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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Publishers have certainly had plenty of opportunity to provide large-print, braille or audiobooks for visually disabled customers. For the most part, they don't bother. A percentage of the most popular books get audio versions; other than that, publishers have decided it's not worth their money to provide works for the blind.
And now it's being taken out of their hands. Claiming "but there's no incentive for them to develop these works!" is meaningless... if they had a financial incentive, they'd already be developing them.
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If this were truly the issue, then the solution is simple: pass a law *requiring* the publishers to provide books in some format for the blind. The law requires the restaurant owner to provide disabled access; why not the publisher?
Instead, the proposed law does not do that, but simply allows others to copy that book for the disabled and even profit via it, to the detriment of the author and the publisher. Where is the sense in that?
To go back to the restaurant example, it would be saying instead of requiring you offer disabled access or be fined and eventually shut down, saying that you can run your restaurant without disabled access, but anyone else can come along and steal your chairs, tables, food, menu, and so on and put up an identical restaurant with disabled access using your name on it.
Does this make sense?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Publishing houses should be happy they're not being required to produce an audio/ebook version for visually impaired customers for every title they make, and offer it the same amount of shelf/web space they have for every other title.
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I disagree 100%... if the goal is to give disabled folks access, this is exactly what they should be required to do. Publishers might not like it, but as an author it's a much preferable solution, as I still get compensated fairly.