Harmonisation of the Copyright Law throughout the European Union - A Challenge for All Print Disabled People

On the Mai 22, 2001 the European Parliament and the European Council launched the “Directive on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society. This paper wants to stress the importance of this directive for print disabled people in all European countries. The directive on the one side is a chance to guarantee access to the information society – a thing all other citizens take for granted -. On the other side the lobbying pressure of the publishing industry may cause more difficulties in the future. Following the directive it is up to the national legislation to decide on exceptions and special paragraphs to take the needs of groups like print disabled people into account. This paper will present the most important parts of this directive form the point of view of service provider for print disabled students. “integrated studying” is an Austrian wide service provider for print disabled students who has managed to get more than 80% of the documents which have to be prepared for print disabled students, in digital formats. Further on this paper will review activities throughout Europe and outline activities how international exchange could and should support the lobbying at national level.