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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.
Would this include YouTube?
Netflix will need to mail a Braille transcript.
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.
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
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.
And, believe or not, there's actually a movement against that. There are deaf people that want deaf children, and want them to remain deaf. I'm a type 1 diabetic, and I can't imagine forcing that on a child. It makes like a pain in the butt.
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.
Oh yeah, my roomie regarded those implants as the enemy, and any deaf person who supported them as a traitor.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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
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.
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!
Because just like broadcast television, they are sufficiently large enough to cover the costs associated with captioning the content. Netflix does have some content that is captioned on their streaming service, but frankly it's mostly a joke.
I am not sure what their process involves in acquiring the visual content that they stream. Netflix seem to have no difficulty in acquiring the audio tracks to stream along with the visual content. If Netflix is getting the content from the DVD's or whatever, it should be trivial enough to rip the subtitle / closed captioning tracks already present, sync it up and stream it as well. The physical DVD is captioned, yet the stream isn't. Netflix, along with a number of other content providers are basically saying, "Meh it's not worth our time to deal with it, so tough luck." Technically it should be trivial enough to do this but they are not. That's when the government usually has to step in. It's not so much a matter of preserving their profit, but doing the right thing and providing accessibility. Otherwise it's essentially tyranny of the majority.
The main reason why this lawsuit is necessary is because many online streaming services are essentially doing nothing or a very poor job of providing captioned content. Hulu for example, has a limited selection of captioned content within their catalog. This would not be so bad if they were more conscientious about monitoring their content. Sometimes they do not caption a given episode out of a captioned series. Apparently they have to "receive" it from the content provider. They do not check to ensure that the file has been received each time and that it plays properly. I've had missing captioning, captioning that was out of sync, content that indicated it was captioned, but no captioning, content that does not indicate captioning, but had captioning. If this had been happening with a broadcast television station, they would have been hit with a bunch of fines. That's why broadcast stations have someone monitoring it to ensure quality and delivery of captioned content.
Back to the point, streaming services are becoming more widespread, their catalog is expanding. They need to develop a scheme that simplifies handling and streaming of content such that captioning is automatically included and present from the content provider. That would ease the burden on Netflix, Hulu, and others. Netflix is the ideal target because they have one of the largest catalog of streaming content, and most of them were already captioned previously. In doing so, Netflix would have to sit down with the content providers and figure out a solution.
Clearly not all content would feasibly be captioned. No reasonable court would enforce captioning on "private" or indie content unless aired over broadcast/cable. The burden on captioning needs to be shifted to the content creators. There are already standards that determines what content must be captioned and anything below that is at their discretion. It won't be easy I admit, but this needs to happen, and the sooner, the better.
So, in a way, every taxpayer is a customer because every tax payer has helped build the infrastructure that allows a large corporation to exist. Hell, every one in the US pays a tax on their phone so rural people can have cheap communication. Tell me Netflix could be this big without such a tax.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Or you could simply be a real parent and not tolerate misbehavior. My parents just told me to shut the hell up when it was inappropriate to make noise.
My spoon is too big.
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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Unfortunately deaf pride or whatever you want to call it is a very prevent and prominent culture in many primarily deaf settings. The local school was protesting hearing teachers even with implants. They are pushing for laws to prevent implants to those unable to consent (effectively making it a mute point as you cant wait till 18 to decide the nerves do atrophy). It's pushed pretty heavily by some deaf teachers to impressionable young children under there care. I guess it's not different that other teachers choosing indoctrination of other political agendas as part of there teaching.
No sir I dont like it.
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?
You got me. I'm a horrible parent by letting my 2, 6, and 8 year old laugh and enjoy movies at home.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.