3 ms·

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 co

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.

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.