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Re: PDF Accessibility and Copyright

for

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Sep 1, 2016 11:57AM

Any time copyright is involved, I would suggest seeking advice from an attorney. Something tells me that whether or not you can alter those other documents might have something to do with the type of permission you were given and how they are being used.

Another option is to reach out to those organizations and check to see if they are ok with extending you permission to make those documents accessible--it is also possible that they might have already done that work for you and may have a newer more accessible version available.

Something else you might also check into is whether or not those PDFs are still needed. Unfortunately, people have a tendency to publish things to the web and then forget they are there. The information might no longer be accurate or useful and if they are willing to take down the PDF, that is one less PDF you need to tackle.

Thanks,
Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Joseph Feria-Galicia
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2016 11:57 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF Accessibility and Copyright

Sarah,
Thanks so much for raising this question. It is very relevant to many of
us and I'm hoping to gain further insight on how this relates to the
Author's Guild vs. HathiTrust case. Any experts out there?

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 6:55 AM, Duff Johnson < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Unlike HTML or other formats, adding structuring elements to a PDF
> document does not "alter" the untagged (visual) appearance of the document,
> but merely makes the existing document accessible (subject to limits
> imposed by the source).
>
> Yes, users and software both sometimes make mistakes that result in
> changes to appearance, but that's another issue.
>
> It's difficult to see how any agency might take offense at such action,
> but even though some of my best friends are lawyers I've learned not to try
> to predict their concerns. :-)
>
> Duff.
>
> >> We have a lot of PDFs on our university site and it's my goal to make
> them as
> >> accessible as possible. If we own the material, it is one thing, but
> what if we
> >> don't? For example, we have government forms and published journal
> >> articles. We have permission to have these materials on our web site,
> but do
> >> we have the right to alter them by adding tags, alt text, etc?
> >> Is there a fair use rule that applies or do we need permission from each
> >> source?
>
> > > > >



--
*Accessibility Team Lead / Instructional Designer*
Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education (BRCOE)
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