• The following section of the Copyright Law was brought to our attention by Christine Roberts of the Department of Corrections in Pennsylvania.
• Thank you Christine because we weren't aware this law existed. For over 5 years we have been needlessly writing permission letters before transcribing our books, which we all know creates a delay in getting our books to blind children who need them for their school work.

In our e-mail to the Copyright Office I wrote, "I need clarification on nondramatic literary work. Would you please give me an example?" I received this reply the next day: "Dramatic work would be a screenplay, dramatic script or play."

An example of what our industry may transcribe [without having to ask permission] is "a book, mauscript or speech" as long as it is transcribed to Braille, Large Print or Voice for someone who is blind or visually impaired.

I later asked the Copyright Office, "What is a phonorecord?" They said, "A phonorecord could be a cassette, a cd, a record album."

The next day I asked what does this symbol mean: § They wrote back and said, "Section" in the law.

• Copyright Office
• Library of Congress
• 101 Independence Ave SE
• Washington, DC 20559
• 202-707-3000
• http://www.loc.gov/copyright/

Section 121 below was copied from the Copyright Office web site. Click on the link below to see the entire law. It's takes a few minutes to load becaue it is a very large file. (For your information, Inter alia means among other things.)

Copyright Law of the United States of America

Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 1997, Pub. L. No. 104-197, 110 Stat. 2394, 2416 (amending, inter alia, title 17 of the United States Code, by adding a new §121 concerning the limitation on exclusive copyrights for literary works in specialized format for the blind and disabled), enacted September 16, 1996.

§ 121. Limitations on exclusive rights: reproduction for blind or other people with disabilities

(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement of copyright for an authorized entity to reproduce or to distribute copies or phonorecords of a previously published, nondramatic literary work if such copies or phonorecords are reproduced or distributed in specialized formats exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities.

(b)(1) Copies or phonorecords to which this section applies shall-

(A) not be reproduced or distributed in a format other than a specialized format exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities;

(B) bear a notice that any further reproduction or distribution in a format other than a specialized format is an infringement; and

(C) include a copyright notice identifying the copyright owner and the date of the original publication.

(2) The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to standardized, secure, or norm-referenced tests and related testing material, or to computer programs, except the portions thereof that are in conventional human language (including descriptions of pictorial works) and displayed to users in the ordinary course of using the computer programs.

(c) For purposes of this section, the term-

(1) "authorized entity" means a nonprofit organization or a governmental agency that has a primary mission to provide specialized services relating to training, education, or adaptive reading or information access needs of blind or other persons with disabilities;

(2) "blind or other persons with disabilities" means individuals who are eligible or who may qualify in accordance with the Act entitled "An Act to provide books for the adult blind", approved March 3, 1931 (2 U.S.C. 135a; 46 Stat. 1487) to receive books and other publications produced in specialized formats; and

(3) "specialized formats" means braille, audio, or digital text which is exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities.