Below is a good summary of how/why students are legally able to receive conversion/alternate media conversion of visual and print material:
- NLS Copyright Law, Section 121, Chafee Amendment. Available only to authorized entities as defined in the law. Some DSS offices feel they qualify, some don’t. Never been clarified through a lawsuit. Under Chafee, there is no purchase requirement (and since almost all DSS offices implement a purchase requirement, one must assume it’s to meet one or both of the other two legal paths). We have to deliver the content in a specialized format. Hardcopy Braille is an easy one. Our position at Bookshare is that by distributing digital Braille and DAISY etext to a restricted set of people (with fingerprints, etc.), we meet this part of the law. But, we acknowledge that once delivered, schools and individuals can do what they need to do to meet the accessibility needs of that individual. That could include creating an MP3 file, a large print printout, etc. But, they can’t redistribute the content to other people, even with qualifying disabilities (with the exception of hardcopy Braille).
- Fair Use Act, Section 107. There are four factors in determining whether something is fair use. The purchase requirement helps meet one of the four. I’m not going through the legal analysis, but format is not part of Section 107. There is no bright line on whether something is or isn’t fair use under Section 107, but there are a string of court cases. When we made reading machines (Benetech’s original name was Arkenstone), we assumed people were scanning books legally mainly under fair use.
- State educational access law, such as AB 422 in California. Every state’s law is different, but typically include a purchasing requirement.
