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ADA May Force Netflix To Provide Closed Captioning On Content
Shivetya writes "Last year Netflix was sued by the National Association for the Deaf for failing to provide closed captioned text through its on-demand streaming service. Now, a judge has denied Netflix's attempt to have the suit thrown out, saying that the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination in any venue — not just physical structures. The easiest means to comply would be to remove all videos which do not have a closed captioning component, the other route would require Netflix to pay to have this done to any video it wants to provide. The implications to other providers is immense as well. The plaintiffs will still need to prove that Netflix is legally obligated to provide closed-captioning, but the ruling is still significant for recognizing that Internet sites may fall under the purview of the Americans with Disabilities Act."
On one hand this sucks. The amount of revenue you bring in by making your content accessible is not going to pay the cost of doing so. Same can be said with making websites accessible to the blind (and really probably most brick n’ mortar establishments.. especially if retrofit).
On the other hand that’s part of living in a civilized society. Most of us could easily by freak accident be in a position where we’d want these services... and doing non-profitable stuff like this just becomes another cost of business.
The implications on other content and especially user supplied content where no/very little revenue is being generated are of course the most scary. Where do you (or do you) draw the line between content that is “real” enough to require closed captioning (commercial productions, movies, etc..), and content that doesn’t (videos taken on cell phones, etc..).
The obvious answer would be monetization. If the video author isn’t getting money, the requirement goes away. But trying to turn that into a concrete policy becomes very mucky, as sites like youtube are profiting from it either directly from ad revenue, or indirectly through increased traffic/draw to their site.
Quite seriously, is that normal in the US that every program needs to have CC or are TV networks trying to push the competition out of business? Just asking...
Another question, does it say anything about the quality of the CC? I mean, how expensive could it be to have some Chinese or NKor people create yet another Backstroke of the West style CC?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm still confused as to why a university can't make small renovations to buildings without spending tens of millions of dollars to meet ADA requirements. Now they want to apply the same thing to Netflix? Why can't the law just require Netflix to make CC available whenever they can, and possibly reward them when they spend their own money to do it.
Used to have a deaf roommate who was big into "deaf culture" (and was very annoying about it). We're talking Malcolm X militant about it. He wasn't alone either. There are a lot of people into deaf rights who think it should be illegal to air or play anything non-CC'ed. And they *will* sue.
Great for them, not so great for the rest of us who get cut off from all non-CC'ed content. And getting something CC'ed is pretty expensive--prohibitively so for a lot of indies.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Would this include YouTube?
Netflix will need to mail a Braille transcript.
The Handicapper General?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What if Netflix doesn't consider the deaf to be its target audience and specifically indicates this fact? Why can a private service which requires people to pay before viewing content be forced to accommodate people who may not be their target market?
By this same token, a duochrome-colorblind person can petition for color-adjusted films. A blind person can request a specific voice feed that describes the actions of the characters in a film, and so forth. Why not just let some other service create closed captions for deaf viewers to subscribe to?
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
I know a LOT of hearing impaired and they deserve to have the subtitles.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
if this is about discrimination in any venue, then there are millions of porn sites and otherwise that are not ADA compliant.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Why aren't the publishers being sued for not publishing CC'd content? What makes Netflix special?
Most of the videos on Netflix are movies or TV shows. Every movie I've seen since DVDs came out have subtitling on them, it should just be a matter of including that information in the streamed video (assuming Flash allows for displaying subtitles). Most TV shows are close-captioned already, again it should be just a matter of including the close-captioning information in the stream. There should only be a minority of content that isn't already ADA-compliant.
There are a lot of people who would participate in typing up the CC track for movies, especially if it was allowed to be copied around for noncommercial use. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that the MPAA would allow it, for the same reason they don't want you to rip your own DVD for backup purposes -- their policies are directed by lawyers whose priorities rarely overlap with what's good for consumers. If they could sue the IMDB project, they probably would.
As a deaf American, I am happy this is happening. It makes Netflix useful, and I'd like to see it expand to all online video. What excuse do CNN or Fox news online have NOT to captioning the video on their websites? Not a single one.
As an American businessman, I can understand what a collosal pain in the ass it is for business... but it's not the fault of ME or any other deaf person that Netflix chose to ignore us.
Would you use Netflix if all the movies and shows had no sound? Course not. There's no excuse not to have closed captioning, not from a technical stand point at least. Almost all original video has captioning enclosed nowadays. ALL broadcasts in the US are required to have closed captioning. Claiming they don't have access to the captioning is horse feces.
The bigger issue is the LICENSING costs, I believe. Captioning is often treated as a separate performance from the primary material. This, I believe, its also horse feces. Is the sound a separate performance from the video? No, it goes together to produce the performance.
I'd also like to see it expanded to the movie theaters, where a deaf person is often treated like a fool for asking if a movie has captioning... and having to seek out 2nd or 3rd run options, when there is plentiful technology to present this without issues (Rear Window, specifically) with other movie goers.
Again, I understand this costs money, but... if you did it in the first place, it wouldn't be an issue, would it? Or should be all be watching silent movies still?
Awesome. So does this mean that section 508 has to be extended to non-governmental entities, too? (Btw, /., you're in violation; I see at least two non-text elements without text equivalents while I'm typing on this page.)
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Those closed captions already exist and they also should have the rights for them.
Rendering some text isn't that hard.
"As of January 1, 2008, 75 percent of “pre-rule” English language programming, defined as analog programming first shown before January 1, 1998, and digital programming first shown before July 1, 2002, must be captioned, with some exceptions."
citation:http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.pdf
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
If NetFlix is required, then are theaters? What about YouTube? More importantly what about online porn?
I'm so confused...
Netflix cannot comply with the ADA in this case, because doing so would create a derivative work of the original, without the permission of the copyright holder.
Simple as that.
