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Originally Posted by Liviu_5
Actually here in the US there is a law called American with Disabilities Act which gives quite a few rights to blind people among others, and while its precise legal reach is unclear, it is the basis of the one DMCA exception related to Text to Speech and shifting drm format
But the general issue is that if publishers and the author's guild have to go to technicalities...
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As someone who regularly works under American ADA specifications, it is important to note that the ADA is specifically designed for things that all Americans are required by government law to have access to... IOW, public facilities and services. This single loophole allows any organization to ignore ADA regs if its product or service is not mandated to be made available to all people. (They don't even have to fall back on "technicalities," though they might in order to give an excuse to the public for ignoring the regs.)
This means public buses, restaurants, hospitals, etc, must all abide by ADA regs. Workplaces are all supposed to abide by ADA regs for its workers or potential workers (since it is illegal in America to deny someone a job based on a disability). But random privately-sold products do not have to follow ADA regs.
Websites as well... an ADA website must be able to be read by screen readers, and can be navigated by those with limited motor skills. All federal government websites (and most of their contractors) must meet this criteria. But we all know websites (mostly commercial) that cannot make this claim.
Many companies abide by ADA rules, but it is strictly up to them... they are not forced to abide by ADA, they do it because they feel it is the right thing to do (and, of course, makes them look good to the public). Publishers who offer audiobooks of popular literature, therefore, do it only out of a desire to serve the disabled and look better in the public eye... not because they are obligated by law to do so.