along somewhat cadging rules > > from the Gm, which wasn't too much fun. > > Luckily, drivethru rpg now sell a lot of books in pdf form which mostly > convert to text, so I have several source books for games. If however they > aren't available there or in any other accessible form, my feeling these > days is that I have no respect for a law which does nothing but promote > corporate interest and money grabbing stupidity over any sort of fair > access. > > So, myself I suggest you just stick them on the site anyway. You could > protect your back slightly by having them available only on request when > someone mails you (perhaps have a page about the group and a mail for more > information type of link where you send the books), or having a specific > access related password to the archive which you send out by mail on > request, thus insuring that not just anybody can come along and grab them. > However if they aren't as equally available to visually impared people as > anyone else, then you have every right to redistribute them. > > I would however suggest you check drivethrurpg first, just in case they are! > > available as pdfs. > > All the best, > > Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. 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