Now, whether or not Netflix still has to comply... Well, perhaps we can twist this to our own gain - Does the obligation to make their content "accessible" trump copyright? If so, you can bet your left nut I'll have a business model the very next day designed to exploit that fact.
Your turn, courts - Punish us all to protect the weak, or give up your paternalistic attitude toward Big Media.
The ADA is screwing up my life. This year, my small credit union had to spend half a million dollars replacing perfectly good ATMs so that a headphone jack can be plugged into them. My condo is spending a minimum of 10000 dollars to install a swimming pool lift. And now my Netflix subscription will need to rise in order for sub-titles.
This is too much. The ADA should be limited to insuring there is total access to government buildings and government projects. Otherwise, they should leave us alone.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
closed captioning didn't become "all tv's" and all programming until 1990
Cite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_captioning#Legislative_development_in_the_U.S.
Netflix has 3035 videos from 1914 to 1989
and 10,937 from 1990 to 2012
pre 1998 videos total 4,440
cite:instantwatchdb.com
"As of January 1, 2008, 75 percent of “pre-rule” English language programming, defined as analog programming first shown before January 1, 1998, and digital programming first shown before July 1, 2002, must be captioned, with some exceptions."
citation:http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.pdf
which means they have to provide CC on 75% of 4440 videos, or drop them...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Can't these people just turn the volume up? That's what gramma always did. But then the only thing you'd hear was grampa yelling, "Turn that damn thing down!"
what about all the youtube videos?
in order to make a decision the judge would have to hold a hearing!
I used to be involved with ADA, and I believe the lawsuit will eventually fail. There are two components to ADA that they might go after, Telecommunications or Public Accommodation. However, The language of the law is pretty specific, and there's no way Netflix will fall under either of these categories. As many have already pointed out, Netflix losing would be a catastrophically slippery slope, and no court would initiate that without clear intent from Congress. Just because a case isn't summarily dismissed doesn't mean it will win, it simply means the judge believes it's worth hearing.
This is just a preliminary ruling. Netflix tried to have the suit dismissed, that didn't work, and now it gets tried on the merits.
At some point, the ADA runs into the First Amendment, which prohibits "forced speech". (Broadcast TV is a special case, because it involves publicly owned RF spectrum.) Book publishers aren't required to produce audio or Braille editions, or translations to another language.
I think it would be great if all those movies had closed captions, but I don't think it is the place of Netflix to create them. This would be like going after Blockbuster because some of the DVDs they rent don't have closed captions. They never were gone after, and nor were they gone after during the video cassette era. I suspect outside influence here, like maybe another content provider getting all buddy buddy with some people in power...with the goal to reduce the profitability and viability of Netflix by putting this burden on them.
This is utter nonsense. Netflix is a distributor, not a content creator.
Netflix is simply offering the standard industry catalog. If the government has a problem with some of the titles in that catalog, then they have absolutely no business choosing one reseller (Netflix) and picking on them over all the other resellers of those products.
If the studios are releasing non-compliant products, then contact the studios.
Does not mean total access.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Why not let natural selection take its course instead of wasting all of the fucking resources on the fucktards with weak genes?
GO AHEAD FUCKING FLAME AWAY OR
WASTE YOUR GODDAMNED MOD POINTS
FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEPLE!!!!!!!
How is preventing Netflix from distributing expressive works unless they first add captions not a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution?
I'd rather see the government legalize distribution of community-sourced captions along with the tools needed to circumvent any technical measures that would prevent their application. This would serve the law's purpose of empowering those who suffer from disabilities while guaranteeing the constitutional freedoms of those who would rather not be forced to speak as well as those who wish to speak for the sake of those who can't hear.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I put CC on every movie I watch with the kids. They are loud and it's nice not missing the dialog. Also there are many Movies that have their sound so skewed that I can't hear the dialog without turning the volume up load enough to shake the house during the loud scenes.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
>but the ruling is still significant for recognizing that Internet sites may fall under the purview of the Americans with Disabilities Act."
Web designers have ignored the sight impaired for far too long and had it far too easy. They have ignored standards, done stupid shit as use pictures for blocks of text, flash-only (like the IOC did once) and engaged in "get the hell out, you peon with a screen-reader" nonsense ever since the term "rich content" slipped out of someone's lips 15+ years ago.
Every web designer should spend a week using the Internet blindfolded, using only JAWS.
"But who cares about the blind?"
There but for the grace of the Universe go you.
--
BMO
If the media (Video movie, tv show, etc.) was compliant in the first place, would it not be easy to provide closed caption? But, how was the video released to TV broadcasters, or video rental or dvd/blue ray to retailers, if the original source was not ADA compliant in the first place? It would seem the originating source video would need to adhere to the ADA mandates first and then closed caption could be a additional stream source or how ever the service is provided can be added.
I think the deaf site's videos discriminates against the blind
Basically they are requiring them to fansub everything on there site, which is illegal in the us isnt it ? These wouldnt and couldnt be official subtitles, and netflix doesnt have the rights to the media just distribution rights so they cant legally fansub material can they ?
http://interserver.net/
As a person who works procuring closed captioning service for a television station, I can tell you that the cost is around $5 to $7 per minute of programming to have closed captioning. That will be the end of $7.99 streaming.
i've heard that recently shady lawyers go around looking for business that violate the ADA but no one complained and then find a disabled accomplice to sue them and split the winnings.
If I was deaf, I'd find the quality of television CC to be unacceptable (constant transmission glitches and horrible delays). So then you're left with DVDs with CC and that's it. Who wants to constantly buy DVDs? That's sort of why Netflix was invented. They could easily corner the market on convenient media for the deaf and hearing impaired as well as select English Second Language people who find reading easier than realtime audio conversion. I know my crappy Spanish can only process text in realtime, not audio so it probably goes both ways. There's a lot of money to be made and closed captioning costs, when they have the volume to hire someone to do it in-house, would be way less than 1% of what they pay for most licensing for most movies. It's just stupid but clearly the entire company has proven it has ODD (oppositional defiance disorder) when it comes to their customers. They're dedicated to ruining their own image in any way possible even if it costs them potential income.
