In part two of our ongoing 10 Years of the DMCA interview series, we sit down with Mark Richert, Director of Public Policy for the American Foundation for the Blind. In both 2003 and 2006, the AFB successfully filed for exemptions to the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, so that blind and visually impaired users could use accessibility hardware and software with DRM-protected eBooks. As Mark explains in the interview, a significant percentage of eBooks are incompatible with such accessibility tools unless their DRM is circumvented. Before the AFB’s DMCA exemption was granted, however, circumventing the DRM on an eBook–even for the purpose of attaching a braille reader–was a crime punishable under Federal law.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPJpAGxN66U width:430 height:322]
To view my full, 32-minute long conversation with Mark, click here.