UNTERHALTER AJ
effect copies. Much was said in argument before us on this score. However, argument
is not evidence.
[87]
We were left at the oral hearing debating with counsel whether braille is a
language and whether the transcription of a text into braille is akin to translation from
one language into another.
Other questions arose as to the rendering of a two
dimensional work into three dimensions; how graphs, tables, histograms, and pie charts
in textbooks and technical articles are rendered into accessible format copies, and
whether this might require a textual description, and if so whether this amounts to an
adaptation. Blind SA raised the issue as to whether a shift of format that required the
written description of a photograph or a picture in a book was not an adaptation. So
too, books (including e-books) may include a variety of multi-media presentations.
While these may amount to artistic works within a literary work, the issue remains as
to whether pictures, photographs, and other multi-media presentations can be rendered
in accessible format copies by merely reproducing them. This does not seem possible.
The form in which such content appears requires some translation, indeed
transformation that requires interpretation and an effort to render the meaning in another
accessible format. Additionally, what of the conversion of a written text into an audio
format?
Counsel for Blind SA and Professor Dean were, unsurprisingly, not in
agreement as to whether the use of these accessible format copies amounted to
reproducing the original work or adapting it.
[88]
These disagreements are not capable of definitive resolution on the evidence
before us. But they illustrate a point of overarching significance for the use to which
the regulatory power in section 13 can be put. It is common ground that the right of a
copyright owner under the Copyright Act to authorise the reproduction or adaptation of
a literary work should not prevent the access of literary works in accessible format
copies to print and visually disabled persons. That is the constitutional infirmity that
must be cured. There are many varieties of literary work, as the definition in section 1
of the Copyright Act makes plain. The layout of these works permits of numerous
permutations. The graphical representations or multi-media presentations that they may
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