Slashdot Mirror
Odeon Orders Takedown Of Copycat Site
Tuxedo Jack writes "The Register reports that Odeon Cinemas, a British theater chain, has ordered a takedown of a copycat version of its site that was made by a disability activist. The original didn't work outside of IE on Windows and was in violation of the Disability Discrimination Act; the activist-recoded one worked on everything. Odeon has flip-flopped on the issue, too; they liked it when it was first up, and now they don't."
Seems like they'd be better off using this energy to make sure their site works on all browsers instead of coming down on someone who is doing a legitimate service...
... a slashdotting will. :\
This first post must be taken down immediately.
Regards
Odeon
I appreciate Somerville's (apparently) noble motivations and Odeon's non-compatibility is certainly a problem, but how can you argue with their logic?
People are essentially misled into giving personal info and, since Somerville is using Odeon's marks, how could they think otherwise?
Somerville is well-intentioned but completely in the wrong here. Corporations must act this way to protect themselves and I believe they're well within their rights here.
Couldn't Somerville have found another way to provide the listings without the "cloning" approach? Maybe even a protest site that would drive Odeon to comply?
And, instead of looking mean-spirited to those (most people) who not understand corporate liabilities, etc., couldn't Odeon have just gotten the damn thing done right on their own?
Sheesh, what a lot of wasted angst on all sides.
In some ways, this is similar those situations where unbidden third parties submit ideas or scripts or spec ads to large companies and get sore because the company won't even read them. But the company is just protecting itself from future lawsuits when, even though they come up with an idea themselves, a bunch of knuckle-heads pipe up with "hey. I gave them that idea!"
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
It seems like the negative press could be more costly than just buying the fixed layout off of him, or even hiring him to replace their (incompetent) web design staff...
Why is this a big deal? I read the 2 emails from Odeon and the one sent to them, and I don't see why Odeon is being outragous in asking them to take down the site.
Sure, their site should work in other browsers, but that is not the issue.
The issue is that some guy is tricking people into submitting info to his site instead of the Odeon site like they think that they are. Maybe he collects the data before he sends it to Odeon, maybe he doesn't like he says. I don't know him, and thats not even the issue.
I can very well understand why a company does not want someone they don't know collecting their customers information in their name. What if they guy ends up getting caught selling all these names to spammers one day? Then Odeon would really look stupid for not taking action against the guy.
IANAL, but 'letting people browse a website easier' doesn't trump 'copyright law' where I live. He (Somerville) is using their (Odeon) IP without their permission (now).
So, why is this a bad thing? Yes their site may suck, but violating Copyright is violating Copyright no matter how you slice it.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
By getting an order to take down the original site of Odeon Cinemas until it is accessible as required by law. And get really picky about missing ALT tags. This will teach them how not to be litigious and nasty. Although I am not sure how blind people are going to watch movies anyway :-)
Odeon might get less of a grilling for us if they had ever actually bothered to do something to make their site work correctly.
.. I can't think what they're smoking.
Apparently it doesn't even work correctly in MSIE most of the time, and I found the copycat site particularly useful in finding out times of films. I'd normally then book via phone.
A message to Odeon: Fix the site, and maybe then you might have some reason to complain. But so far, since the copycat site:
* Allows more people to look up film times.
* Makes it easier for people to do the above.
* Does not detract potential revenue away from Odeon itself.
Probably a bigwig who has no clue of the situation made this decision..
Let me save you the effort of expressing your angst! Just fill in the blanks!
I am ___________ over this article!
a. saddened
b. outraged
c. bleeding from my ass
___________ is once again treading on my rights, and I'm fed up with it!
a. Microsoft
b. SCO
c. The RIAA
d. The MPAA
e. George W. Bush
I am entitled to ___________
a. free software,
b. free music,
c. free movies,
d. other people's money,
and should not have to risk being ___________
a. thrown in jail!!
b. held responsible for my actions!!
c. called a terrorist, socialist or communist!!
In this FREE (as in beer, er I mean SPEECH) country, I should be able to take comfort in knowing that ___________
a. society will pay for my personal shortcomings.
b. industry exists to provide me with stuff regardless of whether or not I can't afford it.
c. the law doesn't apply to me.
d. the United States answers to an organization comprised 2/3 of dictatorships.
When will this tyranny end? We need to stand up and fight for a world where our children can ___________
a. treat their parents and teachers as equals.
b. learn that Christianity, and all who practice it are better off dead.
c. watch clown porn from the comfort of the elementary school library.
d. revel in the freedom of moral relativism.
I for one am going to do my part TODAY by ___________
a. writing an angry letter to my congressmen... yeah right!
b. doing another J.
c. living in my parents' basement in protest!
d. post to inconsequential blogs like Slashdot.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
"Counter sue."
Dear God... What is wrong with creating a site with valid html? The web is slowly turning into a real cesspool. If a site is in Flash, I don't even bother.
Why couldn't they parse the info pages (via an HTML ripper or something), pull out the information they want, and post that on their own site? No cloned pages, but the data's the same. And of course, the new pages would work in all browsers.
The original didn't work outside of IE on Windows and was in violation of the Disability Discrimination Act
Well, I for one liked the original. I suffer from mental retardation you see, and as a result I only use and swear by Microsoft products. As a disabled person, I can testify that the original website worked perfectly.
The new page on the other hand, which was aimed at open-minded people who used other, non-Microsoft browsers, was constantly reminding me of my disability and as such was totally discriminatory. And not just to me, but to all the disabled IT guys at Odeon also! I am so glad it's not accessible anymore, so I can go back to my comforting illusions.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I guess a lot of blind people regularly visit the website of a cinema-chain...
I just wait for someone deaf to sue itms because they dont subtitle their songs...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I know this is an American website, but Odeon Cinemas is a chain of cinemas, not theatres (which are this marvellous new thing where actual real people act the story out in front of your eyes, no film involved!)
;-)
Bloody yanks...
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
Odeon has a strange priority here. Sure the site is an activist result, but it's not libelous, is it? The activist also states very clearly that he was not making any financial gain from his site. So, why does Odeon care? What's the worst the guy can do? Give incorrect showtimes? He is obviously gleaning accurate data from the real Odeon site. So what? Next they'll be removing wheelchair access to their theatres.
That's the problem with these well-intentioned laws. When someone wants to flout them, the effort to correct the problem seems to be insurmountable. I'm sure there will be lawsuits and court orders and a whole bunch of people's productivity being sucked down a black hole (willingly or not), before this is said and done.
