Closed Captioning of Commercial Television has been the law of the land since 1996. Its genesis was the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) which gave us wide doorways, grabbars, ramps and Handicapped Parking. Section 508 of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 mandated electronic and information technology alternative delivery methods such as closed captioning by government agencies.
This included websites, which has not been adopted completely by the government, and the Flash/AJAX development crowd has swept under the rug.
Ars Technica notes that there is a new Accessibility bill introduced into the House of Representitives.
New bill mandates closed captioning for Internet video
This is a remix/refresh of the Communications Act of 1934.
While the bill can be read to only apply to commercially produced video, the line between personal and commercial has been blurring on the internet for some time. Video sharing sites like YouTube who are trying to monetize themselves may be considered commercial soon. Other sites who use pre and post roll advertisements are definitely commercial.
Most digital cameras allow you to make video, so you can be seen by millions. With this legislation, the cost of video sharing will go up. It is one thing to provide closed captioning for the twitter whore, it is another level of complicated to provide a text description of somebody doing the funky chicken while jumping off his garage.
When you have a video that gets viewed 10 million times, and the closest commercial television program only has around 5 million there will be blood. The recent Drudge Retort AP copyfight points this out quite nicely, and that is a text argument.
Sites that wrap commercials around video or use pre and post roll advertisements are gonna get whacked.
Robert Scoble and Fast Company TV probably need to budget money for captioning equipment.
If you think that this or similar legislation is not coming, just think about who gets the best parking spots at your local regional lifestyle center. Do you want to be that person who says that folks with disabilities are not equal to you?
We live in interesting times.
H.R. 6320 is here
The National Captioning Institute has a good page of the current law.
Section 508