Does this mean that the ADA now applies internationally?
We've seen what the USA will do for copyright claims, surely the deaf are more important than copyright.
If I see even one site shut down for ADA violations that is not in the states, or related to the states, I'm going to start advocating for nuclear strikes on washington.
Well, we have folks say that this is entirely reasonable, and if Neflix makes enough profit they should be forced to do it.
We have folks say that Netflix is not the content creator and has no obligation whatsoever, as a distributor, to alter the items it is distributing.
Now, we have had someone say that adding subtitles is a $5-$9 dollar a minute thing.
We had someone else say that the total catalogue was around 4400 items that are not CC'd.
We had others say that everything distributed since "X" is already CC'd.
At (being generous) 150 minutes a film, that comes to... $3.3M on the low and ~$6M on the high.
Now, are they also to provide CC translations in any other language than English?
If so, which?
What I have not heard is that it is probably the obligation of the distributors to go fix their own Items, since they are the ones actually disaccomodating the deaf.
Of course, that would not go over too well. They would probably just pull the titles instead of incur the ~$6M cost.
Why aren't they suing the content providers?
If someone could answer this, I would really appreciate it!
Speaking as someone who was married to a deaf person: fuck them and their entitlement attitude. Seriously, the deaf are hands down the worst of all of the disabled when it comes to expecting others to bend over backwards to placate them. Fortunately, the ex wasn't too bad (until after the divorce) but I got to witness it. It is particularly egregious when one considers that many cases of deafness can be cured with cochlear implants. But nooooo, this would destroy 'deaf culture'. Genocide.
Keep the lot of them. Burn Gallaudet while you're at it.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Not all TV has CC from what I can tell. All Netflix has to do is cite whatever loophole is being used by TV stations or content providers and case closed right? 80% of their content CC is still pretty good. They are actively working on 100% coverage from what I understand - seems like another waste of court time and public dollars. I'd shout at the lobbyist who lodged this complaint but he probably couldn't hear me.
Now, we have had someone say that adding subtitles is a $5-$9 dollar a minute thing.
We had someone else say that the total catalogue was around 4400 items that are not CC'd.
We had others say that everything distributed since "X" is already CC'd.
At (being generous) 150 minutes a film, that comes to... $3.3M on the low and ~$6M on the high.
Now, are they also to provide CC translations in any other language than English?
If so, which?
I'd also note that it's a one-time cost, not an ongoing charge, but as for languages, I'd say the ones that the audio is available in, as a rule.
What I have not heard is that it is probably the obligation of the distributors to go fix their own Items, since they are the ones actually disaccomodating the deaf.
Of course, that would not go over too well. They would probably just pull the titles instead of incur the ~$6M cost.
Why aren't they suing the content providers?
If someone could answer this, I would really appreciate it!
Because this is Netflix's own operations, not the distributor's provision of anything. I haven't actually installed Ultraviolet or any of the other digital copy thingamagigs, but if they don't support subtitles, that'll be a problem for the distributor, yes.
If NetFlix wants to assert that the distributors are at fault for not providing them with the captioning or whatever, then they can certainly make that assertion in court.
It's called a Counter-claim. Whether or not they are, I don't know. I certainly support their right to do so, if it is the case that the distributors aren't providing them with it.
But what if it's Netflix just not supporting it, of their own volition?
TV should already have closed captions, and it should be a minor technical hurdle for Netflix to provide it.
If they show US television shows and films shown in US cinemas then shouldn't ALL their content already have subtitles for the deaf? If not then why does Netflix have to provide this when cinemas and TV companies do not?
Shut it off and tell everybody that now they have equal access.
This is what's ruining capitalism, when someone can sue a company for creating a product they don't like. If I were blind, could I sue a cigarette company because the box doesn't have a $20 circuit board to read me the surgeon general's warning out loud? Could I sue Lee if I were a quadriplegic and couldn't put on the pants they make? Or could I sue the Coca Cola company if I were allergic to the coca plant, and they don't make a version of Coke with boiled orange peels for flavor instead? It's a product, and if you can't use it, that's your problem. Netflix is being nice by having subtitles on most things, but the ones they don't have, suck it up. If you were blind, could you make them send over someone to describe what's going on that you can't see? Or if you were blind and deaf, could you demand they send you the braille for every Watch Instant title? I'm a male. Therefore, I don't need a pap smear. But if I go to my hospital and demand one, can I sue them for gender discrimination? Could I have "manhood" listed by the ADA, and demand they induce birth, treat my uterine cancer, give me a prescription for my estrogen deficiency, etc? I'm not suggesting deafness isn't a disability, but being deaf, there are products you don't qualify for, and just like you can't sue Sony because their headphones aren't deaf-compatible, you can't sue Netflix because you can't hear the sound.
All they have to do is prove that the cost of making the accommodation is unreasonably excessive, or fiscally irresponsible to their business, and the ADA won't require they do that.
However, maybe Netflix's selection of streaming content is not massive enough, that it would hurt their business, in that case the ADA would be working as designed, and shame on Netflix, for taking steps to make reasonable accomadations for members of the public who are disabled.
It seems to me that closed captioning must be incredibly cheap compared to the costs of producing the content itself. The lowest of low-budget of movies still costs hundreds of thousands of dollars at least, and the cost of including a subtitle track should be trivial in comparison.
Just pass everything through voice recognition (even shitty M$ one) and all of a sudden you comply. This is how YT is doing it.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
do not require the distributor to pay to have all this stuff captioned!
they already paid for the right to distribute it, and paid for each audio track they plan to offer, and will pay for any subtitle tracks that have been made.
if the licensor hasn't bothered to make a CC track, make THEM fucking pay for it!
the film production process is just a complex way of ignoring important things and passing the problem down the line. in my case, DVD is the end of the line, but in Netflix's case it's them. they have to fix everything that should have been fixed before it came in the door, because the filmmakers have blown their own budgets and wont meet their obligations.
how about, if a film is to be rated by the MPAA (i understand classification is voluntary in the USA), it should come with a closed caption track. if the filmmakers don't want to do that, they can suffer the losses from releasing an unrated film on less screens.
requiring the distributor to create their own media is like asking ebay to make their own products. it can be done, but doesn't really make a lot of sense.
