Blind SA says visually impaired people are still struggling to access books in braille format, despite last year’s Constitutional Court ruling.
The Copyright Act prohibited books from being published in braille without the author or publisher’s permission. However, the Act was declared unconstitutional and invalid.
Vice President of Blind SA, Christo de Klerk says, ” The ConCourt judgment was a victory but it is still not everything we need. We still need the government to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty, which provides for the international exchange of books in an accessible format.”
“So, without that being ratified by the government, it means that if a book isn’t available overseas, we still may not use that book here and we need permission and copyright permission to make it available and then go through the process of making the book available at a tremendous cost of time and money.”