The problem stems from the fact that in our society (modern Western democracies anyway), we are so buried in an avalanche of regulations that there is no way you can even be aware of them all, and when one that is particularly useful... such as a law requiring handicapped access, enforcement becomes infeasible because so much effort is being wasted to meet the utter explosion of bureaucratic requirements.
We already work about half the year just to pay taxes, and when we can work for ourselves how big does the proportion of time we spend dealing with red tape have to be before people get fed up. We are being nickel-and-dimed into losing productivity. Meanwhile this Web site apparently ignores the law and it will probably be months or years before anything can be done about it because the people who could do something about it are too busy making sure that all government contractors are using 7/64" bevelled grommets instead of 3/32" bevelled grommets.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Now it's on the record that they a) haven't bothered producing a compliant site and b) they've shut sites that *are* compliant down.
Isn't that going to cause them liability problems?
--Have a good night's sleep. Don't forget to brush your tooth.
I didn't say there was anything wrong with HTML. I would presume that they [ODEON] would enjoy a Flash version because it would create the same LOOK & FEEL that they currently have without making users visit their site with only IE and Windows.
Hmmm.
The original site only allowed access to people using Internet Explorer and Windows and was in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.
Despite predictions when his site first went up that the lawyers' letters would arrive immediately Odeon Cinema initially welcomed the site - as did many disabled people who could access the site for the first time.
But this all changed with the arrival of an email from Luke Vetere, marketing director at Odeon
Brilliant marketing. Piss off and lock out a demographic. And there's nothing better to improve a company's image than screwing over disabled people and breaking the law. Odeon is really getting its money's worth hiring this moron.
Flash is completely inaccessible to the visually disabled (who do go to movies, believe it or not). That is not a good solution.
Complexity is Easy. Simplicity is Hard.
There goes my karma...
Ahem, I think you're missinterpreting the poster, it is most surely a joke since it's been a long fight on the side of dissabled (specially blind) people to make sites created wholly in flash to provide other formats that are readable by screen readers (be they braile or text to speech) which flash, last time I checked, was not.
When will /. be getting a well needed HTML upgrade to XHTML 1.0 or 1.1? And have it fully validate?! I mean for crying out loud someone on alistapart.com did an article and rewrote slashdot as a completely standard website.. see the article and read more about it here
Look at the savings in bandwidth he calculated out.
"Most Slashdot visitors would have the CSS file cached, so we could ballpark the daily savings at ~10 GB bandwidth. A high volume of bandwidth from an ISP could be anywhere from $1 - $5 cost per GB of transfer, but let's calculate it at $1 per GB for an entire year. For this example, the total savings for Slashdot would be: $3650! All of that for just a couple of KB."
I have heard of the american disabilities act and such, to whom does it actually apply?
Do all sites need to be accessible to the blind? If I write a small utility does it need to be screen-reader friendly? What is the threshold?
Are there any good resources explaining exactly what is requried of different companies from a computing standpoint (brick and mortor info is all over the place)?
paul
paul reinheimer
There is such a thing as "fair use" or at lease under the US Copyright law. One of the variables that figure into that equation is whether it is for commercial use.
Fight Spammers!
stupid people will be stupid. doing illegal things to try to change that situation is stupid. and illegal. thus you will make a futile (stupid) effort to make things better and get your ass sued by the people who are smarter than you but, nonetheless, stupid.
-ninjaneer
I will have no more faith in Slashdot moderating. This is the funniest damn thing I have ever read.
Someone should make a movie about this.
Yes, since flash is such a bloody excellent tool for the Blind, much like Compact Discs and MP3's are oh-so-useful for the Profoundly Deaf.
Unfortunately, the recourse that this disability activist chose was not a valid one, but I think all companies should be held accountable for making their products and services as accessible to the disabled as possible.
My girlfriend and I get to see one new movie a week, IF the one theatre in the entire city of Dallas with closed-captioning is showing a movie we want to see. The MoPix unit they use costs very little to install, per theatre, but there is only ONE theatre in the entire city, FOUR in the entire STATE!!!
The people at Odeon should be taken to task for not making their site accessible, but the guy that made the copy should also be taken to task for being stupid and violating copyright law.
to control their copyright/trademark objects.
It is also the right of ALL disable people (or is that 'differently-abled' - whatever is not offensive) to sue Odeon for their violation.
Sadly, it would be best if Odeon would just pay for the updated content that fixes their works, reference the creator, and everyone join in for a hootenanny!!!!
Ahem, I think you're missinterpreting the poster, it is most surely a joke
Apparently not. Look at the reply.
hello
I'm writing this email, because I wanted to check odeon's cinema program. And I find out that I cannot access the website! It is obviously broken, the only thing I can see is a picture http://www.odeon.co.uk/Odeon/img/home.jpg and nothing more.
I hope that you will fix the site as fast as possible. Remember that by such a way you lose big number of customers.
PS: I really would like to send to you this complaint (so you can be aware of this problem), but I can't. I cannot find your email address, because the site is not working.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
I dunno, start one and we'll find out together! :0]
http://www.slashcode.com/
He should take the site down in compliance with their notice. Then he should report their site as a violation of that disability act, and offer to sell his compliant site layout to them at a "discount". That way they can pay out a small sum, have their rights, and a compliant site.
Or they can just be bastards about the whole thing. IE on Windows only? Why the hell? Ohhh... I see... their shitty DHTML menus! OK. So, an experienced person can duplicate that in Flash in probably 10 minutes. Or, somebody experienced in cross-browser DHTML can make it work with Mozilla or Opera, or even the Mac IE. Whatever.
Laziness at it's best. Why fix the site when we can pay lawyers more then it would cost fix it?
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
*crickets chirping*
How Odeous!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It doesn't work in Lynx or MozFire* but it works fine in Konq.
See the video of this story on
NBC News.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Ok, so whats your point? That is another non-issue. Yes, they are braking the law. I hope that the UK govenment cracks down on them. Anyways... back to the topic of discussion... This guy with the copycat website is not some kind of vigilante of the internet. His job is not to take the law into his own hands, especially if it involves stepping on some company's rights and some people's rights (the people being those who submit data unknowingly to his site). I bet the guy is very well intentioned, but he needs to get real. If he is worried about this that much, he should find a legitimite solution to the problem.
...then I'd book by phone.
I emailed the odeon webmaster several times, politely asking them to support other browsers. I never got a reply.....
Fire them and hire this guy !
I am outraged that you:
A) think I am so predictable that 4 measly options will cover 99.999% of my reactions
B) glossed over other important issues
C) didn't fill in the blanks for me
D) there is no D...
