6 ms·

Netflix sued for lack of captions on streaming videos

46 points by benwerd 15y ago

illumin8 15y ago
I hate to see lawsuits like this, but unfortunately it is the only way to get captions on the majority of content. TV would not have captions if it weren't for the brave fight of some deaf activists. I never really appreciated captions much, but my wife does not speak English as her first language, and not having captions on a movie sometimes means she will be bored and unable to enjoy it with me.
- eli 15y ago
  Maybe splitting hairs, but actually I think it was a law passed by Congress that mandated captions for broadcast television, not the threat of civil lawsuits.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  English captions, or captions in her native language?
  - illumin8 15y ago
    English captions help a lot for someone that doesn't speak English as their first language. She has a pretty decent grasp on it, but when actors talk fast, it can sometimes be tough to get it all. Captions help.
- benwerd 15y ago
  One of my best friends is profoundly deaf, and (obviously) they really transform her experience. Only 0.2 to 0.4% of the population in the US is "functionally deaf", but I think the principle is important: if it's required on TV, why not on the Internet? It's easy to forget about accessibility. Another friend can't use iOS devices because he's mobility impaired, and is a little dismayed by the broad move to touch-based devices. But they're cool to develop for, right?
  - MattGrommes 15y ago
    >> if it's required on TV, why not on the Internet You certainly need to be careful that requiring captions doesn't require everybody putting a video on Youtube to caption it. As great as that would be for deaf people (and for searching video), it's a burden that might kill a lot of things. The move to touch-based devices being hard for the disabled/elderly/etc. is an issue I've been thinking about too. It's a hard problem but one that will hopefully spur some innovation in the coming years.
  - silencio 15y ago
    iOS devices that come with the VoiceOver screen reader are changing the lives of visually impaired people who were formerly limited to bulky and/or very expensive devices with a limited selection of apps for mobile use. Nowadays, any iPhone or iPad sold in stores works out of the box to do everything from making phone calls to email, browsing, gps, games, productivity apps, facebook, and more spoken in dozens of languages, displayed with different zoom levels and higher contrast, and even in conjunction with bluetooth braille displays. I also remember back when Apple introduced easy to use videochat in iChat with the iSight in ~2003 and again with FaceTime in iOS devices, and my deaf/hard of hearing friends thought this was an awesome alternative way to communicate. They are cool to develop for, and I feel incredibly lucky to be working on an iPad app for visually impaired people right now and to help said people learn how to use the screenreader. It's amazing how I've watched some people go from technophobia caused by progressive vision loss to being inseparable from their newly purchased iPad/iPhone and doing more than they ever learned to do on traditional computers. The Apple Accessibility team is made up of incredibly cool people that always seem to be open to suggestions to better improve their products. Your friend should shoot them an email at accessibility@apple.com instead of just grumbling about how iOS devices are out of his reach. I remember a lot of blind folks I knew that grumbled a lot when the iPhone first came out, because they thought an all-touch interface meant that the device was doomed for use for the blind. That turned out to be very, very wrong. You never know what they might have in mind, and maybe your friend has some cool ideas to pass on.
- zacharycohn 15y ago
  It's not the only way. In the article it says that Netflix already has 30% of streaming content captioned, with plans to expand that to 80% by the end of the year.
  - gaius 15y ago
    Well, that puts a different complexion on things, doesn't it? If they are actively working on it, that proves that they're not discriminatory. This is a pure opportunistic cash grab.
    - inmygarage 15y ago
