Stevie Wonder to UN: Ease Copyrights for the Blind

GENEVA (CBS/AP) Stevie Wonder appeared before a United Nations agency on Monday, urging global copyright overseers to help blind and visually impaired people access billions of science, history and other books they cannot read.

The blind musician told the U.N.'s 184-nation World Intellectual Property Organization that more than 300 million people who "live in the dark" want to "read their way into light."

Pictures: Stevie Wonder
Pictures: Stevie Wonder at the White House

But he said they are being denied equal opportunity.

"What I would like to do today is launch what I call the 'Declaration of freedom for people with disabilities'," he told delegates at the opening of the assembly, according to the American Foreign Press.

"It's a call to action, a plan that will empower the independence of people with disabilities by providing them with the tools to learn and grow," he explained.

The 60-year-old pressed for a deal to facilitate trade in copyrighted books so that they can be translated into readable formats for people with disabilities.

He noted that there were various proposals.

Wonder called for a compromise and teased the diplomats: "Please work it out. Or I'll have to write a song about what you didn't do."