Yep, B it is.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Every time someone orders a site down, it gets posted on Slashdot.
Guess what - the sites go down.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Did these people that submitted their info never bother to glance at the site's URL? How do you confuse http://www.odeon.co.uk with http://www.dracos.co.uk/odeon/? Do they use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button every damn time they Google something? More important, how can they be sure they weren't at the real site, but it just wasn't accepting their data submission correctly because of all the adware, spyware & viruses installed on their systems as a result of their clicking on random URLs with reckless abandon?
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
...since it's totally factually inaccurate.
The UK has the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which is *far* beefier than US legislation, and clearly does cover both web sites and private sector companies.
It hasn't, however, been enforced in court yet. Perhaps the best revenge would be to correct that latter omission.
Not to go too offtopic here, but as the owner of a hosting company that pushes a lot of bandwidth, our cost per GB is about 34 cents. Slashdot probably pays less than that.
While I agree that they should redo their site, the cost savings would be minimal. I do, however, feel that having a fully-complaint website should be about more than just cost savings. The reason Slashdot doesn't switch over probably has more to do with "it works now, so why bother with changing it" than anything else.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
a,d,a-c,b,c,c,d.
What's my score?
If you want an accessible version of the Odeon, whether from them or from Matthew Somerville, let info@odeonuk.com know this!
Also, if you are disabled, live within the UK, and can't use their site because of your disability, then I believe the Disability Discrimination Act does apply here, and threatening them with action under it might be rather effective...
The only correct answer is to get a court order for the original site be taken down until it upholds the disabilities law!
Maybe the blind can't see the movie, but at least they can buy tickets! Thank you Accessible Od*on!
My understanding is that the lastest incarnation of Flash outputs stuff that is compatable with a screen reader if the author wishes...
I hear that! My g/f is visually impared and we go to the movies all the time. Granted she can see well enough to enjoy them (240 in the bad eye, 120 in the good eye) so it's all good most of the time. It's a shame most companies don't understand the need for this type of access. The worst things I find are the hand held devices used when you pay for things with debit.. they are too small and my gf has to have her face almost touching the screen to use it. Just ranting.
I can understand the copyright and trademark issues involved with a copy of a website. However, what if it was a proxy instead of a copy of the site? Seems like that would be eliminate the complaints, since it dynamically re-writes the page, and end-point communication still goes to their page. Sure, it would be hard to automate re-writing a web-page to make it cross-browser and W3C-complaint. But it would be really cool if someone would write such a proxy. You could even place such a proxy at the client-side, so the web site owners wouldn't even need to know about it.
Under copyright and trademark law, I think he should be able to make a partial copy of the site and fix it up as a critique -- an example of how to fix the problems. However, that would not include the ability to use the trademarks. So he should keep the site up, with any trademarks removed. (He could keep the name to refer back to the original though.) In retaliation, I would recommend that he also cahnge all the movie times, so that anyone still looking at his site would be even more pissed.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
In the last few years Odeon has lost market share to multiplex cinemas.
...?)
10 years ago they were one of the market leaders.
IMHO Odeon are a fading star. This is just an attempt to raise their public profile.
Any publicity is better than no publicity! (S. Melmoth
"goatse? What's that? Anyone have a link?" - AC
They shouldn't take this lying down. They should go on the offensive, and sue the company for failing to adhere to the disabilities act.
Of course that would cost money, which I assume the individual running the site does not have while the company has plenty.
I guess only the rich can afford justice.
Lots of people are spouting lots of FUD here. Of course the site should be assessable. But the Disabilities Act does not require anyone except government agencies and a few other select public service entities to have assessable web sites.
And by the way, Slashdot and OSDN does not comply with the act either, so if there is going to be some mud slinging, by all means be fair about it!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
> I appreciate Somerville's (apparently) noble motivations and Odeon's non-compatibility is certainly a problem, but how can you argue with their logic?
No. I can't. That's why they own trademarks, so they can control content. Now if Odeon was smart, they would simply fire off an RSS feed and let the guy fucking well spider it. Am I right or what?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
A developer asked me today "How many blind people access our site?".
I answered "God forbid, if the wrong thing happened to you today, tomorrow we could have one more."
True quote.
I test web accessibility, BTW.
IANAL, (especially in England) but I think he may have a defence based on equitable estoppel. It certainly applies in Canada and the US - not sure about England. But if they had previously supported him and suddenly did a 180, then he has recourse to fight it, and recoup his legal costs.
p pe l.htm
http://www.legal-definitions.com/equitable-esto
My rights don't need management.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/121.html
Now, section (b)(1)(A) makes it hard to do this with webpages, and section (c)(1) requires that you be a nonprofit org. who does this sort of thing, but both problems could be worked around.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Imagine if you were buying something online from Amazon, for arguemnets sake. Would you be concerned if you found out that you didn't really type your CC and address and what not into Amazon but instead you gave to "some guy" who claims not to keep the data. He says he doesn't keep it but "joe sixpack" and maybe even I can't prove that he doesn't. As far as Odeon's concerned the browser incapitbility is small beans compared to that. Sure they need to fix that, but I'd be much more concerned about the customer safety/satisfaction stand point.
:wq
Not because of some moral stand, but through my laziness.
I live within 15 minutes drive of 3 large cinema chains, including an Odeon, and browse exclusively with Firefox - my link to IE is hidden in the depths of the Start menu. Before, I would browse the copycat site and the other two's official sites, and if there was a film I wanted to see at the Odeon at a convenient time, I would fire up IE and book online on the official Odeon site. I doubt I'll open IE just to check listing times.
Odeon is quite odious
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I can honestly say that the only thing that is going to come out of this is wealthier lawyers (on both sides)
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
That Odeon site is pretty Odious...even beyond the retardation of requiring www. being prepended to the domain in the URL, it opens up to what looks like a giant banner ad...and NO OTHER CONTENT. Then when you read the instructions "Simply click this page to enter." (buried in some boilerplate looking text) you try clicking on the page. No dice, the text lied. So you click on the "ODEON" logo. Nope, that's not clickable either. You HAVE to click on the "FREE* Activision PC Game Sampler" to get anywhere.
And that takes you to what looks like a circa-1997 splash page w/ a fuzzed out logo. (No further info on the spiderman offer) But that's the site...all the content is hidden in a series of 5 dropdown menus.
And as if that's not bad enough, some of the menu items that "do something" besides open up a submenu have confusing *right* facing triangles, very similar at a glance to the left facing submenu indicators. But on mouse-over, they all get a lit up arrow pointing one way or the other.
