NAD Files Comments on Copyright Exemption for Captions

On February 10, 2012, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) took the lead, and was joined by several other consumer groups, in submitting comments in support of a petition filed by Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc., Gallaudet University, and Participatory Culture Foundation requesting an exemption for certain classes of work from the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Two of these exemption requests relate to closed captioning – one for IP based media and the other for fixed-disc based media.  These exemptions will allow third parties to add or improve closed captioning on video programs without having to get permission from the copyright owner.

As many of our members know, there is a vast amount of video programs that are neither captioned nor required to be captioned.  For instance, DVDs are generally not required to be captioned, and there also are large gaps in the new rules requiring captioning for IP based video programs. While we will not rest in our advocacy efforts to expand the coverage of captioning laws, the NAD wants to make it possible for third parties to voluntarily add or improve captions on any video program. 

We have learned that some schools wanted to add captions to videos shown in class and were not able to do so due to copyright concerns. We also have seen volunteer efforts such as www.universalsubtitles.org [2] which add captions to permissible online videos. Additionally, these exemptions will allow third parties such as volunteers or even video program distributors to improve the quality of captions.  For instance, this will allow them to fix captioning errors or even adjust the timing of mis-timed captions so that deaf and hard of hearing people can better follow the program.  

We believe that Copyright law should not be used to inhibit accessibility. 

Click here to download the NAD Comments on Copyright Exemption for Captions. [3]