Summary of the public consultation prior to the entry into force of the obligation to make Ebooks accessible

Published on 10 October 2024

Summary

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Presentation

European Parliament and CouncilDirective 2019/882 of April 17, 2019 on accessibility requirements for products and services makes provision for digital books and specialized software published on or after June 28, 2025 to be natively accessible to people with disabilities. Ebooks published before this date must be made accessible by June 28, 2030. These schemes, transposed by article 16 of law no. 2023-171 of March 9, 2023, containing various provisions for adaptation to European Union law, are now included inarticle 48 of law no. 2005-102 of February 11, 2005, as amended, for equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship of disabled people.

This text was supplemented by Decree no. 2023-778 of August 14, 2023 on the accessibility of Ebooks and the software required to use them for disabled people, and theOrder of August 14, 2023 incorporating the accessibility requirements applicable to Ebooks and specialized software resulting from Directive 2019/882.

Under the provisions of the aforementioned article 48, the French regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication (Arcom) will be responsible for ensuring that these books comply with accessibility requirements from June 28, 2025.

The Authority has decided to launch a public consultation to gather comments from interested parties on certain issues relating to the accessibility of Ebooks. This consultation was open from June 3 to July 5, 2024.

The Authority received twelve contributions from various stakeholders (publishers' unions, publishers, broadcaster/distributors, associations, industry professionals):

Syndicat national de l'édition (SNE) ;
educational publishers (association representing school publishers) ;
Editions Quae ;
OpenEdition Books ;
Association des Transcripteurs-Adaptateurs Francophones (ATAF);
Fédération des Aveugles et Amblyopes de France (FAAF);
Center de Transcription et d'Édition en Braille (CTEB)
Association Valentin Haüy (AVH);
the Association des Donneurs de Voix (ADV);
the European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab);
a publishing software company;
Hadrien Gardeur, co-founder and board member of EDRLab (personal reply).

This document summarizes the contributions received and reflects the positions of the participants.

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