What a suck, suck, suck site, from every angle imaginable: usability, information flow, accessibility, content, graphics design...UGH! At the risk of hammering on my lame pun, they really DO put the Odeon back into Odious.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Have you thought that possibly that it is difficult for those with disabilities to access sites in Flash? What with it being mainly based on graphical things.
Also, not everyone has the latest version of Flash that you have (wether their platform hasn't got the new version, or if the platform is unsupported in the case of Linux on non-x86 architectures), or one that is as stable as yours (think Flash 6 on Linux, it crashes the browser frequently).
If you are thinking of writing what you would call a "web site" in Flash, many will disregard it. No sale. Just like ones that are overloaded with Javascripts that look ugly, break the back button, break in multiple windows or tabs, and don't let you bookmark the pages because they have only Javascript links.
You can achieve almost anything in plain ol' HTML. The only reason you need flash is for some interactive content.
SSdtIGFzIGJvcmVkIGFzIHlvdSBhcmUK
You know, I'm honestly fairly torn about this. On the one hand, accessability is important. On that same hand, what this person did was careful, thoughtful, did not diminish Odeon's business, did not consume any of Odeon's traffic or name recognition. He didn't sully the cinema's name; arguably, he repaired one of their problems, and moreover did something they were required to have done and which they failed to do.
On the other hand, I would be furious if someone chose to replicate my website, for any reason, be it good or bad. Now, I know, corporations usually have their heads buried deep in the sand over handling issues like accessability which are seen as obscure and unimportant, much less accepting free help from the outside world, or "getting right on it" when someone notifies them of a problem. Moreover, it wouldn't at all surprise me that this guy actually needed an accessable version of the site; most people don't do things like this unless it matters to them personally, and a movie chain isn't the biggest PR getter if it's a question of getting the issue into the papers. Still, really, who does this guy think he is, choosing to take the corporation's name into his hands and do what he will with it, even if he's doing the right thing, doing a very good job of it, and from many perspectives should be being thanked right now?
There was, once, a corporate tendency to Do The Right Thing. Back in the day, when a corporate problem or vulnerability was exposed, ignored, and fixed by an outsider, generally the corporation would turn around, fix it properly, and thank the watchdog, then find out the manager which had ignored the watchdog's pleas and put their job in jeopardy, and finally admonish the watchdog to speak with this other manager instead, who will listen instead of being a wall.
Will Odeon do this? Well, that remains to be seen. Someone somewhere probably believes that this was a huge risk and brand dilution, probably hasn't even looked at the site and is ignoring that a good job was done of a task which needed to happen. Corporations no longer attempt to behave civilly; now they defend every red cent like it's the last one that would ever be made, and if there's a hair of a chance that maybe somehow this could have been bad if he had been swearing, then we'd better god damned well make an example out of the guy trying to do the right thing, so that nobody else tries to do the right thing.
It would be appropriate for slashdotters in Britain, the US or Canada to call or write to Cineplex (depending on your nation, you may have to look for Lowe's Cineplex or Sony Theaters; they're all the same company.) It is spectactuarly difficult to track down a way to reach them, but the investor relations tab (as usual) has information that nobody else has.
Cineplex executives and contact information.
If you feel strongly about web accessability or about corporations not lashing out for people trying to do the Right Thing for them by proxy, please consider placing a five minute phone call in this man's support.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
I know 2 wrongs don't make a right, but it is a sad day when enforcement of copyright and trademark law trumps enforcement of a law guaranteeing equal access of information to all ...
No, he means people who run everything in CLI using emacs.
:P
Did you ever think of the graphically challenged? I didn't think so.
Could we please round up everyone who modded the parent up, and shoot them?
...and was in violation of the Disability Discrimination Act
As usual Americans expect all their laws to be applied to all countries....
If the site violates disability laws, then perhaps the disability activist should muster the troops and file suit against the cinema chain. I know some of you will flame this post citing it as a frivolous lawsuit, but you also need to take into account how many lawsuits have been filed in the US because someone didn't have adequate handicapped parking or a wheel chair accessible ramp, or a handicapped stall in teh restroom. I ask you if those lawsuits were frivolous. The case would never have to go to court, they could agree to drop the case should the cinema chain agree to alter it's site so that it were viewable through other browsers.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Dear Sir/Madam,
I visited odeon.co.uk with Mozilla Firefox (a popular web browser) this week to book tickets for myself and 7 others to see Spider Man 2. Your site does not seem to work at all and I was thus forced to book tickets with one of your competitors (UGC Cinemas) who have the foresight to make their site work with other browsers and operating systems.
I am a web developer myself and know first hand that it is not hard to produce 100% cross browser sites and respectfully suggest that if your web developers cannot do the same you should terminate their employment, they are patently unable to fulfil their job requirements.
Your website also contravenes the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) which could leave your company open to possible civil action, not to mention bad publicity. I assume you would prefer to avoid this.
Until this problem is resolved I will not be showing my patronage to Odeon cinemas and will recommend that my friends and acquaintances do the same.
If I do not receive a satisfactory answer to this email I will also be passing a complaint to the relevant authorities regarding the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) infractions.
Yours Sincerely,
Phil John.
Probably won't do any good but hey, if they want to lose customers fark em, UGC cinemas are normally better (bigger, beefier sound, comfier seats) anyway.I am NaN
I will be the first one to agree that this site was providing a valuable service -- however, they are perfectly in their rights to ask him to take it down in view that customers are concerned about submitting personal details to him. At the end of the day, if the shit hits the fan, Odeon's reputation will suffer -- given it's their business and their goodwill that will suffer I agree with them.
He on the other hand should have made it clear, preferrably by a link that had to be clicked before any private details were submitted that he was not associated with odeon
I wish slashdot would stop these bush-activist revolts, providing e-mails for every tom, dick and harry to complain to (and they do!) -- all it does is reinforce viewpoints regarding non windows users
Does anyone even go to ODEON theatre's anymore ??
Famous Players has seriously whooped their butt. Odeons are junk compared to FP
Google seems to have updated already and dumped their cached copies, however if you go to Yahoo and search you can see them all as he originally had them...
Have fun looking over the cached copies for naughty code!
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
The question at hand is should the law be upheld and enforce the original site to make their site more accessable to others, not whether or not this copycat site should be taken down or not. Based off the letter which was sent by the original site owners, it makes perfect sense that the copycat site should come down and stay down.
Hey, your site doesnt work in my browser/OS. This is obviously intentional.. As a developer myself I understand that making a widely usable site is possible, in most cases its easier than not. Either you actually coded the thing and it just plain didnt work and you didnt see fit to correct it, or you intentionally excluded users based on some business partnership you have with a certain un-ethical company. Either way you need to solve the problem.