      Opportunistic is a bit harsh. I think it's more to force Netflix to make this a priority. Sure they're "working on it", but I doubt it's a huge priority since it affects, percentage wise, a small portion of their audience. I bought my mother a third-party device for her television so she could stream Netflix last Christmas only to find out that Closed Captioning wasn't supported. It was pretty depressing - she couldn't use it at all because she is hearing impaired. There's a reason why there are laws in place for compliance - often times good business strategy and "accessibility for all" don't align.
dodo53 15y ago
>According to the lawsuit, the ADA requires that all “places of entertainment” provide “full and equal enjoyment” for people with disabilities. I'm sure it's lost in translation from legalese, but that seems like a really broad requirement. How can you claim full and equal enjoyment of deaf people at a nightclub say? Googled the act and tried to read it (http://www.ada.gov/statute.html http://www.ada.gov/statute.html) but I can't parse it. Edit: removed the bit where I said surely captions aren't hard - article links to netflix saying it is (http://gigaom.com/video/why-netflix-doesnt-offer-subtitles-or-closed-captions/ http://gigaom.com/video/why-netflix-doesnt-offer-subtitles-o...)
- stonemetal 15y ago
  Easy, if you have captions available, if not then it is a bit more difficult. They have been working on it and most of their streams do support it.
  - gkjam 15y ago
    Only a third of their streams support it, and they have been "working on it" for a long time. Working on it isn't good enough, you need to make the experience accessible to disabled individuals, period. That's the law, and rightly so. All their DVDs contain subtitle options, so the content is there. They can make the content accessible by providing a separate "burned in" copy of the content with subtitles for those who need it, and they could have done that a long time ago.
- m0nastic 15y ago
  NetFlix has been trying to implement captions[1], it's actually a lot more challenging then you'd think (with a library as large as NetFlix's). They've been rolling it out slowly the past few months, but I'll at least give them credit for trying. I had never noticed the lack of closed captioning on online video until I dated a deaf girl a few years ago, and then you sort of notice how much content exists that is suboptimal when you can't hear. [1] http://blog.netflix.com/2011/02/30-of-netflix-streaming-content-has.html http://blog.netflix.com/2011/02/30-of-netflix-streaming-cont...
mirkules 15y ago
Netflix shows intent with plans to expand to 80% by end of year. What's the problem? Is having a lawsuit really going to make that happen more quickly?
- blaqsmith 15y ago
  The deaf community has been nothing short of begging Netflix to add captions for over 5 years now, and have essentially been ignored the entire time. The usual excuse was that it was technically impossible to add the captions (bs, really). In the last year or so they've made slight motions towards implementing ~some~ captions, but have done a very bad job of it. Most shows would just have random episodes captioned. So you start a new show, then a few episodes into the season realize you couldn't keep watching them in order because the next few episodes were uncaptioned. To say that this is frustrating, especially for an arc based show like Lost (which was their flagship example of "we are captioning for you!" for the longest time) is an understatement. This lawsuit is essentially the deaf community having reached a boiling point. These were patient people who tried for the longest time to get Netflix to act like a decent company, and it just didn't happen. It's rather sad that without this lawsuit, they probably never would.
  - jdludlow 15y ago
    They should probably stop sending Netflix $8 per month and support a competitor instead. It's absurd that a private business can be forced via lawyers to offer a particular product. "We don't want to" should be allowed in a free society.
    - xbryanx 15y ago
      That would have potentially have been a valid point to bring up in 1990 when George H. W. Bush signed the ADA into federal law, but it's not appropriate anymore that it's the law of the land. Should businesses be allowed to ignore physical mobility impairments, and not install ramps?
