Advocates for the blind say DMCA exemptions to break ebook DRM for accessibility should be permanent, rather than having to be renewed every three years
Advocates will once again be granted a DMCA exception to make accessible versions of texts. They argue that it's far past time to make it permanent. Source: U.S. Copyright Office and U.S. Copyright Office Tweets: @internetarchive , @doctorow , @jcelpub , @blakereid , @wired , @kendraserra , @library_futures , @bc_butler , @ifixit , and @michellemanafy . Thanks: @dlberes See also Mediagazer Source: U.S. Copyright Office : Eighth Triennial Section 1201 Proceeding, 2021 U.S. Copyright Office : Final Rule Published in Eighth Triennial Section 1201 Proceeding Tweets: @internetarchive : TODAY: @librarycongress alters the #DMCA again permitting the blind to access e-texts. Advocates ask: Shouldn't this be the law not an exemption? “As the mainstream has embraced ebooks, accessibility has gotten lost,” says @Riccobono, Pres. of @NFB_voice. https://www.wired.com/... Cory Doctorow / @doctorow : And they deserve our sympathy, because the Copyright Office managed to kick them in the teeth even as it grudgingly granted this exemption. As @dlberes writes for @wired, the Copyright Office denied a petition to make the exemption permanent. https://www.wired.com/... 37/ @jcelpub : Check out the new DMCA ruling, including an exception that lets libraries break TPM on DVDs for preservation. Thanks to @smcclesk, Giselle Tanasse (Berkeley), James Steffen (Emory), @BandJonathan https://www.copyright.gov/... Prof. Meta-Spice / @blakereid : Fantastic writeup on this exemption and the unfortunate need to renew it every three years from @dlberes @wired https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/... @wired : 32 years after the invention of the World Wide Web, people with print disabilities—the inability to read printed text due to blindness or other impairments—are still waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. https://www.wired.com/... Kendra Albert / @kendraserra : As we pointed out in our reply briefing, even if a game does get re-released or re-mastered, it is actually not a substitute for studying the original. See page 19. https://www.copyright.gov/... @library_futures : Promoting accessibility in digital content is one of the reasons we were formed! Important article in @WIRED 👇🏾 “As the mainstream has embraced ebooks, accessibility has gotten lost...It's an afterthought.” https://www.wired.com/... @bc_butler : Big big news in software preservation today, the new DMCA exemptions are out! And I have to say, on my first quick read, it's a big win for preservation. The rules have been expanded to permit remote access to preserved software (downside: not games). https://www.copyright.gov/... @ifixit : We're glad the Register of Copyrights finally agreed that copyright law shouldn't keep you from fixing your stuff—regardless of what type of device it is. Read the Copyright Office's new 1201 ruling here: https://www.copyright.gov/... Michelle Manafy / @michellemanafy : Advocates for the blind are fighting an endless battle to access ebooks that sighted people take for granted, working against copyright law that gives significant protections to corporate powers and publishers who don't cater to their needs. https://www.wired.com/... Thanks: @dlberes See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The Copyright Office's triennial Section 1201 rulemaking has long been the only path around ebook DRM: regulators first carved out DRM exemptions in 2015 for jailbreaking, video-game preservation, and car-software research, and the accessibility exception for blind readers has survived on the same three-year clock ever since. In this Eighth Triennial round, advocates asked to take accessibility off that treadmill entirely — and the Office instead renewed the exemption while denying the petition to make it permanent.
That outcome lands in an increasingly hostile copyright climate for anyone circumventing publisher controls: publishers have since won a federal court ruling against the Internet Archive's Controlled Digital Lending and held it on appeal, so the narrow, renewable accessibility carve-out is one of the few remaining legal footholds.
First-order effects
- Blind readers and the libraries serving them keep the legal right to strip ebook DRM for accessible formats, but only for another three-year term — the renewal they just secured must be re-argued from scratch each cycle.
- Publishers retain recurring leverage: every triennial proceeding gives them a fresh procedural seat to contest or narrow the exemption, rather than facing a settled statutory right.
Second-order effects
- Accessibility advocates are pushed toward legislative fixes, since the Copyright Office has now formally declined to grant permanence through rulemaking — the petition route is exhausted, not just delayed.
- The broader digital-lending fight sharpens the contrast: with the Internet Archive having lost its appeal over lending 500K+ removed books, the renewable accessibility exemption becomes the last functioning exception in an otherwise tightening DRM regime, raising its strategic value to libraries.
Third-order effects
- If the triennial structure holds, accessibility rights in digital texts remain administratively contingent rather than statutory — a recurring compliance burden that falls hardest on under-resourced libraries and disability services, and a template other exception-seekers (preservation, repair, research) are also stuck renewing.
- A pattern of courts narrowing lending exceptions while the Office renews narrow circumvention rights would entrench a two-tier system: licensed, DRM-controlled access as the default, with accessibility carved out only as a periodically re-earned privilege.
The trend: Digital copyright exceptions are consolidating into narrow, periodically renewed administrative grants even as courts narrow broader library and lending rights, leaving advocates pushing to convert triennial exemptions into statutory permanence.