German publisher attacks Bulgarian books-for-blind site

On the 9th of May the Bulgarian publishing house ’Trud’, owned by the German media group Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, sends a letter threatening with a lawsuit the specialized web library for blind people - bezmonitor.com (its name means ’without a monitor’). The publishing house claims that they own the copyrights for certain classical Bulgarian books and translations of foreign- language ones, which appear on the website in files in ASCII format, which is good for reading by audio programs, that do it instead of people, who cannot see. The creator of the website, Victor, who is also blind is supporting it on his own and without any financial profit. Although he removes the texts in question, he mentions this case to his friend Dr. Grigor Gatchev, who is recognized translator, an author and well-known blogger...

Bulgarian citizens as well as organizations of the blind people, such as Association ’Eyesight’ and the National Library for the Blind ’Louis Braille’ inform all Bulgarian media on the behavior of publishing house ’Trud’, which itself owns a few major daily newspapers. ’Trud’ tries to prevent the story from becoming public, as the owner of the publishing house is also a director of the Union of the Bulgarian Publishers. And most major media outlets do keep silence. However fewer small independent newspapers voice people’s outrage.

Publishing house ’Trud’ is furious and wants revenge contacting the main department for combating organized crime to demand the closure of the website although the texts in question are long gone. The department, although a state institution, already has a very bad reputation for serving corporate interests and having made illegal arrests on previous cases. A phone call from the department to the blind programmer of the website, Victor, makes him remove all texts under the fear of arrest, which although completely illegal and immoral, would put Victor’s health in danger.

More information about "Trud"

Written and translated by Antonia

 Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) owns the two biggest daily newspapers in Bulgaria (Trud and 24 Chasa), as well as several weeklies and special editions. The combined circulations of Trud and 24 Chasa are greater than that of all the other dailies in our country. Yes, WAZ is a monopolist as it holds about 70 to 80% of the print media market in Bulgaria.

 Recently Trud have started an online ‘knowledge’ site znam.bg — they are putting texts of classic books there but the access is paid. Any reader should send a short message via cell phone in order to obtain a login. Furthermore the site is all scripts, flash and stuff and is pretty unreadable for text browsers. Surprise, surprise! Such as the ones used by the blind.

When contacted the developers of znam.bg said: “Yes, we know there are other e-libraries, but we are going to make the best one and there will be no need for the others to exist”. Once a monopolist, always a monopolist…

 Two weeks ago our politicians finally openned the archives of the former Department 6 of the National Security Agency (that’s the Bulgarian analogue of Stasi). It appears that the editor-in-chief of Trud, Mr. Tosho Toshev, was an agent — he was a paid informer! And Mr. Tosho Toshev is the Chairman of the Union of the Bulgarian Publishers!

 The books which copyrights Trud claims to own (although they have not presented ANY document to prove it) are written by some of the greatest Bulgarian writers. And they are studied at school. So if the kids want to read these books for their classes — they have to buy it from Trud.

 There was a petition signed by hundreds of Bulgarians that was sent to WAZ. The boss of WAZ, Mr. Imberg, asked Trud for their position. Trud wrote an ‘explanatory’ letter full of lies. Take a look at it at cybercrackerbg’s blog.

There is an active protest by a number of Bulgarian activists. Unfortunately, media does not want to get involved in the affaire against another media.

Iformation about the protest could be found here

Source: Boingboing

More information on the issue: Fight for copyrights in Bulgaria turns ugly,