      - 15y ago
defen 15y ago
Sort of off-topic, but can someone explain the theoretical basis behind class action lawsuits, as applied to this instance? The article says "The Netflix lawsuit was filed on behalf of the 36 million Americans that are either deaf or hard of hearing." Is that just a turn of phrase, or can someone really file a lawsuit on your behalf without your consent? (I'm assuming they didn't contact all these people for permission ahead of time). Is there some central registry of which Americans are deaf/hard of hearing? Will they be paid out from the proceeds if NAD wins?
- hugh3 15y ago
  can someone really file a lawsuit on your behalf without your consent? Apparently so. Is there some central registry of which Americans are deaf/hard of hearing? I doubt it. Will they be paid out from the proceeds if NAD wins? If they win, then there'll be an ad in the paper (hopefully not on the radio) inviting anyone who is deaf to fill out a form in order to claim their share of the winnings (after a very substantial fee to the lawyers). It'll be a few dollars. Hardly anyone will bother to write in, and lawyers will collect the rest. Everybody wins! And by "everybody" I mean the lawyers.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  You should probably start with the fairly comprehensive wikipedia article. The basic idea is that one or more plaintiffs go to court, showing both an injury (in the legal sense of being worse off through a tortfeasoer's action or inaction), and the existence of a large class of 'similarly situated' plaintiffs. The class of deaf people would easily fit that description - deafness is something that's easy to define and not very controversial. If the original plaintiff has standing, a trialable issue exists, and a class of similarly situated plaintiffs can be certified, then a jury trial takes place like it would for any other kind of tort case. If the defendant is found guilty, then economic and/or punitive damages are calculated, the defendant may agree to settle or appeal, and so on. If there is a settlement or award, then lawyers for the plaintiffs make reasonable efforts to contact the other similarly situated plaintiffs (by advertising in newspapers, magazines, or wherever else there's a good chance of reaching those people), who can either opt out of the settlement and preserve an individual right to sue, object to the terms, or do nothing and receive a coupon or some other benefit. Leftover monies that are unclaimed after distribution are usually donated to some charitable organization. Having a plan in place for the distribution and disposal of any settlement or award is one of the necessities for class certification. Obviously, I am giving you a ridiculously simplified summary here. Entire books can be written on this subject. Class actions can be frivolous or abusive in some cases, but in general they are a good thing because otherwise it would be uneconomical for individual plaintiffs to sue as the cost of going to court would exceed any award they could possibly win, and so tortfeasors would have no incentive to accomodate their requests or settle with them.
iloktr 15y ago
So, am I allowed to sue Netflix if I can't afford to be a subscriber? What if I only like a genre of movies that isn't available on Netflix? I understand the need to have subtitles and in an ideal world, everything would come with them, but this seems a bit too much.
- macrael 15y ago
  The important distinction is that being poor or disliking Lost are not considered disabilities per the Americans with Disabilities Act. That law attempts to guarantee that anyone who is disabled has equal access to, among other things, the entertainment available to those without. I think your point is that it is a somewhat arbitrary to grant this group of people this right of equal access compared to the two other groups you mentioned, which certainly has some merit. But, that's the law, and Netflix should have to follow it the same way the entire television industry does.
fabiandesimone 15y ago
I'm trying to understand why is so difficult for Netflix to add captions when sites like http://www.cuevana.tv http://www.cuevana.tv have had subs for quite some time now.
malkia 15y ago
