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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.
I can't figure out how the Congress has power to regulate private businesses and impose the ADA. Maybe it's through the corporate licensing.
Anyway:
Yes the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled long-ago that broadcast TV must carry closed captioning. Then they extended it to cable TV (by what authority I have no idea). Including captioning on netflix really isn't a big deal..... it's encoded in the video steams of VHS tapes, DVDs, and Blurays so netflix just needs to dump that CC to the internet stream.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Would this include YouTube?
Probably because they wouldn't do it at all.
Like everything else, we can't seem to find a happy medium. Making something (anything) accessible is almost always a financial loss. You spend thousands of dollars adding ramps, special bathrooms, etc and might gain 4 new customers.. you add CC to a video and again, you probably won't draw enough extra traffic to pay the cost of doing so.
We have decided as a society that simply having no accessibility is unacceptable. So we have to bite the bullet and call it a cost of business. Unfortunately as usual, we went to far.. and now as you said, we end up putting unreasonable burdens on people for very little benifit.
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.
Deaf "Culture" will be gone in a generation.
The vast majority of children born deaf are receiving cochlear implants before the nerves degrade. This is rapidly degrading the number of deaf children. Over the long term I fully expect enrollment in deaf schools and existence of deaf culture to disappear with the only remaining deaf people being those that were afflicted by the condition later in life. Though even that is not certain, it takes several years of hearing loss before the nerves die and the body re-purposes resources so anyone that is caused to go deaf later in life will probably receive cochlear implants as well. As the technology of cochlear implants improves there will be more and more outlying cases where people are given implants.
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.
Becasue we as a society have determined that private enterprise can only exist at our discretion. Part of that discretion is making sure if you are open to the public, that you make reasonable accommodations for differently-abled. We then pretty clearly spelled out what those obligations are. If you open a business without factoring in these responsibilities, then i do not feel sorry for you if your model fails.
Good-bye
that we should let economics figure this out.
The ADA exists (and here in Canada, the equivilant) because this won't happen. Making things accessible isn't a good business decision. It costs a lot of moeny and doesn't bring in much additional revenue. Society has decided that it's not fair to exclude the <whatever the correct term is now> from everything .. and so complying with accessibility rules just becomes a part of doing business.
Personally I think it goes too far. As usual we failed to find a reasonable medium. I'm all for society incurring some burden to help those who could easily by freak chance be us. At the same time however, we have to accept that it's impossible to make it so a <whatever the correct term is now> person can do everything in the same way that a non <whatever the correct term is now> can. If this was the case, then there'd be no problem. It sucks but it's life...
This is an absurd argument. Netflix is providing something to be consumed for a fee. They throw it out there and say, here's our food. This is what we are serving and here is the price. So, let's say I have a gluten allergy. I can't walk in to the local bakery and scream that they are obligated to provide me with gluten free bread? I am not entitled to any of the products or services of the bakery. I can either buy it or not. Same with Netflix. I have sympathy for the deaf, but private business does not have to change to accommodate their disadvantage.
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
Given that any corporation exists via state privilege, the ADA could simply be treated as one of the terms for corporate existence.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
The constititution is not the whole of the law, and neither is it a sacred document. Over time there has been precendent and and affirmed that expand the power of congress. It is cearly affirmed by the courts over time that congress has to power to regulate private businesses in regards to worker safety, worker discrimination, and similar issues. What the framers intended is no longer relevant because times have changed and the laws did not freeze in 1790.
No, what is child abuse is using the misfortune of someone's child being born with a hearing impairment to excuse human experimentation on infants with dubious real world results.
I'm not a Deaf militant, but I am hard of hearing since childhood and have participated in the Deaf community and use sign language, so I know a little bit about this stuff because it involves me and those like me. I find the saddest thing has always been the way the families involved and the children diagnosed with it are treated. The second saddest thing is how many people who spout off about the issue do so from a position of ignorance and emotion, not facts.
The fact is that cochlear implants are a dangerous gamble, one that rarely pays off as much as those who subject others to it expect. It requires drilling into the skull to place a piece of hardware in the head, one that still requires the use of an external aid to function. There are heightened risks of meningitis, nerve damage, necrosis of the cochlear implant skin flaps...none of which are really explained to parents before hand. Instead all parents of Deaf children hear is that there is a surgery that can "fix" their children.
Worse, the recommendation is that the surgery be done at an early age because there is a limited window to get some form of language to the brain. The problem is that proponents of the surgery often advise against the children also learning sign language because it would interfere with them learning to process sounds. This is where the biggest gamble of all takes place--if the child doesn't properly learn to process the signals as sounds, they are effectively retarded in their development.
By contrast sign language has shown to allow communication and build cognitive function at preverbal ages!
That is why so many Deaf people get so militant about the issue!
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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?
Yeah, because all those people who are going to the track to run shouldn't have to walk the extra 9 feet reserved for a handicap parking space. I mean, you are there to run, right? Why should you have to spend any more time walking to or from your car than necessary, just in case someone else needs that space. How dare grandma, in her wheel chair, show up to watch her grandkid run. Doesn't she know your legs will be tired and you need to park closer?
prick