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University of California, Berkeley, To Delete Publicly Available Educational Content (insidehighered.com)
In response to a U.S. Justice Department order that requires colleges and universities make website content accessible for citizens with disabilities and impairments, the University of California, Berkeley, will cut off public access to tens of thousands of video lectures and podcasts. Officials said making the videos and audio more accessible would have proven too costly in comparison to removing them. Inside Higher Ed reports: Today, the content is available to the public on YouTube, iTunes U and the university's webcast.berkeley site. On March 15, the university will begin removing the more than 20,000 audio and video files from those platforms -- a process that will take three to five months -- and require users sign in with University of California credentials to view or listen to them. The university will continue to offer massive open online courses on edX and said it plans to create new public content that is accessible to listeners or viewers with disabilities. The Justice Department, following an investigation in August, determined that the university was violating the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. The department reached that conclusion after receiving complaints from two employees of Gallaudet University, saying Berkeley's free online educational content was inaccessible to blind and deaf people because of a lack of captions, screen reader compatibility and other issues. Cathy Koshland, vice chancellor for undergraduate education, made the announcement in a March 1 statement: "This move will also partially address recent findings by the Department of Justice, which suggests that the YouTube and iTunes U content meet higher accessibility standards as a condition of remaining publicly available. Finally, moving our content behind authentication allows us to better protect instructor intellectual property from 'pirates' who have reused content for personal profit without consent."
This is not because of the government, this is due to a complaint:
"The Department opened its investigation of UC Berkeley based on a complaint"
Um, the content is no longer available to the general public and as such the law requiring publicly available content being accessible for people with disabilities no longer applies.
Except that it was a law championed by President Bush, and signed by him. Actually, the first version was signed by Bush the Elder, and the revision was signed by Bush the Younger. So, you know, two Bushes.
The idea was that it's wrong to make handicapped people unable to participate in society.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Yes, signed them. Everyone seems to forget the bills originated in the 101st congress which consisted of a senate with 54 democracts vs 45 republicans and a house with 251 democrats and 183 republicans -- overwhelmingly liberal. This was not something that was politically attractive to fight, so he signed it.
If I sell a book am I required to sell an audio version?
No, but you are required to license U.S. copyright in the book to the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
If I sell a song am I required to transcribe it?
Songwriters and music publishers see sheet music as both an additional revenue source and as a way to more clearly establish copyright ownership.
Doesn't matter. He signed it, so it's his baby. He could have vetoed it.
It's just like Clinton signing the law overturning the Glas-Steagal Act, and causing the 2008 mortgage meltdown. Clinton apologists keep trying to put all the blame on Congress, but Billy signed it, so it's really his fault.
The DOJ findings are ridiculous. I've been reading through that PDF and it seems totally unreasonable. Here are a few samples.
"Stacy Nowak, a member of NAD, is a professor and PhD student at Gallaudet University and she is deaf. Ms. Nowak would like to avail herself of what she believes is the increasingly frequent use of video and audio-based scholarship. Ms. Nowak teaches communication courses at Galludet, including Introduction to Communication and Nonverbal Communication. She would like to use numerous online resources related to communication in her classes, including the UC BerkeleyX course, “Journalism for Social Change,” but cannot because they are inaccessible. If UC Berkeley’s online content were accessible, she would take courses and utilize the online content in her lectures."
What right does she have to reuse someone else's copyrighted materials? Just because the lectures are distributed online free of charge does not mean that you have a right to take content from them for derivative works and derive revenue from them.
"Approximately half the videos did not provide audio description or any other alternative format for the visual information (graphs, charts, animations, or items on the chalkboard) contained in the videos. For example, in one video lecture, a professor pointed to and talked about an image and its structure without describing the image, making it inaccessible to individuals with vision disabilities."
Because details aren't provided here, I can only assume this was a recording of a lecture given in person to students. If so, the primary purpose of that lecture is to accommodate the students who are in the room, taking the class at that time. If there are students with vision disabilities in that class, the instructor would reasonably be expected to accommodate those students. However, most instructors don't design content to be accessible unless there's a specific need for it at that time. It is typically the responsibility of students to notify the instructor of disabilities, so the instructor can provide appropriate accommodations. I don't see why there should be an issue with posting a recorded copy of that lecture online. I suspect that part of the reason for removing the content from being publicly available is so they can limit access and follow the typical procedure where students with disabilities notify the instructor for the need of accommodations.