Since our son was born, we had to turn down the volume of the TV and rely on the captions. Too bad sometimes even pre-recorded cable movie would not have them (SHO or Starz I think). Or broken captions (It could be our digital box, that's doing the rendering of the captions). I'm missing every 1 out of 10 captions while watching prerecorded Game Of Thrones on HBO.
pchristensen 15y ago
Stream (at least one movie) on the Netflix iPad app gave me captions. I was really shocked to see it but pleased. I think it was "Sabah" if anyone is checking.
xbryanx 15y ago
They are a bit cheesy in visual style, but these videos http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm communicate a lot of great information about what is required by the federal Americans with Disabilities act, signed by George H.W. Bush in 1990.
robrenaud 15y ago
It seems like captions are something that could so easily be crowd sourced. How many times does each video on Netflix get watched? More than 1000? If just 1/1000 watchers is willing to transcribe the video, it's done. Hell, even starting bootstrapping the initial transcription with a speech recognition system would probably go a pretty long way. You just need some clean UI and an easy way to have Wikipedia style edit logs/discussion pages.
- xbryanx 15y ago
  Transcription isn't the hold up for Netflix. The issue for Netflix is either embedding the transcript directly into the video (open captions) where you can't turn them off, or dynamically displaying a text stream via your device software, as a layer over the video.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
kenjackson 15y ago
Could someone sue Comcast so that I can turn on closed captions, without having to completely turn off the box, go to the offline menue, change to closed captions -- and then have to reverse the process to turn them off!?
jamesbritt 15y ago
Sort of surprised they aren't covered by some variation of the "safe harbor" clause in ISP laws. They are not creating the content, they are making existing content created by others available over the Web. It's sort of like suing Blockbusters because they carry DVDs that do not come with closed captions. In any event their current captioning needs work. I tried watching "Stone of Destiny", which takes place in Scotland, and these American ears could not understand all it. I tried using the captioning but it had a very peculiar glitch: every so often I would see a rush of captions for the next few minutes of audio. It would vanish, and then I'd hear the audio it was meant for. So I gave up. I assumed their streaming was pulling the captions from whatever was provided on the corresponding DVD. I have a heard-of-hearing friend and when we watch DVDs together we almost always turn on captions. However, some TV shows, such as from the BBC some years back (e.g The Poirot series) have no captions. Are the American distributors of these DVDs open to a lawsuit as well? What about my local library, where I got them?
- floppydisk 15y ago
  I'd actually be curious to see if they use that in their defense. It'd be a unique argument that could have some traction.
- illumin8 15y ago
  I don't think that would work here. It would be like a TV station claiming they didn't have to broadcast the caption stream because they were just retransmitting content from a media company. Bottom line is the ADA says you must broadcast captions.
  - jamesbritt 15y ago
    It would be like a TV station claiming they didn't have to broadcast the caption stream because they were just retransmitting content from a media company. Sure. But I've never thought of Netflix as a TV station any more than YouTube is a TV station. They don't do scheduling, they don't have an obligation to carry certain kinds of material (as, I think, TV stations must) and they aren't using limited, licensed bandwidth. I see NetFlix as a video rental store, like Blockbuster. They've just abstracted the "get a disk, put it into a device, press play" thing by allowing me to use their servers as my DVD player (more or less). Also, if Wikipedia is correct, "Title III of the ADA requires that public facilities, such as hospitals, bars, shopping centers and museums (but not movie theaters), provide access to verbal information on televisions, films or slide shows." If anything NetFlix may be more of a movie theatre than a TV station.