So if this atrocity somehow survives through SCOTUS will this mean authors who self publish are now required to provide braille copies or else be sued too? Will I have to spend thousands of dollars to sell one or two copies of my book to a blind person? Are you fucking kidding me? ADA has morphed from 'we should try where we can to do what is reasonably possible to help the handicapped' to 'gimme gimme gimme or else!'
Disgusting.
Yes this becomes a cost of doing business. But that cost imposed on all businesses adds up.
The cumulative effect of all the little taxes/regulations/mandates means that a small business either doesn't startup or can't afford to hire a worker. Less jobs = less disposable income feeding the economy = slower economy = less jobs again.
The ADA is one of the more intrusive business laws
This may bring us closer to the choice of subbed or dubbed. :)
Get off my launchpad!
I know of one older tech savvy gentleman, that refuses to use Netflix (or iTunes) due to the lack of closed captioning. This is the main reason he keeps cable.
this is stupid, netflix has been adding closed captioning to all it's content over the last couple years, and currently has agreements in place to insure that all new content is close captioned. I remember reading the story about it just a couple months ago, they've definitly made good faith efforts to put CC on as much of their content, as quickly as possible. Pretty sure they're already over 90% on english language content.
They can crowd source it. Let volunteers add captions to old movies. There is a site called viki.com where volunteers subtitle and translate Korean television. Netflix could buy the tech and provide CC and subtitles in 22 languages for free.
USA broadcasters (ie: anyone transmitting a signal to the public) are REQUIRED BY LAW to have closed captioning on programming, except for the hours of 2am-5pm. There are fines for this. It only makes sense that all players have to abide by the same rules.
Majority of content on Netflix is old stuff that was released prior to the caption requirement. They would have to find captions for 75% of those older shows. Many of these captions exist but are not owned by people who licensed the show to Netflix. Broadcaster B captioned content that they licenced from publisher A. Publisher sold rights to content to Netflix. Netflix now needs to create captions or buy them from Broadcaster B. Broadcaster B hates Netflix and won't sell at reasonable rates.
Line 21 captions contain 2 characters per vertical blanking interval. That is plenty to maintain real-time text for the fastest speaker, even considering the overhead for positioning, attributes, and control characters.
The captioning (or at least subtitling) exists for most content already, as almost every other form of media supports it (whether physical or broadcast). Moreover, it would seem that it would make good business sense to willingly provide captioning, as they won't be doing it themselves (and shouldn't have to - in fact, as a content provider, I wouldn't want them to caption it, I would want to provide them with the captioning). If they provide captioning to customers, then they will likely gain revenue via subscriptions within the Deaf community from people who otherwise would not be able to properly enjoy the content.
The onus should be on the content providers to create and distribute the captioning. The only requirement on the part of the distributors should be to pass through captioning when it is provided with the media.
FC Closer
movies are an "art" form that has two components - sound and video. If you're blind or deaf, you're missing part of it - that's not netflix's fault. Supermarkets don't have as a requisite part of the experience audio or video. Supermarkets are also a necessity. It's a silly analogy. Besides, to add captioning, netflix would be altering the video...which they don't have the license to do. Why would the content providers not be the responsible parties for captioning, versus the distributor? Would you sue a record store for not making captioned versions of every LP? Would that make sense at all? Or sue the Louvre for not providing a braile version of the Mona Lisa? How is suing netflix in this case any different?
First Amendment likely trumps the ADA for videos the public places on Youtube. Requiring CC on Youtube would prevent speech. Commercial works from broadcasters likely would not be protected.
If netflix loses, so do disabled people. Because netflix will simply remove the videos that dont have CC. Then nobody will see those movies. At least prviously disabled people could use transcribing software.
Well look at viki.com
This is a site that is crowd sourcing its subtitles. Basically it is organized licensed fansubs. It doesn't cost them $5-$9 a minute to do this because it is all volunteer. There are people who love old TV. Many of them would go in and CC shows if given a pat on the back and a community. Anime has been fansubbed at no cost for years.
There is a certain point at which accommodation of the disabled gets absurd. After all, how many deaf people click on to a site to listen to a trumpet solo. It's sort of like ballet for the blind. Or how about calculus for the severely learning disabled?
It seems reasonable to expect that if you watch a CC program on TV and have Netflix you should be able to atch the same content as you do otherwise. Their advertising says that it is portable on a number of devices (those that don't run Linux) then you will have the ontent the way you want to watch it. That should include CC. If their content providers don't provide it to them then they need to talk to their distributers who they are protecting with DRM.
add a feature to the netflix streaming client that delays the stream another few seconds so that software can instantly add closed captions
speech to text tech is good enough now to pull that off
even if it isn't perfect it would comply with the regulation
---
course it would be cheaper bribe/offer a post-government job to an FCC commisioner or 2 to get a ruling that netflix doesn't qualify as a broadcaster so doesn't fall under the ADA requirements
Instead of suing, why not crowdsource people to begin the task of transcribing the movies and just give it to Netflix? That way, you can even do it on a per-demand basis so that the most popular movies are transcribed first. It's a bummer that so many of these movies don't have CC already, but that's the way it is, and it doesn't seem productive to get belligerent about it. Just get some people together and fix the problem instead of crying to the man, resulting possibly in the removal of movies to the detriment of everyone.
I'd be willing to do a movie a week, for free. Why not, I watch movies anyway.
Been reading this thread with great interest. As a disability advocate with friends of all disabilities, *and* as a netflix user, the request made by the deaf community is very important. If the decision holds up, it could lead to significant results (both good and bad).
