AG: Half a million books for visually impaired

ATTORNEY General Faris Al-Rawi said "half a million books" could be made accessible to blind and visually impaired people with the passage of the Copyright Amendment Bill 2019. Al-Rawi made the comment before the bill was passed unanimously in the Senate on Tuesday.

He said, at present, blind and visually impaired people in TT were in a state of "book famine." He added that local authors now have the ability, through the legislation, to "join in this access to visually impaired."

Al-Rawi said during difficult situations such as the the covid19 pandemic "the world is called upon to adopt new normals." He explained it has "has become the new norm to feed as many people as we can and to share as many resources as we can."

Al-Rawi also said, "Human rights has really become a very relevant thing in our country."

Saying it is important to underscore the human rights aspect of TT's legislation, Al-Rawi said, "In this world of fake news, moral rights stand as paramount."
He lamented that Government had been unable to get the support of some stakeholders for amendments to laws such as the Cybercrime Act "to treat with fake news."

But he added, "This bill takes us one step in that direction because now a performer who a sick parody is put upon, that performer now has a moral right to insist that cannot be done."

Al-Rawi said that provided a remedy "to things that we just can't pass."
Earlier in the debate, Communications Minister Donna Cox said one of the effects of pandemic "is the necessity of persons, whose jobs have been deemed non-essential, to stay at home."

While many are "chomping at the proverbial bit to get out," Cox said, "There are many who are enjoying this time and using it to slow down to appreciate what is truly important in their lives and to re-balance their lives."

She observed that "One simple way of doing that is simply to read, to begin reading again, to begin reading for leisure or to bring themselves up to speed on the latest developments in their own profession or hobby."

Cox said the bill sought to level the playing field by "declaring NALIS as the authorised entity to convert previously inaccessible material to that which can be used by the visually impaired." She also said, by being a signatory to the Marrakesh Treaty, 13,000 members of TT's visually impaired community "will now have access to educational material that was once unavailable to them."

She added that the bill now allows TT's visually impaired and print-handicapped citizens, to "have both equality and equity, when it comes to matters of literacy."