46 points by benwerd 15y ago

I hate to see lawsuits like this, but unfortunately it is the only way to get captions on the majority of content. TV would not have captions if it weren't for the brave fight of some deaf activists. I never really appreciated captions much, but my wife does not speak English as her first language, and not having captions on a movie sometimes means she will be bored and unable to enjoy it with me.

eli 15y ago
Maybe splitting hairs, but actually I think it was a law passed by Congress that mandated captions for broadcast television, not the threat of civil lawsuits.
pavel_lishin 15y ago
English captions, or captions in her native language?
- illumin8 15y ago
  English captions help a lot for someone that doesn't speak English as their first language. She has a pretty decent grasp on it, but when actors talk fast, it can sometimes be tough to get it all. Captions help.
benwerd 15y ago
One of my best friends is profoundly deaf, and (obviously) they really transform her experience. Only 0.2 to 0.4% of the population in the US is "functionally deaf", but I think the principle is important: if it's required on TV, why not on the Internet? It's easy to forget about accessibility. Another friend can't use iOS devices because he's mobility impaired, and is a little dismayed by the broad move to touch-based devices. But they're cool to develop for, right?
- MattGrommes 15y ago
  >> if it's required on TV, why not on the Internet You certainly need to be careful that requiring captions doesn't require everybody putting a video on Youtube to caption it. As great as that would be for deaf people (and for searching video), it's a burden that might kill a lot of things. The move to touch-based devices being hard for the disabled/elderly/etc. is an issue I've been thinking about too. It's a hard problem but one that will hopefully spur some innovation in the coming years.
- silencio 15y ago
  iOS devices that come with the VoiceOver screen reader are changing the lives of visually impaired people who were formerly limited to bulky and/or very expensive devices with a limited selection of apps for mobile use. Nowadays, any iPhone or iPad sold in stores works out of the box to do everything from making phone calls to email, browsing, gps, games, productivity apps, facebook, and more spoken in dozens of languages, displayed with different zoom levels and higher contrast, and even in conjunction with bluetooth braille displays. I also remember back when Apple introduced easy to use videochat in iChat with the iSight in ~2003 and again with FaceTime in iOS devices, and my deaf/hard of hearing friends thought this was an awesome alternative way to communicate. They are cool to develop for, and I feel incredibly lucky to be working on an iPad app for visually impaired people right now and to help said people learn how to use the screenreader. It's amazing how I've watched some people go from technophobia caused by progressive vision loss to being inseparable from their newly purchased iPad/iPhone and doing more than they ever learned to do on traditional computers. The Apple Accessibility team is made up of incredibly cool people that always seem to be open to suggestions to better improve their products. Your friend should shoot them an email at accessibility@apple.com instead of just grumbling about how iOS devices are out of his reach. I remember a lot of blind folks I knew that grumbled a lot when the iPhone first came out, because they thought an all-touch interface meant that the device was doomed for use for the blind. That turned out to be very, very wrong. You never know what they might have in mind, and maybe your friend has some cool ideas to pass on.
zacharycohn 15y ago
It's not the only way. In the article it says that Netflix already has 30% of streaming content captioned, with plans to expand that to 80% by the end of the year.
- gaius 15y ago
  Well, that puts a different complexion on things, doesn't it? If they are actively working on it, that proves that they're not discriminatory. This is a pure opportunistic cash grab.
  - inmygarage 15y ago
    Opportunistic is a bit harsh. I think it's more to force Netflix to make this a priority. Sure they're "working on it", but I doubt it's a huge priority since it affects, percentage wise, a small portion of their audience. I bought my mother a third-party device for her television so she could stream Netflix last Christmas only to find out that Closed Captioning wasn't supported. It was pretty depressing - she couldn't use it at all because she is hearing impaired. There's a reason why there are laws in place for compliance - often times good business strategy and "accessibility for all" don't align.

dodo53 15y ago

>According to the lawsuit, the ADA requires that all “places of entertainment” provide “full and equal enjoyment” for people with disabilities. I'm sure it's lost in translation from legalese, but that seems like a really broad requirement. How can you claim full and equal enjoyment of deaf people at a nightclub say? Googled the act and tried to read it (http://www.ada.gov/statute.html http://www.ada.gov/statute.html) but I can't parse it. Edit: removed the bit where I said surely captions aren't hard - article links to netflix saying it is (http://gigaom.com/video/why-netflix-doesnt-offer-subtitles-or-closed-captions/ http://gigaom.com/video/why-netflix-doesnt-offer-subtitles-o...)

stonemetal 15y ago
Easy, if you have captions available, if not then it is a bit more difficult. They have been working on it and most of their streams do support it.
- gkjam 15y ago
  Only a third of their streams support it, and they have been "working on it" for a long time. Working on it isn't good enough, you need to make the experience accessible to disabled individuals, period. That's the law, and rightly so. All their DVDs contain subtitle options, so the content is there. They can make the content accessible by providing a separate "burned in" copy of the content with subtitles for those who need it, and they could have done that a long time ago.
m0nastic 15y ago
NetFlix has been trying to implement captions[1], it's actually a lot more challenging then you'd think (with a library as large as NetFlix's). They've been rolling it out slowly the past few months, but I'll at least give them credit for trying. I had never noticed the lack of closed captioning on online video until I dated a deaf girl a few years ago, and then you sort of notice how much content exists that is suboptimal when you can't hear. [1] http://blog.netflix.com/2011/02/30-of-netflix-streaming-content-has.html http://blog.netflix.com/2011/02/30-of-netflix-streaming-cont...

mirkules 15y ago

Netflix shows intent with plans to expand to 80% by end of year. What's the problem? Is having a lawsuit really going to make that happen more quickly?

