Some of the resources our society has for blind people to read books are horrible.
I called NLS to enquire about the process of reading a protected book from archive.org. They had absolutely no clue, and sent me back to the Internet Archive for information, who originally referred me to NLS. So, as this circle was closed, I tried to call the manufacturers of the Victor Reader, which is one of the most popular book reader devices. Though the original FAQ says that protected books can be read using the Victor Reader Stream, it has two versions, the first one from the years when protected books were not available from Archive.org. I wasn’t going to drop a few hundred Dollars to find out that it didn’t work. When I called Humanware, the manufacturer of the Victor Reader, likewise, they didn’t have a clue about Archive.org, and they asked me to call the National Library Service. See above.
Disabled people have to get a special decryption key from the government and then the protected books can’t be accessed on iOS, Android, Mac, PC or Linux – only on expensive specialized hardware from companies like Victor Reader who apparently don’t know how anything works and don’t have any customer service to help disabled people successfully read books.
The reason it’s so much trouble to read these books is DRM.
Here’s an example of a book:
It has “encrypted daisy” download for print-disabled users. That’s the thing which is so much trouble to use even if you sign up with the U.S. government, prove your disability to them, and get a decryption key. (I don’t know if access is possible at all if you aren’t American.)
By contrast, sighted users can make a free account and get a 1 hour or 14 day free library loan and then read the book in a visual viewer on the website (or, for 14 day loans, they can also download encrypted copies that load in Adobe Digital Editions on mainstream computers or devices with any encryption stuff automatically handled by Adobe so the process is user friendly).