October 31, 2018

The EU has ratified the Marakesh Treaty, which aims to improve visually impaired and print disabled people’s access to copyright works around the world by requiring its signatories to provide exceptions to copyright allowing the making of accessible format copies and the transfer of such copies across borders.

As we reported last month, the Government recently made the Copyright and Related Rights (Marrakesh Treaty etc) (Amendment) Regulations 2018, which amend the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 to bring UK law into line with the Marrakesh Directive (2017/1564/EU), which implements the Treaty.  To read WIPO’s announcement in full, click here.