Comments on: DVD bonus material captioning

By: Brian P.

Brian P. — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:57:17 +0000

Joe, I did not claim that lack of accessibility in general can always be boiled down to annoyance or slight inconvenience, but rather that in this particular case it can. Of course there are a myriad of situations in which it is altogether reasonable to hold defendants liable for limiting access (wheelchair ramps for vital public facilities comes to mind). I intended to express the opinion that it is overly burdensome to hold a DVD producer to such a high standard when “accessibility” is so broadly defined as to include captioning on DVD extra features, especially given the difficulty in foreseeing every instance or act which could make a product “inaccessible” under that broad definition.

By: Joe Clark

Joe Clark — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 18:44:25 +0000

Brian P., accessibility is a legal issue, not a question of annoyance or slight inconvenience. Unquestionably the ADA and similar laws did not apply to film producers, but it is excessive and dismissive to claim that the rights of people with disabilities boil down to annoyance or inconvenience.

The studios elected to settle the lawsuit, and, while the accessibility benefit is rather small compared to what it could be, it is an actual accessibility benefit and is not a reduction of annoyance or inconvenience.

By: Brian P.

Brian P. — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:25:36 +0000

In response to Ima Fish:

As far as I am aware, no state has recognized a cause of action for being “pissed.” So long as the attitude that righteous indignation is alone sufficient for civil liability pervades our way of thinking, tort reformers in Congress can do little to change a legal environment that encourages lottery litigation.

Yes, placing a statement on the DVD box may have prevented this litigation, but a company cannot foresee every little thing about its product that may cause one of millions of purchasers to be “pissed.” Safety warnings are one thing, but to place a duty on a manufacturer to “warn” of the dangers of annoyance or slight inconvenience is preposterous.

By: Joe Clark

Joe Clark — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:30:31 +0000

Russ Boltz, the plaintiff, has sent me a response I have been slow to upload. I’ll do that today. (I did send it to the Captioning mailing list.)

By: Ima Fish

Ima Fish — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:58:10 +0000

Maybe it’s because my inlaws are Deaf, but wouldn’t you be pissed if you bought a DVD only to learn that the bonus material was not in your native language?

And the solution is simple for the DVD manufacturer: “Only the movie is closed captioned.”