Tah dah! CLA Print Disability Licence is now available!

On 28th May we blogged that the CLA announced a new Print Disability Licence to replace the 'VIP' licence, and today we received our copy of this new licence. Why is this good news? Well, the Print Disability Licence is for:

• "an educational establishment or a body that is not conducted for profit" who
• "wishes to make and to distribute multiple copies of copyright material in a format accessible to persons who could not otherwise read or access such copyright material by reason of visual impairment or other disability where no such format is commercially available."

This means that holders of the Print Disability Licence can now legally make, for example, digital copies of books for pupils with dyslexia, learning difficulties, autism or hearing impairment. Some of the terms and conditions:

• You must legally possess an original copy of the book from whch you make the Accessible Copy.
• You cannot make an Accessible Copy if one is commercially available in a similar accessible format.
• Your Accessible Copy must contain "a statement that it is a copy of the original Work made under a CLA licence for the personal use of an Authorised Person".
• Your Accessible Copy must contain the title, name of author and publisher, and the published edition from which you have made your Accessible Copy.
• You can add facilities for navigation around digital formats and you can enlarge, reduce or change colour of text or illustrations, provided these changes do not "amount to a derogatory treatment of the Work".
• You can give an "Intermediate Copy" to other CLA licence holders. An Intermediate Copy is a copy which you have made as part of the production process - for example, it could be a digital file which you made in order to create a Large Print or a Braille copy.
• You must keep records of copies made, and send the records to CLA annually, on 1st May each year. The report should list the title, ISBN, author(s), publisher, edition, format, number of copies created and the date they were created.

This new licence will lead to big changes and developments because the potential 'market' for Accessible Copies is now much larger and more diverse. It means that charities like Calibre can lend all their audio books to dyslexic readers as well as those with visual impairment, that dyslexic readers will be able to download text files of books from The Seeing Ear, that local authority transcription services can share Accessible Copies far more freely than before, and importantly, it also means that all Print-Disabled pupils can download and use Accessible Copies of books from the Books for All Scotland Database.