People with visual impairments and other reading disabilities have the right to free access to information. For this reason, the international treaty of Marrakesh was adopted in 2013, which provided for new regulations in national copyright laws. In Germany, these changes came into effect on 1 January 2019, which will have a positive effect for students and staff of the TU Dresden in cooperation with the Working Group Services Disability and Studies.

The work process at the Working Group Services Disability and Studies

The AG SBS supports people at the TU during their studies in the transfer of teaching and specialist materials. The work process, which has been increasingly refined over the decades, creates a balance between the needs and rights of the people concerned on the one hand and the licensing and copyright rights of lecturers, authors and publishers on the other. 

The process is structured in detail as follows:

• Clarification of an indicated need
  Students and staff of the TU Dresden, but occasionally also external persons, usually contact the AG SBS. The AG SBS provides support as far as possible by transferring teaching materials into a digital, barrier-free format or by making technology and software available for loan. 
  Before the AG SBS can become active, it must be ensured to what extent the request is justified and whether there is a concrete need from the point of view of inclusive efforts (further information on ensuring this here). Only then will the exact scope of the support be clarified with the person concerned.
• Procurement of materials
  As an authorized body (further information on the rights and duties of an authorized body here), it is the task of the AG SBS to develop barrier-free solution strategies for people with the corresponding needs. For this purpose, contact is made with lecturers, libraries or publishers in order to either organize a barrier-free medium for the person or to come into possession of a medium for preparation into a barrier-free format.
• Processing of materials
  The preparation of the materials depends on the extent to which there is demand. It may be sufficient that a textbook only needs to be available in digital form. However, it may also be necessary for a medium to be prepared completely barrier-free. For more information on our barrier-free preparation, please visit our transmission service page.
• Distribution of materials
  The distribution of the prepared materials is carried out either via software solutions developed by AG SBS or via services running on the servers of TU Dresden. By means of a declaration to our terms of use [PDF; german] we ensure that all persons who receive materials or other services from AG SBS are required to comply with certain obligations. This enables you on the one hand to have a legal claim to information, and on the other hand to protect the interests of the authors and rights holders (further information on protecting both parties' interests can be found here).

Ensuring a need for inclusive support

The AG Services Disability and Studies sees itself as a service provider for all people with disabilities and illnesses. Under this premise, we are the contact for everyone, both the affected persons and persons with an interest in promoting inclusive measures. Due to the historical development, it is mainly students of the TU Dresden who make use of the services of the AG SBS.

In the first contact with students the AG SBS usually first clarifies the situation, what needs might exist and what approaches exist for solving barriers. Individuals can register a need if their visual, hearing or reading impairments prevent them from exercising their right to education and information. Whether a person has a legitimate need for including literature will be clarified in detailed counselling interviews with various partners of TU Dresden with many years of experience:

• Central Student Advisory Service of the TU Dresden
• Representatives for students with disabilities and chronic diseases: Prof. Dr. Gesine Marquardt and Prof. Dr. Gerhard Weber
• Peer counselor: Anja Winkler

Once the basis for further cooperation has been agreed upon, strategies are developed to meet the individual needs of the person. This concerns on the one hand the technological basis, and on the other hand the digital possibilities for barrier-free access to literature, teaching materials and examinations.

Rights and duties as authorized body of the Federal Republic of Germany

Since the early 1990s, the AG SBS has been supporting students at the TU Dresden by transferring teaching materials into barrier-free forms. This makes it one of the oldest service centers in this field. With the copyright reform, which came into force at the beginning of 2019, the AS SBS assumed the rights and duties of a so-called "Authorized Body".

Authorized bodies are those institutions that create barrier-free access to educational and information opportunities for people with visual and reading disabilities on a non-profit basis and without commercial goals. The basis for this legal framework is provided by the Copyright Act of the Federal Republic of Germany in sections 45a to 45d (available at Gesetze-im-Internet.de [german]). 

Under this regulation, authorized bodies are entitled to convert published linguistic works (text or audio), graphic recordings of musical works as well as illustrations of any kind for people with named visual or reading disabilities into suitable, barrier-free formats. These works may be reproduced and lent and made publicly accessible to people with visual and reading disabilities or other authorized bodies.

In return, authorized bodies are obliged to develop a procedure to document this process promptly and publicly and to make the prepared materials accessible to people with a need or other authorized bodies. In addition, an authorized body is obliged to develop appropriate measures to counteract illegal reproduction or distribution of the copyrighted works. In addition, the regulation on authorized bodies according to the Copyright Act [german] (UrhGBefStV) results in possible further obligations. These currently (as of November 2020) also include the notification of AG SBS as an authorized body at the German Patent and Trademark Office. Only after receipt of this notification is the AG Services Disability and Studies officially recognized as an authorized body.

You will find an overview of all authorized offices according to the Copyright Act of the Federal Republic of Germany on the website of the German Patent and Trademark Office [german].

Creating balance for people with needs as well as publishers and authors

The AG Services Disability and Studies is very concerned about the equal participation of people with disabilities, illnesses or other limitations. Nevertheless, it is necessary to reconcile the interests and rights of all parties. 

In order to promote and challenge rights holders on the one hand and people with disabilities on the other, the AG SBS acts as a link between both sides. The working group stands up for the rights of all parties and for this purpose has taken various measures within the entire work process. Among other things, these measures provide for the archiving of materials in the AG SBS inventory in order to optimize any new purchases and processing. To this end the AG SBS ensures that in the event of a violation and abuse of the applicable rights the distribution process remains traceable and verifiable. Materials are only stored on the servers of the TU Dresden or AG SBS and distributed with TU services or through software solutions of AG SBS. A binding agreement is made with the recipients that prevents reproduction.