"Finally, UC Berkeley has not established that making its online content accessible would result in a fundamental alteration or undue administrative and financial burdens. As indicated below, the Department would prefer to resolve this matter cooperatively."
This seems remarkable given the volume of content. That the content is now being removed suggests this finding is completely false. That's particularly odd, considering this text, also in the report: "In December 2015, UC Berkeley reported that its YouTube channel had about 9,600 hours of course video and 4,200 hours of events and other video content on its YouTube channel. Its iTunes U platform had 10,400 hours of course video, 800 hours of events video, 18,000 hours of course audio, and 225 hours of events audio. About 75 percent of the same video content on YouTube is also available on iTunes U. In May 2015, UC Berkeley informed the Department that for “budget reasons,” beginning in the Fall 2015, UC Berkeley would limit access to new online content on YouTube and iTunes U to enrolled UC Berkeley students taking specific courses."
"To remedy the violations discussed above, UC Berkeley must at least take the following steps: [...] 6. Pay compensatory damages to aggrieved individuals for injuries caused by UC Berkeley’s failure to comply with title II."
Huh? There are actual damages because free content was deemed to be insufficiently accessible? This is bizarre.
Did you literally not even read the first sentence of the damned summary? UC Berkeley is removing the content because the federal government requires any content they provide to be handicap accessible. Since it'd cost a prohibitive amount to make this content accessible, instead of keeping it up (which benefits 99% of the world) they're removing it because that 1% (or less) might have trouble accessing it. In other words, instead of content that was available to 99% of people, now it's available to 0% of people. In other words, instead of nearly everyone winning, and no one actually losing, everyone loses.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
You have zero knowledge of US history, but I am not surprised. ADA was a brainchild of Reagan. The act was established in 1990 (Reagan/Bush ruled as president from 81-92).
AFAIK, blind activist Patrisha Wright and representative Tom Harkin (Dem who has a deaf brother) were the brainchilds of the ADA. Reagan was against it and he may of actually precipitated it by threatening to revoke Section 504 of the (American) Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (which was opposed by Nixon and Ford, but passed by Carter) when he was in office.
However, after the Reagan era, Bush1 signed the ADA in 1990... and Bush2 signed the amended version in 1998...
You missed that "Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990" part in the summary?
A perfect example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Millions will lose access to valuable content, and it's unlikely that any of the people who couldn't access the content would agree that this is the right thing to do. If you're hearing impaired do you really want to screw over millions of people who aren't just because you can't access something? I doubt it.
Skip building a single F-35 and you could could pay a team of 1000 people to do whatever it takes to make the content accessible to people with disabilities, but noooooooooo, we gotta have that fucking airplane.
The government should pay for to make it accessible (or at least help) since they were the ones that decreed it had to be accessible. But again, noooooooo, we gotta build that fucking wall or give tax breaks to millionaires or train 10,000 extra ICE agents to round up families and deport them (at our expense, of course).
Our priorities are fucking stupid.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The opponents of the law pointed out things exactly like this would happen and were told that was nonsense.
Civics 101: One of the purposes of a democratically elected government is to strive to ensure equality and/or fairness. Everyone needs equal access to government resources. Are handicapped parking spaces also for "losers" as you so derisively describe them?
I don't respond to AC's.
About 50,000 deaf and blind adults in the USA, which would put them about 0.025% of the population.
UC Berkeley received $370 Million in federal grants (research dollars) last year. Of that $370 Million, $210.9 Million of those "research" dollars went to administrative costs and overhead (non-research, non-teaching activities). You're talking about an organization where people have an average salary above $200k with a guaranteed job for life. Don't cry for the universities, they're funded just fine. If they wanted to, they could have paid to do this right.
Yes.
There's a few torrents floating around the datahoarder subreddit
This guy is sending the entire archive to archive.org
This guy has the whole archive and is seeding it a part at a time
The relevant statute is Title 17, United States Code, Section 121: Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction for blind or other people with disabilities. It begins as follows: