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UC Berkeley makes course video content unavailable to public
- Myrmornis 10y agoOriginal letter to campus community from vice chancellor for undergraduate education: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/03/01/course-capture/ http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/03/01/course-capture/ The university is removing public access to all of the YouTube and iTunesU video content that is currently available. Apparently this is 20,000 videos. For example, here are the lecture courses in Computer Science that are available but will soon disappear: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/series.html#c,d,Computer_Science http://webcast.berkeley.edu/series.html#c,d,Computer_Science The reasons for doing this seem to stem largely from this letter from the Department of Justice https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08-30-UC-Berkeley-LOF.pdf https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08... which informed the university that the free online video content was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- blitmap 10y agoI feel like we could educate so many young people simply by removing content - which would inspire a stubborn person like me to regain access and view it. I'm not saying the work put into creating these videos was owed, or that the university owes this access to the public - but certainly the world would be a better place for it. I thought that was their overarching goal.
- afarrell 10y agoSo many more people would just never hear about it or would not have the focused time to succeed at that though.
- comp1927 10y agoWell, how many math and economics class available on edx now ...
- Animats 10y agoIs there good speech to text for video available in the browser?
- popey456963 10y agoYoutube automatic captions aren't actually that bad last time I checked. They updated their algorithm recently (read: last couple of years) and on non-technical phrases it probably has about 95%+ accuracy with good audio quality.
- Flammy 10y agoMost important part which triggered all of this: Q: Why now? Is this related to the DOJ letter? A: ...The Department of Justice letter indicates [...] Course Capture content [...] is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Later it is mentioned specifically this is due to the videos are not captioned. Thus the solution to this is to remove all older recordings.
- DougN7 10y ago"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." That sounds like the real reason for the move.
- Myrmornis 10y agoYou'd think, but have you read the letter from the DoJ? https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08-30-UC-Berkeley-LOF.pdf https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08... It seems that the reason is genuinely that they were told that their free video content was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- Jun8 10y agoAccording to the post this was caused by a letter from Department of Justice (pdf link from the post: https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08-30-UC-Berkeley-LOF.pdf https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...), which states that two representatives from National Association of the Deaf brought a complaint: the videos did not have captions so they the complainants could not use them in their classes. I don't understand their motivation, did they think Berkeley would spend the money to generate captions? How is the current situation a win for anyone, now nobody can use the videos. EDIT: Ugh, they even have this in remedial measures: "Pay compensatory damages to aggrieved individuals for injuries caused by UC Berkeley’s failure to comply with title II."
- cameldrv 10y agoThe irony is that many of the videos people are most interested in are Deep Learning courses, the very technology that is making this moot by improving the accuracy of auto-generated captions. Presumably taking everything down now will delay the improvement in this technology.
- masterleep 10y agoIt is simply another instance of outrageous government regulation.
- bionsuba 10y agoI would ask those downvoting this comment to provide a counter argument. This is absolutely ridiculous. A university was providing something, for free, to everyone who wanted it. And because someone complained that their personal circumstances made it impossible to enjoy this free thing, now no one is allowed to get this content. It's as if I threatened to sue Costco because one of their free samples had nuts in it and I couldn't eat it, resulting in them canceling the program.
- danso 10y agoBut these videos are not "free". The content was created by university employees and hence, public funds. It's likely university resources were used to produce and edit it for online consumption. I imagine the reasoning is that if you allow the university to deprioritize the needs of the disabled on the basis of "Well, something is better than nothing", then it incentivizes the production of such content because of the lower costs, and results in more disenfranchisement of the disabled. I have to object to your reducing the situation to "because someone complained that their personal circumstances", as if it were just one person who is potentially disenfranchised by the situation. Just because one person's name is on a legal complaint doesn't mean that the law impacts that one and only person.
- WillPostForFood 10y ago"The Department of Justice letter indicates that they believe our legacy Course Capture content from webcast.berkeley.edu and located on YouTube and iTunesU is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. " Unintended consequences of a well intentioned law - everyone loses access to information, even many disabled people who still could have used it.
- Frqy3 10y agoUnfortunately they have gone for the Harrison Bergeron approach to achieving equality. A better approach would have been to build a tool that allows crowdsourcing of captions with a way for students with special needs to tag videos for prioritisation.
- kingbirdy 10y agoUser-submitted captions are already a built-in YouTube feature
- carlosgg 10y agoTheir youtube channel says content posted on Spring 2015 and earlier will remain available via youtube. https://www.youtube.com/user/UCBerkeley/playlists https://www.youtube.com/user/UCBerkeley/playlists
- nubbins 10y agoWhere does it say that? The way I read it everything will be taken down as of 3/15/2017
- Myrmornis 10y agoThey've changed that notice now: it says the content will be removed 3/15/2017. As pmoriarty mentioned above, youtube-dl works very well for downloading entire playlists: https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/ https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/
- tabeth 10y agoI'm very curious, how long does it actually take to make captions? Seriously, the slowest it could be is probably the length of the actual lecture. Just pay some student $20 to do it. $20 for an hour of work. Am I missing something? EDIT: Hmm, I think I was unclear. I am not referring to making a "professional grade" captioned video. I am simply referring to having literally what the speaker says included with the video as a transcription. I do admit it would probably take more than $20. Even if it was $200 a video that would still be pretty cheap. It's probably what, less than a cent extra per student per semester? Unless of course you do this for every new iteration/instance of the class.
- DanBC 10y agoI suspect that the cost ($20 * 20000 videos = $400,000) is unpaletable.
- jacktrades99 10y ago$20? Try $2 a minute with each video being 60 minutes. It's more like $2.4 million.
- DanBC 10y agoI didn't come up with the $20 number, I'm quoting tabeth.
- pessimizer 10y agoStill, a very small amount of money for content this valuable.
- omginternets 10y agoGood, so you'll pay for it, then?
- traek 10y ago> the slowest it could be is probably the length of the actual lecture Have you ever transcribed content? The length of the recording is the lower bound on time it takes to transcribe, not the upper bound.
- rudimental 10y agoThanks DoJ. This will definitely make it a little harder for people to access high quality, free content online. URLs of the videos won't be removed: "Individual video URLs (links) will remain unchanged." http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/24/faq-on-legacy-public-course-capture-content/ http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/24/faq-on-legacy-public-cou... How could one get all URLs and put them in one place for all 20k+ videos?
- Myrmornis 10y agoI may be wrong, but unfortunately I believe that the URLs will only work if you are authenticated as a Berkeley university user.
- rudimental 10y agoYou might be right. I read it as the YouTube URLs won't be altered / made inaccessible. Your reading may be correct - I'm not sure!
- ennuihenry 10y agoIt appears they will appear on Youtube as private.
- k-mcgrady 10y agoSurely they (Berkeley) could use some speech-to-text software to do this relatively well, easy, and free. There's also bound to be people who would have volunteered to do it for free so they didn't lose access.
- PeterisP 10y agoNo, that's not considered sufficient. The Department found that [...] many had automatic captioning generated by YouTube’s speech recognition technology. In March 2015, the Department selected 30 videos. [..] for review. Automatically generated captions were inaccurate and incomplete, making the content inaccessible to individuals with hearing disabilities.
- k-mcgrady 10y agoI thought that would be the case. What I really meant was for Berkley to play the content while speech-to-text is running and then check it for errors before making real (not live) captions/transcripts available.
- kccqzy 10y agoThere's gotta be a preservation effort somewhere. Maybe archive.org would be interested in obtaining a copy before they disappear?
- WillPostForFood 10y agoarchive.org will have to be careful - they're going to be under the same obligation to provide captions as Cal. edit: If Netflix can be sued and forced to provide captions, so can any other entity providing uncaptioned video.
- lern_too_spel 10y agoBetter yet, crowdsource subtitles from hearing people who find the videos useful.
- rudimental 10y agoI talked to someone at the archive. He said a few people are aware of this, including people involved with the way back machine. It might be hard for them because video content in general doesn't save well, especially if it's hosted on YouTube. I tried out some video streaming, audio streaming, and download links on previous snapshots of the site, and they all lead to error pages.
- pmoriarty 10y agoYoutube videos can easily be downloaded and saved using youtube-dl. https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/ https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/
- namlem 10y agoI think the videos are still available to students. I'm sure someone will upload a torrent soon.
- namlem 10y agoI think the videos are still available to students. I'm sure someone will upload a torrent soon.
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- malodyets 10y agoThere is unrest in the forest There is trouble with the trees For the maples want more sunlight And the oaks ignore their pleas ... So the maples formed a union And demanded equal rights 'The oaks are just too greedy We will make them give us light' Now there's no more oak oppression For they passed a noble law And the trees are all kept equal By hatchet, Axe, And saw
- 1_2__3 10y agoWelcome to hardcore liberal ideology. Yes, they expected Berkeley to spend tens of thousands of dollars adding captioning for the tiny fraction of people who need it.
- cooper12 10y agoBeing deaf/disabled is a liberal issue now?
- troisx 10y agoIn a weird way, yes. There are deaf groups that believe that having cochlear implants is unnatural, and that the government needs to enforce compliance with ADA rules for people who could technically get permanent hearing. Now, not all deaf people are curable, but it's still insane to me that 10,000 people could lose access to something because one person insists that they, too, get access.
- rrmm 10y agoI don't know how far I'd want to go down that path. Cochlear implants aren't risk-free. I'm also curious about the implant's ramifications if other interventions (e.g. stem cell treatment) become possible.
- pmoriarty 10y agoAre you saying the people who don't believe in putting cochlear implants in to their kids must be liberals? If so, why? The cochlear implant issue itself is a rather complex and interesting one. Most hearing people are immediately outraged when they learn that some deaf people want to prevent their children from hearing, but I think this is a knee-jerk reaction that stems mostly from ignorance of Deaf culture[1] and its value in the Deaf community. There's a great documentary called Sound and Fury[2] that explores this issue by interviewing deaf and hearing families as they struggled to decide whether to have implant surgery performed on their children. I strongly encourage everyone to watch this documentary before making up their minds on this issue. Also, talking to some Deaf people, getting some exposure to and knowledge of Deaf culture, learning about the long and ugly history of discrimination and paternalistic interventions by hearing people against deaf people, and the struggle of deaf people for self-determination would probably be a good idea too. With this knowledge I think it becomes difficult to dismiss the issue as ridiculous or say that there's any easy, obvious answer. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_and_Fury_%28film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_and_Fury_%28film%29
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dnquark 10y agoDo these accessibility requirements only concern public institutions? Stanford has been taking down course videos (notably, CS231n) for the same reason, which just does not make sense to me. I understand the argument that an institution is obligated to provide accessible materials if the consumer is /paying/ for them, either directly or as a taxpayer. But imposing these requirements on those providing content for free seems a little ridiculous.
- WillPostForFood 10y agoThey apply to public and private institutions. Netflix was sued in 2010 because they didn't have captions on all their videos, and ended up settling out of court.
- ensignavenger 10y agoIt was my understanding that the ADA requires 'reasonable' accommodations? If that is the case, how does removing the videos from access to anyone qualify as reasonable?
- clintonb 10y agoIf the videos are private, there is no need to make accommodations.
- dragonwriter 10y agoRemoving the videos isn't a reasonable accommodation, it's removing the offering to the general public that creates an obligation for reasonable accommodation, thus avoiding the bother of litigation to determine what reasonable accommodation might actually be required. Berkeley was compelled to remove the content, they chose to in order to avoid the costs of resolving the dispute, to focus on unquestionably compliant content moving forward.
- ensignavenger 10y agoThanks, I guess I understand that, the point I was trying to make was that the Justice Departments interpretation of the law seems off. I hate to bring up the President- but Trump promised less over-regulation, perhaps he should step in with one of his famous (infamous?) executive orders.
- Liuser 10y agoThis happened to Stanford as well. I remember watching about half of their videos for a course when all of a sudden it was unavailable. It was frustrating that the DoJ would stifle free learning. Fortunately the videos were being shared via torrents so I could finish the course, and eventually reuploaded by others on their own personal youtube channels.
- ReverseCold 10y ago> videos were being shared via torrents Oh right! Thanks!
- bbcbasic 10y agoI wonder, could they release with a permissive license, allowing other people to host them or share them?
- Yetanfou 10y agoSome appropriate music for this occasion: Rush - 'The Trees' [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXeUvDOMgGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXeUvDOMgGY
- prats226 10y agoWhat is accuracy of state of the art algorithm for audio captioning? YouTube has about 95% accuracy according to some folks. And what is the accuracy needed by regulation? If cost of running algorithms is the only issue, there should be a smarter solution like whoever is watching video lectures has to contribute some compute from his device to run algorithm.
- k_sze 10y agoYou know what's also wrong? Somebody paid lawyers to sue or send letters instead of paying people to add captions or make transcripts.
- officialjunk 10y agodoes the closed captioning need to be in all possible languages? if the captions are in english, even though the audio is, is that enough. can the same argument be made for everyone that can't read english?
- dragonwriter 10y agoDifference in preferred or proficient language are not a disability under the ADA, AFAIK.
- angry_octet 10y agoThey should just make them available with the sound all distorted and super noisy like partially deaf people face, or just no sound, and autogenerated subtitles. Then, have online students sign up to write sub-titles or verify subtitles. For every hour of subtitling you get 20 hours of hearing. Verification via a CAPTCHA like system that interrupts video playback to verify snippets of audio. Sell this corpus to deep learning people. With hundreds of thousands of people doing MOOCs it should be very doable.
- jshaqaw 10y agoStuff like this is why Trump happens
- 0xFFC 10y agoThis is devastating, at least for me , I learned so much from their channel. Do you think starting a petition would work ? Can we start petition ?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- partycoder 10y agoWhile it is a legitimate claim to ask for more accessibility, this crab mentality ("if I can't have it neither can you") is not in the best interest of humanity. There are many types of disability and to produce content that is fully inclusive is almost impossible. You have hearing problems, various types of vision problems including color blindness... you can have extreme cases where someone is deaf-blind and also has no hands therefore braille doesn't work. Can that person deny content to everyone else by suing and force everyone to adapt to their needs? Can you possibly cover each individual disability? This sets a precedent that invites other universities to also take down all their content, basically wasting a lot of excellent, valuable hard work.
- ryukidn 10y agoTHIS very foreseeable outcome is what happens when the gov't is too big & too powerful. Today, they restrict someone else's freedom, but, eventually, their power will crush everyone's freedom! "And then they came for me ..."
- ryukidn 10y agoTHIS very foreseeable outcome is what happens when the gov't is too big & too powerful. Today, they restrict someone else's freedom, but, eventually, their power will crush everyone's freedom! "And then they came for me ..."