However, the decision not to dismiss due to lack of physical presence (which isn't settled law, actually - see Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines) is only the beginning.
Under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a place of public accommodation must only due what is "readily achievable," which is understood in both the law and regulation as "easily accomplishable without much difficulty or expense" This item was placed in the law to prevent a lot of the examples I've been reading in this thread. If that argument has been brought up in the case yet, on either side, I haven't heard it. It takes into account both the resources *and* the expenses of providing the accommodation.
(I did find the comment about "forced speech" interesting .. while you are right about not being *required* to produce audio or braille of print works, they can't *prevent* it from being done by others, and are required to provide electronic versions of non-fiction works .. but that is *copyright* law, not ADA)
Take a look at http://www.ada.gov. Also take a look at the websites for the federal "ADA Centers" (which used to be named "Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers") at http://adata.org/
One last thing .. This wouldn't have come up in a court of law of the Deaf Community and Netflix could agree on a solution.
Why should Amazon, Hulu and Netflix, etc, pay the same costs over and over to do this? Likely all those companies will team up to get it done one way or another and ultimately the cost will go to the consumers. It's likely the more niche movies and shows that will suffer from this since they have a smaller audience and may not have the budget to justify CC. The studios don't care because they're already CCing the blockbusters and if that's all Netflix can provide then that works out better for them.
However, this sort of thing really does benefit everyone. There are a lot of reasons that even people with good hearing benefit from closed captions. TV speakers might suck, actors might have thick accents or mumble, maybe you need to keep the volume down so other people can sleep.
It's also not terribly expensive. A quick search on Google shows it's around $35 a minute which works out to about $3000 for a 90 minute film. And there are plenty of companies that do it for varying costs to well under $10 a minute. So really, this is a non-issue. If your movie didn't make enough to be able to afford even basic closed captioning it probably isn't streaming anywhere.
Work Safe Porn
GET SOME DAMN EARS. We have the technology. You know why I'm not providing a spoken audio recording with this message for the blind? Because we have the technology to turn text into speech. It's really unfortunate when disabled people have problems due to their disability, but hindering the herd needlessly is just retarding.
Let's be grown ups about this. Shite doth occur. Not everyone can live the same lives. Life isn't always fair, nor can anyone force it to be at all times. Compromise is key. Rationality is an important thing.
Now, I can see where local TV could have an impact on disabled people's lives because they provide local news and weather and if none provided CC, then who else would provide that content... but Netflix? Seriously? That's a luxury item. Many folks are disabled with poverty, and can't even afford Netflix. Hey, ADA, Why don't you force them to give them Netflix for free? Hey, my MS Windows is disabled! It kept getting viruses until it died, the install CD was scratched, so now I have to use Linux... Waaaaah! I can't use Netflix on Linux! I'm being discriminated against because of my proprietary software disability! ADA, make them give me a Netflix that runs on Linux! (No, instead I write them emails and sign petitions, letting them know there is a problem.)
I can see wheelchair ramps at grocery stores and side walks, but what about jungle gyms? Should there be a wheelchair ramp or elevator for disabled kids who can't walk so they can get to the top? What about folks with seizures? Oh, screw them, eh? My local nightly news is constantly showing scenes with police and ambulance lights flashing. Shouldn't they be forced not to show that? Wait, let's go to the source, shouldn't we just get rid of all flashing lights on police and emergency vehicles to make it easier for disabled folks with photosensitive seizures to live normal lives? What about kick-ball or badminton? Shouldn't we outlaw sports in schools that aren't accessible to quadriplegics?
I make videogames. Should I have to limit my game designs to ensure mentally retarded people can still win, and make the controls simple enough that it can be played by blowing through a straw? Shouldn't my games have to come with a sentient robot that can speak out loud what's going on in the game, for the blind? That, or should all videogames be text only?
We have to ask ourselves: What's Reasonable To Do? What's an acceptable effort level to assist the disabled? Not even trying to provide for the disabled is one thing. Sometimes people are just ignorant that a small change or addition could help out the disabled. We don't all think about every disability in everything we do, certainly not in indie games. Human society is a collective hive of minds, so fire off some signals if attention is needed! Open up discourse before getting lawyers involved -- Seriously, lawyers screw everything up forever and always. The money I'd spend on getting the accessibility features installed in my products would be wasted as legal fees. So, the end result when legal action is involved would be: No product for anyone. That's harmful to society. People who harm society deserve to be excluded from it (See also: jails). Yes, unreasonable and absurd actions beget unreasonable and absurd reactions.
Being unreasonable and removing content or a service that isn't as accessible as desired makes folks without disabilities have crappier lives for what purpose? To make it harder for the rest of society to be sympathetic to the cause? I'm really seeing zero benefit for anyone here.
Sure Netflix should get the ball rolling and get CC in their works. Some works have CC already, so they have the technology to improve the accessibility. Suing them over the lack of the feature? That's just fucking asinine: it makes everything worse for everyone; The lawyers get paid from the pool that gets you better services faster.
The description of a surgical operation with terms like "drilling into the skull to place a piece of hardware in the head" certainly places you in a certain category of people that are not worth listening to. I wouldn't want to hear you describe heart surgery next.
Secondly, I call bullshit on your damage claims. Infants have an amazing ability to recover and regrow stuff that adults lack.
Finally, I've never heard anyone suggest that learning sign language interferes with learning speech. In fact, some parents actually teach their children sign language very early so they can communicate before the children are able to speak.
When the government can force a business to produce services for a specific group of people without charging them, I believe that is, by definition, Socialism.
This is not an issue about protecting the public safety, interest, or maintaining a market. It's one thing to require private buildings to be handicap accessible, it's another thing to require public buildings to be handicap accessible.
This is entirely an issue with a small group of people trying to "get theirs" and is an unfortunate side effect of Democracy in which the Free Shit Army votes they can have candybars and lollipops every day all day without having to pay for it. Politicians are all too happy to take money from people disgusted with the political process and give it to them.
The reasonable requirement woudl be to have to have every movie in the streaming cache twice, once with the regular movie, and once wiht the movie closed closed captions on if and only if the movie was released with that option. But requiring the service to cache every movie twice is kinda not reasonable from an expense point since that, by definition, doubles the required resources.
The problem is that putting in a ramp isn't tantamont to building an entire second store.
I find closed captions distracting, but I have no problem using inclined floors and ramps.
When the accomidations are mutually exclusive why should there be a requirement to do both?
Its a mess.
Plus lots of the software would have to be re-written to make the two pools selectible instead of having a ghetto for the captioned movies etc.
The whole thing is dumb once you get far enough afield.
A local park was forced to shut down some "extra bathrooms" that they crammed into a disused corner because the tiny restrooms were in a tiny corner too small to be handicapt excessible. So while it freed up the main bathroom, since it was too tiny it had to be closed. That's just dumb. Sometimes taking a good thing to a stupid extreme should not be done. That's why the word "reasonable" was put before the word "accomodation". The courts keep forgetting the "reasonable" part because the complainers are not clued in to what things really take. They just want the be in on the game.
When we are not allowed to play rugby because the legless cannot compete, our end will be final.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
While I don't have a hearing problem (that I'm aware of) I have closed captioned turned on.
There is a local station I can pick up called "ThisTv" out of Seattle. Recently
they have supplied closed caption for all shows; it has to be using Speech recognition software to do this.
At first it was funny. Horror show and a woman screaming "Stay away, Stay away"
closed captioned would show "Stairway, Stairway".
This has been going on for a few months now, It's so bad as to make it useless.
The fact nothing has changed since it started. I figure I might be the only one with closed captioned turned on.
And let the consumers vote on who does good subtitles and offer corrections - all for free. and give acheivements to those who write good subtitles and get good scores - they can watch ad-free
Every film that is released has a subtitle track. If Netflix have neglected to ensure that this data is available on all their content, then that is their problem.
Why should Netflix be responsible rather than the distributor? Only Netflix has a relationship with the consumer, this is a consumer right, and therefore Netflix are the appropriate party. Netflix should start talking to their distributors in order to obtain the right content and stop arguing in court.
If you're making a movie or TV show, don't you want it available to as wide an audience as possible?
Adding closed captioning increases that audience, so IMHO you'd be stupid not do add it.
But forcing Netflix to do it seems a bit odd.
Hard subs are broken, CC does not require the alteration of the source video just the inclusion of the CC data that can can over layered, displayed on a separate screen written out as braille etc. The issue is two fold they did not bother to trans-code the CC data from the original source and they refuse to inter-operate with external sources.
No sir I dont like it.
Do all your TV/Cable channels provide close captioning? What about your movie theaters? Just wondering...
I get Netflix via AppleTV, TiVo, and a sony BD player on one TV in the house (I'm not counting my other viewing options or mobile.) I love captions, they make it much easier for me to understand and follow. When I watch Netflix via AppleTV, I get beautiful captions. Same content via TiVo, nada. First step, they should make sure if the CC is already there, that everybody passes it through without trouble. There must be so many people who don't know the captions are really available on the content I'm enjoying now... before I started using the AppleTV path, I had no idea the captions were there
Someone wants closed captioning, force them to pay higher rates for it. Why should the majority of users, who don't need CC, be forced to pay increased monthly fees for the few that do want it?
How is this Netflix's responsibility? They are the conduit. They don't create the media, they simply funnel it into your homes. Why should they be the one to pay for this service?
This is absurd and the judges are terrible. ADA does not apply to private services. If this ruling were to fall against Netflix, the implications are huge. Netflix is an "optional" service. Unlike broadcast media which is regulated by the FCC and is used by the government to communicate to the people via "public" airwaves, Netflix is a voluntary and private enterprise. This ruling would mean that braille and CC would have to exist EVERYWHERE.
Most of the content on Netflix was already captioned at some point in the past.
The problem is really that the captions are either not provided in a form that Netflix can accept them or they get lost when the material is transcoded. There already exists a patch for ffmpeg to maintain MPEG2 user_data and hence captions during transcode and SMPTE has released a standard for translating those captions into timed text for use with codecs that can't carry the captions natively. The cost to maintain the captions in already captioned content is near zero.
The remaining content, such as independent documentaries, would impose some additional cost but this can be pushed onto the content provider. The providers of that content are ecstatic to have an outlet like Netflix available to them and can spend a few days creating the captions themselves for the opportunity to monetize content that before could only play in a few art houses and could rarely break even before Netflix existed.
The CC rules would be very difficult on services that accept gobs of user generated content, but I would be surprised if larger players like YouTube aren't already working on a speach-to-text algorithm for that content.
I can just as easily argue that, since this is suppose to be the law, Netflix only has the responsibility to make sure their streaming service has the technical ability to provide closed captioning in their stream. It is the individual distributor's responsibility to provide files that have the proper content in them, including a closed captioning track, since they are the ones providing the content to begin with.
"World of Warcraft" for the blind .. I can see it now. No, wait, I can't! I'M BLIND! Where's my lawyer?
Toad
Supermarkets are also a necessity.
Some people (not me, I'm not the argumentative type) would argue that 'art' forms are also a necessity for an intellectual and social animal
I work with a blind guy in my office. He tests my web sites, handles support requests, we exchange emails, etc. It is almost like he isn't even blind. He is able to have that life because of laws like these. Instead of being a burden on society he is paying taxes and making other contributions.
From what he has told me if it wasn't for organizations like the ADA suing orgs he and others would not have the things they do.
i think that the ADA should be used to start requiring sites to take a few measures to make things a bit more accessable.
1 ALL sites should be required to have a Non flash version
2 this whole thing of scrolling frames inside scrolling frames MUST DIE
3 not everybody has a huge screen (netbooks are 1024 wide but not 768 high)
4 requiring you to watch a Video to apply for a job SHOULD BE BANNED
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
What you suggest (a text or image overlay) may work for Silverlight streaming. But I imagine that the streaming software built into limited-purpose set-top devices is not in fact "remotely sane". Does Netflix have the ability to push a software update to all devices?
Netflix isn't discriminating. They're selling a product. Whether that product is of use to someone with a particular disability is going to decide whether or not they purchase that product.
If you're deaf, and if you know that you're not going to get captions out of something you purchase, are you going to buy it? Are they going to require that every single thing that is bought or sold in our country specifically accommodates deaf people?
By that nature, are auto manufacturers going to be required to provide cars that can be driven by the blind? Is Nike going to have to make shoes that can be worn by quadruple amputees? It's a slippery slope when you dictate what a company is or is not allowed to sell.
Without closed captions, a video is not as valuable to someone who can't hear the attached audio. At that point, a decision can be made to purchase or not purchase the product. Netflix isn't fraudulently claiming that their videos contain captions when they don't. There is no barrier that stops people with disabilities from purchasing their product. There is nothing that stops people from using their own third party software to convert speech to captions.
With that in mind, people who are hard of hearing or deaf have a choice. They can purchase the product, which is advertised as is, or they can choose not to. The ADA requires that accommodations are available for accessibility of stores - it makes no claims over whether the products said stores are selling needs to be what people with disabilities would want. Otherwise, Wal-Mart would be in violation for selling pogo sticks, because clearly, a quadraplegic would not be able to use one. Barnes and Noble would be in violation for selling books, because illiterate people who are such because of a learning disability would not be able to read them. Certainly Best Buy can't sell car stereos without requiring that they have a display that shows all of the lyrics of every song they play.
Just add an overlay on every piece of media saying "[Farting noises, deal with it]"
"all men are created equal and therefore should all have the same rights"
As usual, this quote is being completely abused; it refers to natural rights. Having closed-caption movies is not a natural right. The rights referred to are rather more fundamental than that: life and liberty being the primary two. A disabled person has a natural right to be secure in their life; they do not have a natural right to have a wheelchair ramp leading into every business in town.
Note that there may be a legal right to such a thing; this is what the ADA says. However, it is totally corked. Such laws ought to be tempered with common sense. How much relief does the law provide, as compared to the burden it creates? The ADA is not, at least not the way it is usually interpreted by the courts
Real example: A third-floor restaurant in a historic old building that only has stairs, and has no place for an elevator. The ADA forced it to close. Just who is served by that? How did disabled folks benefit?
In this case, Netflix may be required to stop distributing video content that does not have closed captions. The people who need closed captions will gain absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people who do not need close captions will have lost something.
If someone is disabled, life is not the same for them as for non-disabled people. That is cold, hard reality. Reasonable accomodations can and should be made, but their disability will not be eliminated by taking things away from the non-disabled. The ADA is an albatross.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Doesn't also this mean that Youtube must have every single submitted video captioned as well? This could get very expensive, very quickly, as not many submitters would want to caption their own videos due to how annoying it is.
There you all get nothing.
If Netflix loses this case, I'd imagine that Netflix can use the loss to put more pressure on the individual distributors to provide the HOH subtitle track that is required by law. Does anybody reading this know what kind of indemnity clause is in Netflix's contracts with the individual distributors?
So many of the political videos would be better suited as static text pages of the transcript
But I haven't found a place to post static pages on random subjects that shows a selection of newly posted pages to readers and has links to related pages. Wikipedia doesn't work because it's banned as "original research". Everything2 used to work until Wikipedia took most of its readership away, and it still doesn't support the use of graphs and the like. So instead, people make a video of it and post it to YouTube.
My favorite PBS show, Mime for the Blind, is already close-captioned for the hearing impaired!
Public utility monopolies exist because city governments own the roads under which public utilities pull their conduit. How would you eliminate city governments' monopolies on city streets?
Passing along the cc info that already exists in the product they get from the studio--this sounds reasonable. Not free, of course things still need to be set up. But it seems they could set up this sort of thing once and then just pass through what comes in. Sort of like what they already do with the vid/aud tracks.
Generating (and licensing a derivative work) closed captions which didn't exist before--this seems unreasonable. Netflix is not a production studio (even a text production studio).
Besides, if the cc tracks don't exist, this means that the studios didn't put them on the DVDs. Or in the theatres. If studios aren't required to distribute cc tracks on output, then why should Netflix be required to do it?
so you do think the Louvre should be forced to provide a Mona Lisa in braille, then? As was said, a ramp is a minimal expense - very minimal expense, actually. It's a reasonable thing to expect. It's not reasonable to expect a record store to make captioned versions of every LP they sell, however. Eating is necessary. Watching a movie is not. And as said - the audio is part of the experience. Not all art can be enjoyed by everyone, that's just how it is.
*hands over ears* LALALALALALALA
This is me not getting into an argument.
My freaking running track has handicapped spots. That is retarded
Not all disabilities make one unable to use fitness facilities. The gym I used to go to had a member who used a wheelchair to get from one upper body strength training machine to the next.
excuse me...do they think there should be a braille Mona Lisa....
you're more mature about it than I, then ;)
Netflix already supports subtitles. It's not on a lot of shows, but some do have them.
If a given device doesn't support subtitles when the Netflix stream does, then it's the device maker that should be in the hot-seat for that case.
a locally owned pet store in Los Angeles who uses UPS to send something to Vermont is NOT interstate commerce.
Even if mail order is not "commerce [...] among the several states", I imagine the constitutional right to regulate post offices and post roads would extend to other means of communication thereinafter invented, just as the army and navy powers extend to the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.
But rather than the tiny subtitle text at the bottom, I want to see it in 1960-style batman captions...
By contrast sign language has shown to allow communication and build cognitive function at preverbal ages!
