[nabs-l] netflixsays "no" to audio description

Mon Jul 15 19:20:03 UTC 2013

All,
First and foremost, Dan is of course right, litigation is the very
last options which the NFB, as well as most sensible people, resort
to. Legal battles are slow, cumbersome, and take up a lot of
resources, both human and economical. It is true that the NFB has won
some essential battles in the courtroom, but I can assure you that
those battles have come after we have tried talking, advocating,
negotiation, protesting with no tangible results. And those cases that
do go to court, are cases based on rights that are available to
everyone else, and which are so ubiquitous, that it is unreasonable to
just sit back and accept that thats the way the world works for blind
people. That we will be excluded from programs, services and
activities which the sighted world can enjoy, and that there's nothing
we can do about it. It is every American's right to resort to the
justice system when their civil rights are being violated.
Joshua, as far as the ADA and Netflicks...  The ADA covers places,
programs and services of public accommodations. So for instance, any
member of the public can go to a restaurant, thus, a restaurant must
be physically accessible to disabled Americans. The issue of web
accessibility is complex and is a very young work in public. Thus far,
most successful web accessibility and technology lawsuits, have been
successful on the premisce that this web service has a physical
equivalent. A good example ofthis are websites for retail stores. If
you can walk into Target and buy a shirt, you should be able to go
online and buy a shirt. Netflix is a private enterprise, and there
really isn't a physical equivalent to a movie which offers additional
accessibility. There was a Netflix caption lawsuit which was
successful because we had some brilliant lawyers argue, that ones home
is a place of public accommodation, and that Netflix is so ubiquitous
in every home, that one should be able to fully access that service.
That's the very watered down version of the argument. So the short
answer is that no, DOJ has not issued any kind of mandate which says
that movies must have descriptive audio. The only setting for which
that would be an argument which falls under ADA is in an educational
setting, where the visual is a mandatory part of the curriculum.
Thanks.
Mary

On 7/15/13, Melissa Hambleton <nightfury19 at verizon.net> wrote:
> My boyfriend, who is 33 years old (same as me) and he is sighted, has said
> time and time again how it would be nice that Netflix would have description
>
> on their movies. When we watch DVDs my boyfriend always looks for the
> description feature and he even appreciates it sometimes because every now
> and again, the narrator will say something that my boyfriend didn't notice
> on the TV screen.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dan Burke" <dburke at cocenter.org>
> To: "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'"
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 2:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] netflixsays "no" to audio description
>
>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> I would concur with Steve's comments adding that in every case where the
>> NFB
>> has filed suit, it has thoroughly exhausted all the advocacy avenues
>> available.  Thus, there are many things that move successfully ahead with
>> strong advocacy and never get to the stage of a lawsuit. You can see some
>>
>> of
>> the positive results with companies on this year's convention agenda,
>> such
>> as Desire 2 Learn; and those in other presentations such as Pearson
>> Online.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Steve
>> Jacobson
>> Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 12:01 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] netflixsays "no" to audio description
>>
>> Valerie,
>>
>> One has to be careful not to attribute every message on an NFB list to
>> necessarily be the policy or even the thinking of the NFB.
>> For one thing, I'm not at all certain that there is a law under which to
>> sue
>> in this case.  Also, our treasury isn't exactly
>> bottomless so we have to prioritize
>> where to spend money and what the liklihood is of getting a positive
>> result.
>> We are really pretty careful regarding the legal
>> action we undertake.  There are times when legal action is the only
>> available course of action, but there has to be a pretty clear
>> law or precedence upon which to base such action.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Steve Jacobson
>>
>> On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 10:53:16 -0600, Valerie Gibson wrote:
>>
>>>I think one of the problems with the NFB is our reputation for being "sue
>> happy".
>>>And with the last email, I see where we get that rep, seeing as it was
>>> the
>> first response to something like this.  In the link,
>> it seems that only one netflix representative was spoken to. Why not ask,
>> via email or phone, if there is anyone to which one can
>> speak to figure out how you can colaborate to making netflix movies
>> descriptive.
>>
>>>My personal opinion, you're not going to get much headway with this.
>>> This
>> issue doesn't affect all blind people, and so not all
>> blind people are going to be on board with this.
>>
>>>As some may know, i'm interested in becoming a certified dog trainer, and
>> one could argue that that doesn't affect all blind
>> people. owever it is a potential job prospect, which affects income, and
>> jobs and income are not the same as the ability to have
>> descriptive movies.
>>
>>>Furthermore, not all blind people like movies in descriptive and find it
>> destracting.  Depending on the movie, i am one such
>> person, so my thoughts here could be a little bias.
>>
>>>Would it be nice for just the option to watch movies in descriptive?
>>> sure.
>> But i think before we jump to "let's sue them", we
>> should at least do something more passive.  A petition perhaps?
>>
>>>Just my thoughts.
>>>
>>>On Jul 15, 2013, at 10:13 AM, The weird writer
>>> <weirdwriter9891 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>> Netflix says "no" to audio description. why?
>> http://netflixproject.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/netflix-says-no-to-audio-
>> description/
>>>>
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>>
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-- 
Mary Fernandez
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will
forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them
feel."
—
Maya Angelou