blaqsmith 15y ago
The deaf community has been nothing short of begging Netflix to add captions for over 5 years now, and have essentially been ignored the entire time. The usual excuse was that it was technically impossible to add the captions (bs, really). In the last year or so they've made slight motions towards implementing ~some~ captions, but have done a very bad job of it. Most shows would just have random episodes captioned. So you start a new show, then a few episodes into the season realize you couldn't keep watching them in order because the next few episodes were uncaptioned. To say that this is frustrating, especially for an arc based show like Lost (which was their flagship example of "we are captioning for you!" for the longest time) is an understatement. This lawsuit is essentially the deaf community having reached a boiling point. These were patient people who tried for the longest time to get Netflix to act like a decent company, and it just didn't happen. It's rather sad that without this lawsuit, they probably never would.
- jdludlow 15y ago
  They should probably stop sending Netflix $8 per month and support a competitor instead. It's absurd that a private business can be forced via lawyers to offer a particular product. "We don't want to" should be allowed in a free society.
  - xbryanx 15y ago
    That would have potentially have been a valid point to bring up in 1990 when George H. W. Bush signed the ADA into federal law, but it's not appropriate anymore that it's the law of the land. Should businesses be allowed to ignore physical mobility impairments, and not install ramps?
    - 15y ago

defen 15y ago

Sort of off-topic, but can someone explain the theoretical basis behind class action lawsuits, as applied to this instance? The article says "The Netflix lawsuit was filed on behalf of the 36 million Americans that are either deaf or hard of hearing." Is that just a turn of phrase, or can someone really file a lawsuit on your behalf without your consent? (I'm assuming they didn't contact all these people for permission ahead of time). Is there some central registry of which Americans are deaf/hard of hearing? Will they be paid out from the proceeds if NAD wins?

hugh3 15y ago
can someone really file a lawsuit on your behalf without your consent? Apparently so. Is there some central registry of which Americans are deaf/hard of hearing? I doubt it. Will they be paid out from the proceeds if NAD wins? If they win, then there'll be an ad in the paper (hopefully not on the radio) inviting anyone who is deaf to fill out a form in order to claim their share of the winnings (after a very substantial fee to the lawyers). It'll be a few dollars. Hardly anyone will bother to write in, and lawyers will collect the rest. Everybody wins! And by "everybody" I mean the lawyers.
anigbrowl 15y ago
You should probably start with the fairly comprehensive wikipedia article. The basic idea is that one or more plaintiffs go to court, showing both an injury (in the legal sense of being worse off through a tortfeasoer's action or inaction), and the existence of a large class of 'similarly situated' plaintiffs. The class of deaf people would easily fit that description - deafness is something that's easy to define and not very controversial. If the original plaintiff has standing, a trialable issue exists, and a class of similarly situated plaintiffs can be certified, then a jury trial takes place like it would for any other kind of tort case. If the defendant is found guilty, then economic and/or punitive damages are calculated, the defendant may agree to settle or appeal, and so on. If there is a settlement or award, then lawyers for the plaintiffs make reasonable efforts to contact the other similarly situated plaintiffs (by advertising in newspapers, magazines, or wherever else there's a good chance of reaching those people), who can either opt out of the settlement and preserve an individual right to sue, object to the terms, or do nothing and receive a coupon or some other benefit. Leftover monies that are unclaimed after distribution are usually donated to some charitable organization. Having a plan in place for the distribution and disposal of any settlement or award is one of the necessities for class certification. Obviously, I am giving you a ridiculously simplified summary here. Entire books can be written on this subject. Class actions can be frivolous or abusive in some cases, but in general they are a good thing because otherwise it would be uneconomical for individual plaintiffs to sue as the cost of going to court would exceed any award they could possibly win, and so tortfeasors would have no incentive to accomodate their requests or settle with them.

iloktr 15y ago

So, am I allowed to sue Netflix if I can't afford to be a subscriber? What if I only like a genre of movies that isn't available on Netflix? I understand the need to have subtitles and in an ideal world, everything would come with them, but this seems a bit too much.

