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From
gigaom.com:
TV networks and web video sites will have to start providing closed
captions for any TV content available online by the end of September,
the FCC ruled a few days ago (PDF of the ruling). The ruling reaffirmed the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, which was signed into law by President Obama in October of 2010,
as well as an FCC ruling from earlier this year. However, the industry
got a bit of a break, with the FCC ruling that they won’t have to
provide customizable captions until early 2014.
Captions for web video have been a bit of a hot button issue for some
time: Disability advocates have been arguing that web video providers
aren’t doing enough to make their clips accessible to disabled viewers,
and have actually sued both CNN and Netflix over missing captions.
They
also successfully pushed for the Twenty-First Century Communications
and Video Accessibility Act, which largely focuses on the way
traditional TV networks and their online distribution partners present
their fare on the internet. The law itself didn’t actually contain any
firm deadlines for TV networks to adopt online captioning, but instead
authorized the FCC to do so. The Commission set a September 30 deadline
earlier this year, but the Digital Media Association, whose members include Amazon, Apple and YouTube, argued that the industry needed more time.
The FCC didn’t agree, and is sticking with the September 30 deadline –
with one big exception: Distributors of TV content will have to render
closed captions, but they won’t have to provide the raw captioning data
to the web video player to allow for further customization. What does
that mean? The original FCC rule included a mandate that would have
allowed consumers to change the font size and color of captions to
improve readability. These requirements now have been postponed for
another 16 months. Starting September 30, deaf and hard-of-hearing
consumers will have a right to access to basic captions, without these
kinds of bells and whistles.
Of course, many sites already offer closed captioning for at least a
part of their web video inventory, and that likely won’t change at the
end of next month. The Twenty-First Century Communications and Video
Accessibility Act only covers programming that’s also shown on TV, and
exempts any online-only programming. Even TV news clips that have been
edited for the web don’t fall under the requirement – but that likely
won’t stop disability advocates from going after providers of these
kinds of video.
