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NAD vs. Netflix ruling

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From: Karen Mardahl
Date: Aug 15, 2012 9:02AM

Hi again

I stumbled across my own post and wanted to set things straight here for
the record. The Lovefilm streaming option does have captions that you can
turn on and off. It's in so-called Beta and there aren't that many films.
All the films I have seen were non-Danish films, so there "naturally" were
captions for Danish. I have yet to find a Danish film on there to see if it
does *not* have captions - if they have the mindset that the natives speak
Danish, so they don't need them.

I wrote up my experience on Jon's blog:
http://www.hassellinclusion.com/2012/06/netflix-caption-lawsuit-uk-implications/

Today, I learned that Netflix is coming to Denmark later this year.
Lovefilm is part of Amazon. I wonder if there will be two systems or if one
takes over the other or what. I wonder what the situation will be for those
who want captions. Denmark has a population of about 5.5 million. It's said
that there are 4000 Deaf who use Danish sign. About 50,000 are very
hard-of-hearing, and about 300,000 have hearing problems. (Source for
numbers is (in Danish)
http://www.streetsigners.dk/dove/hvor-mange-dove-findes-der/ . )

I still argue - if the businesses don't care about captioning for Deaf/HOH
- that there is the issue of dialects. There is also a community of expats
(as in all countries) who want to watch movies in their native language,
especially if they have kids. The expats should be reason enough to an
ordinary, non-accessibility-conscious business to have captions/subtitles.
But I am preaching to the choir here, as they say...

Maybe we won't have problems in Denmark. Maybe the problem is simply bigger
in English-speaking countries because (sorry to show a prejudice here) the
population tends not to know a second language, so the mindset is that
there is only one language to speak of. It will be interesting to see what
role culture and local legislation plays - if any.

Regards, Karen Mardahl
http://about.me/kmdk



On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Karen Mardahl < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hi Jonathan
>
> Ah right. These subtitles are open. Only on the DVD version can I turn
> them on and off, but not on the streaming version. They obviously have many
> different suppliers of the DVDs. Some have only Nordic subtitles (Danish,
> Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish). Some have those plus English. I think one or
> two had only 1 language option. To my dismay, a few had no subtitles. A
> very, very few had audio descriptions. There is terrible inconsistency.
>
> As a person who can hear, I enjoy using subtitles, even if I only can have
> Danish subtitles for an English-language film. It helps me over the messy
> parts where the sound engineer let special effects drown the speech or when
> a (British, especially) dialect is too hard to interpret. Ah, dialects! I
> just found another argument for why hearing people might enjoy captioning.
> After all, there are many countries divided by the common language of
> English. :)
>
> regards, Karen Mardahl
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Jonathan Hassell <
> <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> That's really interesting, Karen.
>>
>> Are the subtitles on LoveFilm Denmark that you use 'open' or 'closed'?
>> They are 'open' if you can't turn them off, and 'closed' if there's a
>> button on the LoveFilm player that allows you to turn them off, or swap
>> between subtitles in different languages.
>>
>> If the LoveFilm subtitles you are using are 'closed', then that means
>> that you're right the technology is already there in the player.
>>
>> The issue then is about the encoding. Subtitles are usually encoded in
>> broadcasting STL format so, where subtitles already exist on the DVD of the
>> movie, all that's needed is a tool to convert those files into digital
>> caption formats (we already have these), the permission/license to
>> distribute the subtitles with the online streams (which, I'd hope they
>> already have), and workflows to make this happen as part of their streaming
>> encoding.
>>
>> I've done all of this already at the BBC. And, while it wasn't simple, it
>> was certainly possible.
>>
>> Jonathan
>> www.hassellinclusion.com
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Karen Mardahl < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> *To:* Jonathan Hassell < <EMAIL REMOVED> >; WebAIM Discussion
>> List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, 26 June 2012, 10:22
>> *Subject:* Re: [WebAIM] NAD vs. Netflix ruling
>>
>> But I'm thinking LoveFilm ought to be able to implement this instantly. I
>> use LoveFilm in Denmark and I have used their streaming service, which they
>> say is in beta. Perhaps because it is for a country where the primary
>> language is Danish, they know they need subtitles. All the streaming films
>> I have watched have subtitles. I have not yet watched a Danish film so I
>> wonder what that will have. I was considering one in particular, so now I
>> will watch it just to be able to tell you what they do here.
>>
>> In other words, the process can handle subtitles, although I know nothing
>> about their encoding. I'm thinking that somewhere in the world, there must
>> be a caption/subtitle file on hand so that a film with English-language
>> audio can include an English-language subtitle file, too. What's the
>> problem? They should get on with it so we can tackle the next issue:
>> audio-descriptions for all films!
>>
>> regards, Karen Mardahl
>> http://flavors.me/kmdk
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 11:03 AM, Jonathan Hassell <
>> <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>
>> Yes, the NAD Netflix ruling is good news, especially as it gives a clear
>> ruling on the application of the ADA to the web.
>> What is particularly interesting in this case is that, possibly as a
>> result of this lawsuit, Netflix is already doing more than almost any other
>> video-on-demand supplier to enrich its content with captions / subtitles.
>>
>> In comparison, Netflix’s main rival in the UK – LoveFilm – doesn’t yet
>> include any closed captions (or subtitles, as they are usually called in
>> the UK) on its LoveFilm Instant service.
>>
>> So is it at risk of a similar lawsuit in the UK?
>>
>> Read my blog at
>> http://www.hassellinclusion.com/2012/06/netflix-caption-lawsuit-uk-implications/ to
>> find out.
>>
>> Prof Jonathan Hassell
>> Director, Hassell Inclusion
>> www.hassellinclusion.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>