Good point. I wonder why elementary schools don't try to provide some exposure to ASL even to hearing kids the way they provide some exposure to Spanish.
I don't remember seeing you complaining for years here about how each and every book ever published didn't have a Braille edition, or audiobook edition.
That's because U.S. copyright law has an explicit exception for books produced in formats for the exclusive use of blind people.
By this same token, a duochrome-colorblind person can petition for color-adjusted films.
Have you ever wondered why movies are trending toward an orange and teal color scheme? That's the scheme that happens to work best with common forms of color blindness.
Look at Dick Cheney who mistook his friend for a moose!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Discrimination is supposed to be the *willful* act of excluding someone or something; so unless Netflix went through all their Digital Media and "removed" closed-captioning; they shouldn't be held accountable to the ADA.
This should fallback to the providers of the Digital Content; if they had CC content and removed it for Digital Streaming, then they're the ones violating the ADA.
Instead of crying discrimination; why not start a niche business providing CC content to streaming services.
for instance: when we have to spend 80% more on public busses so 5% people can get on them more easily... i see it as defunding the majority of citizens. of course there is value in that a lot of the time -- within reason.
but when bus lines can't be provided because they can't afford the bus for the 5% of *potential* users... who is getting served?
and when nobody can see a movie because 1% of the people can't fully enjoy it... seems wrong-headed.
As it happens, providing Mona Lisa in the form of, say, an etched surface - it can't be provided in braille, since it's a painting and braille is an alphabet, assuming we don't repurpose AAlib or something - would likely be far cheaper than building a ramp.
Don't most records come with printed lyrics? So record stores seem to consider it reasonable.
Partaking in culture is necessary. It doesn't necessarily need to come in the form of movies, but it does need to come in some form.
But audio is not all of the experience, so this is irrelevant. And besides, since DVDs and Blurays already include captioning, Netflix not doing so would require them to deliberately remove it, which crosses the boundary from lazy apathy into active malice.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Movies without caption are useless for foreign language speakers, parents, parties, people who talk on the phone while watching TV. They most probably were already close captioned on DVD, so no need to pay for new original work.
What really pisses me off is that Netflix doesn't provide close captioning on any integrated apps on TVs and Blu Ray players. So I have to drag Apple TV - the one device where they decided to get it right - from room to room any time I want to watch a movie other than in complete silence and isolation.
Comments are definitely limited to 500 characters. I thought the description was limited to some (larger) number of characters.
The problem isn't the ability to sanely write software with a side stream etc. The problem is that the source materials DVD's and BLURAY disks not digital dumps, so what netflix -can- do is limited by the prior restraint placed inside the DVD and BLURAY players that the cache images are built out of.
There are also legal restrictions on -modifying- said playback, so even though they are allowed to stream it, there is no sense that they are allowed to edit that stream that I can find.
I mean I am just guessing at the technical details, but have you even looked at a "Rental DVD" lately? Spend a buck at a RedBox, bring a disk home, and try to access the "extras". The menu is there but all that's behind its a placquard that says "extras are not available on rental media, go out and buy a copy if you want to see this eight-second out-take".
Netflix source material may not even -have- the caption data stream to start with.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
This really shouldn't be a problem for Netflix. They can probably push the costs to their content providers.
It will be a much larger problem for the internet in general.
Expect more lawsuits that claim the resultant speech recognition isn't good enough.
There are plenty of video codecs available that can add subtitles to content without altering the video stream. The subtitles and video simply play at the same time, aligned by key frames.
As for whether or not Netflix should do this. I'd personally say no, content providers should be encouraged to provide subtitles and/or descriptive audio for the blind. Perhaps make it tax deductible for the company?
Perhaps a study on how much it typically costs to implement these standards in 25-30 minute increments could be set as the basis for how much should be tax deductible. Of course, the full amount of the cost should NOT be tax deductible, since the company will expand their income slightly by providing this service as well. So another study would need to be conducted to assess how much additional income the service typically yields versus the cost to provide it, and potentially bridge that gap by 50%?
Just my initial thought towards a fair solution. Hopefully, fair towards both the disabled and companies rendering services for the disabled. It seems fair, in my opinion, to include this as part of our taxes since the services rendered would be valuable to any citizen who might become disabled during their life.
Aha but who owners the copyright. The text and story transcribed may be a
Violation of the copyright . The owner of the screen play could and should balk.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
If you're deaf then no one would argue that CC is not a great innovation, and should be supplied to all streaming videos on Netflix....if it's available on the DVD. I don't think Netflix should be held responsible for streaming DVD's that don't have CC, but if it does, it should also be on the streaming video.
I was on the DVD only program with Netflix, but got a "Smart TV" with WiFi, and decided to switch to the streaming movies, but discovered that CC is not on these movies, so I'm going to switch back asap.
Every movie these days has closed captioning, sometimes in multiple languages. The problem is just that NETFLIX just doesn't offer a way to make the captioning visible to their customers. I especially like closed captioning when watching films where the characters speak with strong accents - British English included.
Could they not just say they offer the ability to rent DVDs that have CC provided? Why do they HAVE to offer it for online streaming if they have this content available with CC through their physical media offerings?
Blogger? WordPress?
YouTube automatically promotes new videos on the home page and promotes related videos in a column at the right side of a video description page. How do you recommend that one promote one's blog post in a similar manner?
Good Grief! This is a similar argument for making hybrid motorized vehicles such as Prius more noisy on purpose so the sight impaired can hear them coming while attempting to cross a street. Ludicrous! I am sympathetic towards those who cannot see or hear. But, there are limits. If this issue is so important to the National Association for the Deaf, then maybe they should fork over some of their own cash for the effort. Companies that become tied down with such nonsense can solve "manufactured" problems this this very quickly - sell out and quit. There is so much bending the majority can do for the minority. I really do not think it is wise in an error of shrinking wages and opportunities to come up with ways to make things more expensive.