[HN Gopher] A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh as an accessible eBook
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A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh as an accessible eBook
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 81 points
Date : 2025-01-01 11:57 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tilde.zone)
(TXT) w3m dump (tilde.zone)
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| I did not know about the Marrakesh VIP Treaty
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrakesh_VIP_Treaty>, very cool:
|
| >The treaty allows for copyright exceptions to facilitate the
| creation of accessible versions of books and other copyrighted
| works for visually impaired persons. It sets a norm for countries
| ratifying the treaty to have a domestic copyright exception
| covering these activities and allowing for the import and export
| of such materials.
|
| It's been in force since 2016, the US joined over five years. I
| can't comment on the overall success, but seems like a rare gem,
| being a copyright law/treaty, international or otherwise, that is
| unabashedly good!
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Hence the internet archive keeping the copyrighted scans up for
| disabled screen readers.
| thih9 wrote:
| Could someone elaborate or give an example? What does the
| treaty mean in practice, i.e. what exactly does it change?
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| Honestly, everything I've read feel a bit like regurgitating
| the same concepts and phrases. There's a bit more from TFA
| (TFToot?):
|
| >With work being done to implement the Marrakesh Treaty,
| national "authorized entities" are now able to share
| accessible versions of in-copyright works with each other
| internationally, but we don't have to wait for that in the
| case of works in the Public Domain.
|
| But the WIPO has some clearer stuff:
|
| >The Marrakesh Treaty addresses the "book famine" by
| requiring its contracting parties to adopt national law
| provisions that permit the reproduction, distribution and
| making available of published works in accessible formats -
| such as Braille - through limitations and exceptions to the
| rights of copyright rightholders.
|
| >It also provides for the exchange of these accessible format
| works across borders by organizations that serve the people
| who are blind, visually impaired, and print disabled. It will
| harmonize limitations and exceptions so that these
| organizations can operate across borders.
|
| Via <https://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2016/article_
| 0007...>. See also a handy PDF they put out(<https://www.wipo
| .int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_marrakesh_ove...>), or a note
| from IAPB (<https://www.iapb.org/news/ending-the-book-famine-
| the-marrake...>):
|
| >The Marrakesh Treaty includes exceptions and limitations to
| national copyright law that will enable "authorised
| entities," such as blind persons' organisations and
| libraries, to more easily reproduce works into accessible
| formats for non-profit distribution. It also permits
| authorised entities to share accessible books and other
| printed materials across borders with other authorised
| entities. This allows accessible libraries to share their
| materials with other organisations, which is essential for
| many developing countries where organisations that serve the
| blind are often woefully under-resourced.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| "Just a moment, Pooh Bear!" cried Owl. "You can't just rush
| ahead without IP lawyers and make things that are free of DRM!"
|
| "Oh, bother!" replied Pooh.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Great work! I did a production of Beatrix Potter's stories with
| full alt text a while back for Standard Ebooks:[1] it's a labour
| of love, but worth it.
|
| [1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/beatrix-potter/short-
| ficti...
| everybodyknows wrote:
| An enormous amount of data there -- for those of us curious
| about your process, can we get a sense of it by reviewing the
| GitHub commits?
| robin_reala wrote:
| Probably not, it's one commit per book. So here's the commit
| that added images and alt text for "Flopsy Bunnies" for
| example: https://github.com/standardebooks/beatrix-
| potter_short-ficti...
|
| But broadly, it's a case of exposing the information a reader
| would be interested in, in a way that's aligned with both the
| context and style. So if you look in that commit you'll see
| for example a couple of alt texts:
|
| _Thomasina Tittlemouse sniffs at a jam pot on which a black
| fly is sitting. Behind her lie a couple of sleeping bunnies
| on the grass._
|
| _Benjamin Bunnie wakes up and pulls the paper bag up to look
| out at Thomasina Tittlemouse, who is now standing on the jam
| pot._
|
| The two images are in sequence and illustrate a short scene,
| so the alt text reflects the reader's expected understanding
| at that point.
| WillAdams wrote:
| This is an aspect of something which I wish would be more
| acknowledged and investigated:
|
| >How can the electronic representation of books be made more rich
| and featureful?
|
| Some notable examples:
|
| - https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.htm...
|
| - https://www.motionmountain.net/
|
| - The Elements by Theodore Gray
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-elements-by-theodore-gray/...
|
| - the "Living Books" series: https://wanderfulstorybooks.com/
|
| Unfortunately vanished (anyone have an archive? was the wonderful
| _Bembo's Zoo_ https://www.devicq.com/bembo-zoo/ and
| https://engagetheirminds.com/2012/04/05/bembos-zoo/
|
| I'd be very glad of other examples.
| calibas wrote:
| I accidentally opened the EPUB3 file in 7Zip, then realized you
| can just decompress the archive and open the .xhtml files in any
| standard web browser.
|
| Seems like it would be fairly simple to have web browsers support
| EPUB3.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Yeah, I think EPUB was always basically a ZIP archive of a
| bunch of XHTMLs with some metadata.
| anonymfus wrote:
| Pre-Chromium Microsoft Edge did until August 2019.
|
| https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-edge-will-no-longer...
| (link found via Wikipedia article on "Microsoft Edge Legacy")
| wglass wrote:
| Very nice.
|
| I note that in some ways the pictures really contribute to the
| story. For example, see the story on Eeyore's tail missing. The
| clue is that the picture shows the tail hanging as a cord to ring
| the doorbell. The alt text conveys this nicely by saying:
|
| In this drawing, Pooh is back outside Owl's front door, with Owl
| standing in the doorway. Pooh is looking at the bell-rope, which
| ends in a tuft of hair.
|
| I'm not sure if this could truly be automated, as the description
| of the picture needs to fit the context of the story.
| divbzero wrote:
| This is very nice.
|
| I have been using the version available in Apple Books:
|
| https://books.apple.com/us/book/winnie-the-pooh/id6444759294
|
| But the Apple Books version does not include the original
| illustrations, let alone accessible alt text.
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