Good question, Pam. And the answer is complicated. People outside the U.S. can access Bookshare.org. Right now, they get access to roughly 600 copyrighted books, where the publisher or author has given us permission to distribute the books internationally. Right now, these are mostly O'Reilly technical books, but we expect this to expand. The reason for this restriction is that U.S. copyright law doesn't govern in other countries, so our Chafee Amendment exclusions don't extend to users outside the U.S. So, if we want to serve people outside the U.S., we must get explicit permission from the publishers and/or authors. And, that takes time and effort. I believe RFB&D does not distribute DAISY books outside the U.S., but they still distribute cassettes. Jim From: Pam Quinn <quinn.family@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] bookshare and copyright laws Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 21:59:54 -0500 Hi, I was of the understanding that the reason that Bookshare couldn't offer membership to people living outside the US, was due to the nature of copyright laws. Someone on another list pointed out that RFBD, however, offers its services to people outside the U.S. Why is this, does anybody know? Pam