Marrakesh Treaty

On Sep 29th 2016, this year the Marrakesh Treaty came into force, after 22 countries ratified the treaty adopted in 2013 by members of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

What is Marrakesh Treaty?

• Marrakesh Treaty or Marrakesh VIP Treaty is formally known as Marrakesh treaty to facilitate Access to Published works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities.
• It is also called “Books for Blind” treaty.

Highlights of the treaty:

• The treaty allows for copyright exceptions to help for the creation, export and import, sharing, translation of the books in any format for accessible versions of copyrighted books and other works for the people with impaired visibility.
• The treaty is expected to alleviate the “book famine” experienced by 300 million people suffering from such disability, according to WHO.

Implementation of Treaty

• World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a United Nations Organisation based in Geneva, administers the Marrakesh Treaty and leads an alliance of private and public partners known as the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC).
• The ABC has established a free centralized electronic database of accessible books produced by libraries for the blind around the world. It is a library-to-library service.

India and Marrakesh Treaty

• India was the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty back in July 2014 and has set an example for other countries to follow.
• India has 63 million visually impaired people, of whom about 8 million are blind, according to WHO.
• India has begun implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty through a multi-stakeholder approach, which includes collaboration among key players such as government ministries, local champions like the DAISY Forum of India, and the private sector.
• In line with Marrakesh treaty, India launched Accessible India Campaign (Sugama Bharat Abhiyan) and has set up Sugamya Pustakalaya, which has 2,00,000 volumes.