Some notable exceptions are there, but the overall trend in the industry is that if you buy a book digitally, then one of the formats in which the book will be delivered to you to download would be an ePub file. This is especially true in the technical books market, with players like O’Reilly, Packt, Manning Publications, Smashing Books and more providing ePub digital books.

The ePub standard was made by the consortium called the International Digital Publishing Forum, or IDPF. On February 1, 2017 the IDPF officially announced that it is merging with the W3C.

This makes sense for a lot of reasons. An ePub file is basically just a zip file containing a small website (HTML, CSS, assets like images, fonts, and some metadata). Partly because of this, an ePub book is more accessible than many of the other digital publishing formats right out of the gate. Since many of the underlying technologies behind ePub (like HTML, CSS etc) as well accessibility work like the WCAG guidelines are already worked upon in the W3C, it makes sense for ePub to find it’s home here too.

This should hopefully encourage more cross-pollination of experts from various fields to suggest technical improvements to upcoming standards related to ePub. I think the digital publishing industry can greatly benefit from more participation from web experts and vice versa. Dave Cramer and Tzviya Siegman have written eloquently on it, and I would encourage everyone to give a read to what they have said. Furthermore, it is important in today’s environment to have an organisation the size of the W3C to get behind open standards. If not, then we risk of the proliferation of closed proprietary formats by big players slowly winning.

The IDPF has done a great job of getting even small players in the digital publishing space to be engaged. This should continue. Upcoming work includes focussing on online and offline digital publications. The W3C has set up the EPUB (3.1) Community Group which anyone can join for free to give their feedback, suggestions and ideas. For those of you in Europe in early march, the EPUB Summit is happening in 9-10 March 2017 in Brussels. There is also a Publishing Business Group being formed which is open to people who were IDPF members in good standing. For more information on it, check out https://www.w3.org/publishing/.

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The Marrakesh Treaty was adopted on June 27, 2013 with the main goal of ensuring better access to books and other printed materials to the blind, visually impaired, and otherwise print disabled (VIPs). Here is a synopsis of what the treaty is all about.

What is Marrakesh Treaty – A summary?

The Marrakesh Treaty (formally the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities) is a treaty on copyright adopted in Marrakesh, Morocco, on 28 June 2013 …Wikipedia

The main objective of the treaty is to help put an end to the book famine faced by people with visual and print impairment. The treaty aims to increase access to printed material such as books, magazines for people with print impairment.

More than 75 countries have signed the treaty. The ratification of 20 states was required for the treaty to enter in to effect and the treaty came in to force on 30th September 2016. India was the first country to ratify the treaty on 24^th July 2014. The Indian Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 is in harmony with the Marrakesh Treaty.

What does ratification of the treaty mean?

The country which ratify the treaty allows an “authorized entity” to convert books and printed materials into accessible format without waiting for the permission from the holder of copyright such as the author or the publisher. The country also allows import and export of the accessible formats without the permission of the copyright holder.

Who is an authorized entity?

“Authorized entity” means an entity that is authorized or recognized by the government to provide education, instructional training, adaptive reading or information access to “beneficiary” persons on a non-profit basis.  It also includes a government institution or a non-profit organization that provides the same services to beneficiary persons as one of its primary activities or institutional obligations.

Who is a beneficiary?

The treaty clarifies that any person who is not able to effectively read a printed material due to a range of disabilities is a “beneficiary”. This would include people who are blind, people with visual impairment, or print disability and people with mobility impairment who cannot hold or manipulate a book or any person such as a care taker acting on their behalf.

Which countries have ratified the treaty?

20 countries have ratified the treaty. India, El Salvador, the United Arab Emirates, Mali, Uruguay, Paraguay, Singapore, Argentina, Mexico, Mongolia, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Brazil, Peru, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Israel, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala and Canada.

Write to us at info@barrierbreak.com to know more on accessible or inclusive publishing!

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“As an avid reader, it’s great to just be able to go online, buy a book and read it. There is no need, to wait for an accessible format! In the last year alone, I would have bought e-books of about approximately USD 200! If more and more books would be born accessible, the dimension of inclusion will change for people with print disabilities  in education, employment and society in general” states Dipendra Manocha, Daisy Consortium, Developing Countries Co-ordinator.

At BarrierBreak, we do believe there is a case for all publishers to look at accessible e-books seriously. Let me pen some of our reasons why we believe this!

• For people with visual impairment, e-books are actually the preferred format.  E-books can be read using assistive technology! Based on the disability, they can adjust the text and formatting or listen to the  e-books using a screen reader.The WHO worldwide statistics also reflect the business case, with 285 million people with visually impaired worldwide out of which 39 million are people who are blind and 246 million people have low vision. As a publisher, it only makes sense to address this target market!
• Today, most of the accessible content is being created by blindness organizations & libraries catering to the needs of this group! The World Blind Union states that less than 10% of all published material can be read by blind or low vision people. The Marrakesh Treaty firstly provides for a limitation or an exception to copyright in order to allow “beneficiaries” and “authorized entities” to undertake any changes needed to make a copy of a work in an accessible format for persons with a print disability. Secondly is to allow the exchange across borders of those accessible copies produced according to the limitations and exceptions!

Publishers need to work towards providing the accessible formats, since then they would be supporting the needs of this market segment. A one time investment in the accessible format which could be accessible e-books using the epub3 standard, braille and/or large print books can go a long way in making the economic case that publishers need to consider in this changing digital environment!

Publishers now is the time to act and the opportunity to address the needs of an under-served audience!

Write to us at info@barrierbreak.com to know more on accessible epub3 and accessible or inclusive publishing!

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