I agree with having Mr. sommerville remove his site, your views are valid and I would feel the same way. However, had you actually spent the time to correct the obvious error, the problem would have been solved in the first place. So thats a lose-win situation.
Please dont bother replying to this email, I honestly dont care what you have to say, just fix it.
- rob
The truth is bigger than your beliefs, your opinion of truth has no impact on reality. - rtaft (5.15.2002)
UK law permits the reverse engineering of software for compatibility, does this apply to HTML?
What is to say he doesn't collech/harvest the data he forwarded?
Here is a unique idea:
Altruism, like passion, is the key intent that philanthropy expresses; a concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
It's a really old idea, however, some people still care about others.
We should all try it some time.
That's not entirely true: Creating Accessible Flash It takes some extra work to make Flash accessible, and not all of Flash can be made accessible, but it's still possible to make a Section 508 compatible web site using Flash.
What was he thinking anyway? He was collecting personal information and people thought he was affiliated with Odeon.
Of course he could make trouble for them by filing a lawsuit under the Disabilities act, but that doesn't mean he didn't screw up.
Kill two birds with one stone and hire the guy to fix the website. I guarantee that he's cheaper than the lawyers. It'd also make great publicity.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Odeon's website is truely, truely awful. And it's been like this for at least two years now.
I don't know how their web monkey can live with him/herself.
That animation when you get past the splash screen is ridiculous. What's the point? Wouldn't a good marketing person realise that you want the user to be able to access the information as quickly as possible, rather than have to wait for silly things like that to finish?
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
...and you run and you run and you can't stop what's been done...
I think I can guess what happened. Initially, Odeon took a common sense approach: "Hey, it's benign, he's a good guy, it's something we should have done ourselves, and if anything it will get us more business."
And then, unfortunately, somebody at Odeon talked to a lawyer. And the lawyer said, "Sure, it looks fine now. But you're exposed here. If you let him leave it up, you become responsible for it, and you don't control it, even though it's got your trademarks all over it. What if after 6 months he decides it would be amusing to redirect people to some disgusting porn site, and some little kid is traumatized? The parents are going to sue you! What if he decides to start collecting credit card numbers for reservations, and then uses them to rip people off? Think of the liability!"
Seems unfair for the parent to be modded Offtopic.
Plus he/she brings up a good point: For all the nitpicking that we all do about non-compliant websites, it seems reasonable that the premier website for nerdly matters should set the example and lead the way.
What a pile of useless shit that site is to begin with (excuse my language)... Gigantic spiderman banner is apparently the thing you click to get in (it says it in tiny text, inside a _JPEG_). I think most would assume that clicking a gigantic spiderman banner would jump you to some spiderman content (like the 'intersticial(?)' ads seen on numerous other sites). *sigh*
Of course, when I DID get in there (using the latest Mozilla under WinXP, mind you), all I got was a black screen with a blurry "ODEON" in the middle. No actual CONTENT.
Morons! >:^(
-bill!
(I didn't think I'd STILL be complaining about utterly unusable websites _8 years later_!!!)
Just in case someone makes an assumption from this post, you could never book tickets, therefore never submit credit card details, on my site.
Sort of like John Kerry?
Your statement smacks of sardonicism. The visually disabled can also hear a movie through a superlative spatial sound system available only in the cinema. Not to mention we can "see" the movie with our sighted friends, who can describe the action in diminished tones. I'm not blind, but nearly so, and I enjoy attending the cinema. I've gone so often that I know my local manager by name and he has made accomodations for my assistant animal.
/. with a bit of difficulty. Slashdot is not ADA compliant. Mind you manners, kit.
We can also post on
Do a search for 'odeon' on the mozilla bugzilla and look at the date at which they were given a fixed version of menu.js which would work with mozilla. Now note that they have done sweet fuck all about it. Bastards
Hey ODEON jackass moron. hire this guy and pay him to redo your site. use that as a pr coup to advertise that your concerned about accessibility and ease of use. put a pointer from his site back to yours. ..... (FBI is knocking at door)
3) profit
Its stupid evil corprate jackasses like these that make me want to
ho hum
this is your government there is nothing to see here, please move along.
IANAB = I Am Not A Barrister?
Dear God... What is wrong with creating a site with valid html? The web is slowly turning into a real cesspool. If a site is in Flash, I don't even bother.
I am really, really, starting to feel like creating a rant site on how NOT to do web sites. One of the pages will have seven flash pug-ins, just to make the user cry, as their computer comes to a halt, just so they realise what's wrong with it.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
When I sent in this story yesterday it was ignored, so I sent it into theregister, knowing that they liked the site because of ntk.co.uk... now it's in theregister it's ok for slashdot... :(
But it's all good (apart from the site being down) people should know as the site was much better than the proper odeon site (could be used in browsers other than ie)...
Unfortunately I can't use their website now and so am going to go there less
I think we should all email our views to info@odeonuk.com and put the /. effect to good use.
Probably because captioning, if it goes over the picture, would annoy the normal customers, who outnumber the deaf by a considerable margin. It wouldn't be bad if it's not on the picture, or you're given a filter or something.
/. about how movie theaters are underpowering their bulbs to be cheap.
Also, it might not be expensive, but there was an article on
I don't read AC A human right
Things like this must make Oscar Deutche spin in his grave.... His business was to entertain the whole nation, not just those with no disabilities.
Lets remember what ODEON stands for...
Oscar
Deutche
Entertains
Our
Nation
(Of course, I may have spelt his name wrong but this is SlashDot, who cares!)
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
I complained a few weeks ago, because i couldnt use firefox with there site, heres there reply :
Please accept my apologies for the problems you have had using the
Odeon website.
Odeon recognise the fact that not all broswer versions are compatible
with their website, and as such every effort is being made to rectify
this problem.
I thank you for taking the time to write to us and notify us of the
problems you are having, using the information you have supplied us with
we will endevour to erradicate the issues you have raised.
Should you require any further information, for example film time, please
feel free to send an e-mail to info@odeonuk.com including the Cinema(s)
you require information for.
Best Wishes
Jon
As usual Americans expect all their laws to be applied to all countries....
I assume that the Disability Discrimination Act is British. We Americans have the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Just in case of confusion; the Odeon is a British cinema chain, not American...
this already exists... it is called webpagesthatsuck.com. We used it in my web design class to help learn what *not* to do when designing a page...
I've put in Flash in sites and dramatically increased the sales made by those sites- from one or two contacts a year to a few contatcs a week.