macrael 15y ago
The important distinction is that being poor or disliking Lost are not considered disabilities per the Americans with Disabilities Act. That law attempts to guarantee that anyone who is disabled has equal access to, among other things, the entertainment available to those without. I think your point is that it is a somewhat arbitrary to grant this group of people this right of equal access compared to the two other groups you mentioned, which certainly has some merit. But, that's the law, and Netflix should have to follow it the same way the entire television industry does.

fabiandesimone 15y ago

I'm trying to understand why is so difficult for Netflix to add captions when sites like http://www.cuevana.tv http://www.cuevana.tv have had subs for quite some time now.

malkia 15y ago

Since our son was born, we had to turn down the volume of the TV and rely on the captions. Too bad sometimes even pre-recorded cable movie would not have them (SHO or Starz I think). Or broken captions (It could be our digital box, that's doing the rendering of the captions). I'm missing every 1 out of 10 captions while watching prerecorded Game Of Thrones on HBO.

pchristensen 15y ago

Stream (at least one movie) on the Netflix iPad app gave me captions. I was really shocked to see it but pleased. I think it was "Sabah" if anyone is checking.

xbryanx 15y ago

They are a bit cheesy in visual style, but these videos http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm communicate a lot of great information about what is required by the federal Americans with Disabilities act, signed by George H.W. Bush in 1990.

robrenaud 15y ago

It seems like captions are something that could so easily be crowd sourced. How many times does each video on Netflix get watched? More than 1000? If just 1/1000 watchers is willing to transcribe the video, it's done. Hell, even starting bootstrapping the initial transcription with a speech recognition system would probably go a pretty long way. You just need some clean UI and an easy way to have Wikipedia style edit logs/discussion pages.

xbryanx 15y ago
Transcription isn't the hold up for Netflix. The issue for Netflix is either embedding the transcript directly into the video (open captions) where you can't turn them off, or dynamically displaying a text stream via your device software, as a layer over the video.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

kenjackson 15y ago

Could someone sue Comcast so that I can turn on closed captions, without having to completely turn off the box, go to the offline menue, change to closed captions -- and then have to reverse the process to turn them off!?

jamesbritt 15y ago

Sort of surprised they aren't covered by some variation of the "safe harbor" clause in ISP laws. They are not creating the content, they are making existing content created by others available over the Web. It's sort of like suing Blockbusters because they carry DVDs that do not come with closed captions. In any event their current captioning needs work. I tried watching "Stone of Destiny", which takes place in Scotland, and these American ears could not understand all it. I tried using the captioning but it had a very peculiar glitch: every so often I would see a rush of captions for the next few minutes of audio. It would vanish, and then I'd hear the audio it was meant for. So I gave up. I assumed their streaming was pulling the captions from whatever was provided on the corresponding DVD. I have a heard-of-hearing friend and when we watch DVDs together we almost always turn on captions. However, some TV shows, such as from the BBC some years back (e.g The Poirot series) have no captions. Are the American distributors of these DVDs open to a lawsuit as well? What about my local library, where I got them?

floppydisk 15y ago
I'd actually be curious to see if they use that in their defense. It'd be a unique argument that could have some traction.
illumin8 15y ago
I don't think that would work here. It would be like a TV station claiming they didn't have to broadcast the caption stream because they were just retransmitting content from a media company. Bottom line is the ADA says you must broadcast captions.
- jamesbritt 15y ago
  It would be like a TV station claiming they didn't have to broadcast the caption stream because they were just retransmitting content from a media company. Sure. But I've never thought of Netflix as a TV station any more than YouTube is a TV station. They don't do scheduling, they don't have an obligation to carry certain kinds of material (as, I think, TV stations must) and they aren't using limited, licensed bandwidth. I see NetFlix as a video rental store, like Blockbuster. They've just abstracted the "get a disk, put it into a device, press play" thing by allowing me to use their servers as my DVD player (more or less). Also, if Wikipedia is correct, "Title III of the ADA requires that public facilities, such as hospitals, bars, shopping centers and museums (but not movie theaters), provide access to verbal information on televisions, films or slide shows." If anything NetFlix may be more of a movie theatre than a TV station.