If it's made with usability in mind, Flash can be a good way to build value and rapport, which is important to many people on the net.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
(sent to LVetere@odeonuk.com , hasn't bounced, it's the one in the takedown order)
Dear Mr Vetere,
I'm rather upset to find that you have required Matthew Sommerville to remove his website which allowed users who could not otherwise view your website, to do so. Why would a company as prominent as the Odeon wish to shrink its potential audience by hundreds of thousands of customers?
Since your technical team seem to lack the basic skills to make your website accessible to the widest range of customers (a task which first year university students appear to have no difficulty with), surely Matthew is to be congratulated for doing that work for you, pro bono? Can you honestly say that you do not wish anyone using an Apple Mac computer to visit your cinemas? As you are no doubt aware, well over 5% of internet users use non-Microsoft computers. That is literally several millions of customers who you are preemptively prohibiting from conducting business with you - a rather unwise business strategy, surely!
As a long time frequenter of the Odeon in a number of cities, I do now feel compelled to give my business to the UGC, whose website is designed in a manner which allows the greatest possible number of customers to purchase tickets online.
If by some chance you are not up to speed with regards to the technical aspects of the situation, myself or many other of your now former customers will no doubt be happy to discuss with you the extremely simple steps which could be taken to expand your potential customer base again.
Yours sincerely, etc etc
I had trouble navigating their site using IE/XP and I haven't tried for a long time. I sent a strongly-worded email to them about the poor excuse for a website but recieved no reply. There's no excuse for a piece of shit like that with too much client-side scripting for its own good. I'd say it's the most unusable and useless website I've ever seen.
On a similar tangent, Download Festival's website exclaims that it makes extensive use of Flash and tells me to download it before it lets me have a link to the homepage. But I can find the homepage using Google and navigate the site quite competantly with no Flash.
looks fine to me: i read /. using lynx all the time: it's the only browser on my (yes, non-graphical) live-cd.
Don't save Windows XP! http://www.petitiononline.com/jjw1xp/petition.html
visually disabled (who do go to movies, believe it or not)
Oh, I believe it. In fact, I've got the sneaking suspicious that many modern films are DIRECTED by the visually disabled.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I don't agree with heavy-handed responses to individuals who are doing independent work for the good of everyone and not for money... BUT.... the fact remains that it is their copyright and intellectual property. I'm no fan of big corporations, but this particular issue seems pretty clear-cut to me.
I'm the webmaster for a cinema chain myself, and I'm surprised at their site, and many many others. (I look at many other movie theater web sites seeing if theres something worthwhile to ripoff)
So many major theater chains dont understand that people don't go to their website looking for corporate information and so forth, but freakin movie times. As a movie watcher I dont want to have to go through 5 different splash screens of movie ads and company info before I can figure out what time the movie I want to watch is playing at.
My site has the home page set to list the different theater locations, and those links going to the current movie times playing for the day for that location. All other links about various information branches from there.
The website statistics mimic hourly theater attendance with daily web hits peaking about an hour to half hour before daily attendance peaks.
Also, it amazes me how many people are using cell phones and pdas to get the information. I strive to keep everything as broadly accesible as possible. Forget flash, forget javascript. I try to use CSS navigation that degrades into something at least useable by broken browsers.
I'm afraid I dont quite get this part.
As a general I agree that all sites should be available in textmode, but come-on, its a cinema booking site - if your not able to view a graphical UI due to sight impairment, what possible use could you have of a site whose very purpose is to book cinema tickets ??
Not ment as a flame, but is it really an issue - the site doesnt provide anything menaingfull for a sight imapred person.
The theater must just hate disabled people. After all, dealing with seating for them is a nightmare, you have to reserve all those parking places that used to go to the wealthiest patrons, and you have to deal with the architectural nightmare of having to put ramps everywhere and redesigning the bathrooms. Much easier to just subtly encourage them to take their business elsewhere. And it would have worked too, if not for those meddling disabled people!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If you still think Flash is about intro movies and goofy animation, you're wrong. Flash is a great way to create a website that works in almost all browsers and reduces bandwidth. Many users would not even know it was designed in flash.
<info@odeonuk.com>
Dear Sir or Madem:
I attempted to visit the Odeon website at http://www.odeon.co.uk/ today. Unfortunately, I was not able to access your site. The problem that I experience is that I see a blank page with only the word Odeon visible. Upon consulting with other web users, I have found that you have repeatedly asked users to use Microsoft Internet Explorer to view your website. This represents a major problem for many of us.
Some of us use operating systems that do not support Internet Explorer. Most users of non-Windows operating systems do not have access to a modern copy of Internet Explorer. Some of us rely on browsers other than Internet Explorer for web browsing due to accessibility features not present in Internet Explorer. Finally, using other web browsers is often more convenient; to inconvenience such a large user base with a request to change browsers is unlikely to be effective. In addition, the requests to close the accessible portal site Accessible ODEON previously at http://www.dracos.co.uk/odeon/ only increases the probability of overlooking your site completely.
Due to the volume of previous E-mails requesting some level of accessibility from the ODEON website and support of alternative browsers, I believe you are already aware of the problem. However, I am writing as merely one more customer who is deeply concerned with this problem, and is unable to accept the current quality of your website. I trust I will be able to use your website sometime soon.
Thank you in advance for your kind consideration and swift action.
Sincerely,
Copy Andpaste
They're 5/17 inch pilfer grommets! Geez, get it right, will you? What are you, handicapped?
f ir st-by-dave-barry
http://www.linuxmafia.com/pub/humour/read-this-
Seriously, I looked into this a while back. Isn't http://www.maccaws.org or anybrowser.org trying to do something about this?
It only goes to show that those who do not remember Boo are doomed to repeat it.
...compared to the living hell of their telephone system. Easily the worst ever voice-call management site I have ever encountered.
On the rare occasions where I am forced to use an Odeon these days, I tend to book my tickets by physically visting the cinema, talking to the nice students behind the counter (who have access to a decent and feature-filled UI, and can thus answer questions like "How busy is the 4:30 showing of Spiderman 2?"), and departing with my tickets physically in my hand.
I will never again book an Odeon ticket over the net, because their system is broken. I will never again book Odeon tickets over their telephone system, because their system is broken.
It pains me to say this, because ODEON is a big name in the history of British cinema & Art Deco architecture.
"....some of our customers have expressed considerable concern..."
I imagine that the opposite is now happening.
Let me leave you with something to think about.
Public perception is everything. People hate Microsoft and SCO. People love Google. You have essentially turned yourself in to the Microsoft and SCO of the cinema industry in one fell swoop. There's literally only one way to reverse that. I'm sure it's now painfully obvious to you what that is.
Make yourself Google.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
...when a technical improvement usually renders the point moot? Accessibility issues aside, if Odeon actually cares about the security and privacy of their customer's information, why are they not using SSL?
Instead of:
Whaaaah, you're using a screen-scraper proxy, no fair!
Odeon disgust me, there whole attitude with this problem is unfathomable. How can they possibly string the public along for so long and brutally get away with it. I think its disgusting. I am hearing impaired, and the only PC I have available to me is a linux desktop PC with Mozilla Firefox (which I love), now I have to rely on my partner to ring Odeon's automated phone number to check for subtitles viewings of the popular films. Nevertheless I have emailed odeon for the 5th time, except now, with hindsight I can see it was a little aggressive, I guess it just portrays my mood. Ignorance, pure ignorance, on odeon's part.
any one feel they want to speak directly to the odeon man concerned LVetere@odeonuk.com ;)
Here's mine:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to complain about the current state of your web site which is, I am afraid to say, poorly designed and incompatible with many different web browsers.
I am a user of Mozilla-Firefox, a popular open-source, standards compliant and secure web browser. Your web site does not render correctly when viewed with Firefox. Your web site is inaccessible through Firefox. Your web site renders poorly in another standard compliant web browser; Opera.
The only browser in which your web site renders well enough to be used is Internet Explorer. Even then, the design of the site is poor. The home page presents the visitor with an intrusive advert which, at the time of writing, is offering a "free Activision PC game sampler."
The text below this advert makes it seem as though the site is accessed by "clicking on the page." This is not true. One has to click on the advert in order to actually enter the main site and get down to the business of doing what the user wanted to do which is to view film listings and, potentially, book a seat.
I would at this point ask you to note that Internet Explorer is a poor choice of browser. It is lacking in features and it is insecure. Recently, CERT and the United States Department of Homeland Security recommended that computer users stop using Internet Explorer.
I was appalled to learn that you have attacked one Mr Matthew Somerville over his efforts to create a site that is easy to use and efficient. While I appreciate that you have a right to protect the use of your trademarks and copyrights, I feel that you could have better spent your time and resources on redesigning your site.
I must advise you that until such time as you see to hiring competent Web Designers that are capable of producing a modern and browser compatible web site, I am unable to continue to frequent Odeon cinemas. I will ensure that my colleagues and friends take the same action. There are simply too many alternatives (Vue and Showcase to name but two) for a cinema company to be able to act with such arrogance and disregard for their customer base.
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Smith.
Unless they opt-out of proprietary plugins on their browser. But I guess those of us that care about open standards represent an ignorable minority.
Does having a site only working in IE make it inaccessible to handicapped? Is this saying that Mozilla users are handicapped? IE, and windows, have some good integrated accessibility features, magnifyers and text-to-speech and all that.
I think the fact that the website only worked in IE is independent of the accusation that it violates some discrimination law. They're two separate things which just happened to be mentioned together. You're reading too much into it.
For example, the way most people described the site, it sounds like there's no text to turn into speech, just lots of flash animations and menus. That's a discrimination law issue. Flash graphics should work in other browsers, so that's probably not related to the site not working in IE. More likely the IE thing is related to some weird scripting issue.
swf is open enough for me.
c e d, d b d c c!!!!!
Unless you use links or Lynx. Then it's a PAIN.
Matt,
Exactly eh, why would someone want a job say, as a web developer in such a company (or department if any) that obviously either:
a. hires crappy web designers / developers to work with you.
b. doesn't give a looney damn on your suggestions and intervenes at the right time just to fuck up your design.
The resultant site as of now speaks for itself.
-bron
Dunno about block, as such, but point your IE (or suitable UserAgent string) here and compare it with (say) Konqueror or FireFox.
Tip for Konq users: Tools, Change Browser Identification, any of the first 8. Afterwards: T, CBI, Default Identification.
I have seen protest sites blocking IE (you get a popup and then a redirect to mozilla.org).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Making the happy assumption that Somerville has kept records of his previous contacts with Odeon, that DMCA takedown notice means that Odeon has just exposed itself to an ADA class action lawsuit from any handicapped customer who feels inconvenienced by Odeon's non-compliant website.
The basis is that Odeon not only refuses to comply with the ADA, but refuses to allow anyone to assist it in complying absent the in-house competence to build a ADA compliant site itself.
The intelligent thing for Odeon to do would be to request an invoice from Somersville for the hours he spent building the website and make an offer for the domain, and run the website themselves, with Somersville as a consultant.
Hopefully, Somersville can find a good lawyer to push this, since Odeon has chosen the DMCA as a tool to get stupid with and deserve to get their clocks cleaned.
The question all of us who build commercial websites should ask is... are we building compliant sites, and if not, how can we fix this before our customers and clients get sued.
The good news for us is. . . more billable hours for ADA compliance.
Tech Public Policy stuff
ALL the cinemas near me are Odeons (Odious's?) Camden, Holloway and Muswell Hill... THERE SITE SUCKS!!! It has ALWAYS sucked. It doesn't just need IE it need Flash too... 4FS!!! ALL IT NEEDS TO DO IS LIST THE BLOODY FILMS IN MY AREA!!!! ARRRGHHH!!! Which SSM's were employed for this balls up!
It's almost un-navigable. It's just a right royal pain in the aris. Bare HTML and a few list boxes would have made me a million times happier... SHEESH! Web designers should take inspiration from such sites as google (simplicity personified) or the BBC weather site (complex but very functional) OR timeanddate.com which has just about everything about times and dates one needs to know... and you can store favs....
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Dear Odeon,
I PT>
T LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.2" src="display.page?Page=regionx.js&Parameters=REGIO N~Central_London">O DY>
Following the recent removal of the accessible Odeon from the internet, I can no longer see your website content, as I use a browser called Mozilla.
Here is the HTML from one of your pages, which is unusual to say the least:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
var x2=new Date();var xeCd=x2.valueOf();
</SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="http://193.113.179.110/wpodeon1.js">;
</SCR
<TITLE>ODEON Film</TITLE>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript1.2" src="../../Odeon/js/global.js">
</SCRIPT>
<LINK rel=stylesheet TYPE="text/css" href="../../Odeon/css/odeon.css">
</HEAD>
<BODY onLoad="drop();rXs2();">
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.2" src="Display.page?page=menu_items.js">
</SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" src="../../Odeon/js/menus.js">
</SCRIPT>
<SCRIP
</SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript1.2" src="../../Odeon/js/region_x.js">
</SCRIPT>
</B
</HTML>
This page appears to be generated entirely by Javascript. If you insist on using Javascript to generate your pages, it is possible to write Javascript that works in most browsers. Yours, however, does not. Perhaps you do not see any compelling reason to do this.
I would like to point out that your site falls short of the Disability Discrimination Act.
When will your site be accessible?
Yours truly,
Rob Shields
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
It seems that the web needs a serious search engine for detecting copycat sites, whether it's images, layout, Javascript or text that has been stolen. So far the only thing I know of is Copyscape which seems to work well for text (it uses the Google Web APIs) but can't handle images or code. Maybe there should be a publicly-funded project for this?
The Odeon site is one of three I still need to use IE for. It's like they don't want users of alternative browsers to visit their site or book tickets using their online order form.
My wife and I went to the Cinema last week. The nearest one is an Odeon, so I went to the website using IE. After a lot of arsing about, I still wasn't quite the wiser about the start times, as it has a nasty habit of changing the APPARENT selection as you try to look at the start times.
Their website has been rubbish for a couple of years now and still is. For god sake, what do you need to provide ?
Its not rocket science is it ? The marketing pillock who signed off on that layout should be sacked. Their competitors UCI is much simpler and easier to navigate.
While I'm on this, if anyone who works at Odeon reads this, please, please, please get a cleaning team to Epsom and give the carpets a good hoover and wash - they look filthy. Also, memo to the manager - if someone spills an entire tub of popcorn on the floor, why not get it cleaned up rather than leaving it there for a couple of hours ?
Me. And that's the crappest web site I've ever seen. So I won't be looking at that, either.
In anti-slash fashion I went to the odeon website and it's all true, all true. So I wrote them:
Hello,
I tried to access the Odeon website this morning.
The page http://www.odeon.co.uk/Odeon/home.html just appeared as a blank page with a background image
I am using Phoenix 0.5 on Win XP.
Can I offer a suggestion? Your site has been coded to support Internet Explorer only and it is the use of IE specific javascript that is preventing me from seeing the page content - in fact I can see the javascript error that prevents the page functioning in my browser debugger. Your javascript code should test for any 'DOM' functionality before using it, and generally not assume functionality - all statements etc should be tested and correct handling added to handle error conditions - ie produce a message to the user informing them that their browser is not compatible with your site.
As a big, national company you should be concerned about this. There are many reasons why producing an accessible website is a good thing but of these 1) loss of business and 2) the chance of being sued should be foremost in your thinking, I would suggest.
Oh, and I am not going to the cinema tonight as I can't use your site.
Best regards,
Subject: http://www.dracos.co.uk/odeon/
Hello,
Apparently you've bullied Matthew Somerville into removing a perfectly harmless and very useful web site which made up for the failings of your own web site.
Shame on you, you big bullies. How very pathetic of you.
Couldn't you have shown some wisdom and maturity and negotiated a mutually beneficial compromise with him? Have I misread the e-mail which offers to work to just such a compromise, and reminds you that Matthew already helped you fix security on your own site? How can you be so ungrateful?
I would have thought that you'd want as many people as possible to have as much access to information about your cinemas (movies, show times, etc.) as possible.
I exclusively use Mozilla (Seamonkey) 1.6 for web browsing due to the vast number of security flaws and broken/ missing features in Internet Explorer. Because your site is broken I cannot see it in Mozilla, so sites like Matthew's are invaluable.
I won't be visiting the Odeon cinemas in Leicester Square or Hemel Hempstead until you've apologised to Matthew for your poor attitude and worked with him to restore his site in a form which is legally acceptable.
Hell, give him a job fixing and/or maintaining your site! He seems to know what he's doing better than your own web developers!
Duncan, appalled in London
PS. Don't waste your time trying to change my attitude or decision.
* In London at least, they have a near-monopoly on cinemas. If you don't like it, stop going to the cinema.
* As I have just discovered, if you don't fancy going through the hoops of using their website, you can jump through the hoops of using their entirely automated, speech-recognition-based phone interface. THERE IS NO OPTION TO SPEAK TO A HUMAN - I tried all the usual tricks.
Usually if a website's shit, I'll just use the phone, and the idiots have to pay the much greater costs of my enquiry. In this instance, there's no such option.
Wankers!
Xenu loves you!
And it is a big sized monument to your ignorance that you are asking this in public.
Cinemas that care (I wonder if Odeon does) offer earphones where a blind person is explained what is going on in the movie and the original dialog is left in place, so they can experience as much as possible the experience of going to the movies. This is important because then they can go with family and freidns thus being allowed to integrate better on their close environment.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Google still has a cache of some of the original pages before they were taken down. It clearly states that this is not the official Odeon site and that all information and images are copyright of Odeon.
The Disability Rights Commission's Code of Practice (an MS-Word document!! You want para 2.17) uses as one of its examples of "What services are affected by part III of the Act":
"An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is subject to the Act."
The Code of Practice is not the same as the law, of course, and could be challenged in court. But it is an interpretation of the law made by an organisation which could be assumed to be well-informed on the issue and on the precise wording of the law.
Whether you approve of the underlying philosophy or not, it seems pretty clear that this sort of thing is covered.
If odeon's site is against the disabillity act, then it's illegal. If Sommerville's site is intended to correct, among other things, the illegality of the Odeon site, then Odeon doesn't have standing in court to attack him.
Any British legal types willing to comment (or, better yet, take on the fight?)
In the meantiome:
BOYCOT ODEON
If these guys are going to be so pig-headed and careless about their customers, write them a letter about how and why you're going to encourage your friends to use another movie site.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Is that from Atlas Shrugged?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
It works in NS4 which you can get for about
10 different platforms. They also released
the src for this (remember NS5? qtscape ?? anyone)
so in theory it's possible to access their site.
Konq doesn't work once you start to select a date the JS bombs and you're stuck unable to select a film.
I've yet to try ie under wine, but that'll probably work too. Only for x86 people but it's a way.
...if your browser IDs itself at MSIE.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Of course, if hundreds of us were to host accessible interfaces to the Odeon site, it would be very difficult for Odeon to take them all down.
Particularly now that there's an open-source Perl script available:
http://www.geocities.com/opensourceodeon/
I know it's a bit late for this discussion but I've just seen on the Register a reference to a command line Odeon schedule browser written in Perl.
It would be easier for them to create a standards-based, W3C compliant, HTML 4.0 valid web-site then to redesign it in flash and now the disabled can also access it, which isn't the case with flash.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)