Deaf Couple divorce via Text... 200 of them !

Many a marriage has broken down after partners accused the other of never listening to them. But the problems warring couple Wang Hong and Zhang Hai went beyond that - both are deaf and mute.

This also created a dilemma for a judge - who has now finally overseen what is thought to be the first divorce by text message.

The pair, both in the forties, married four years ago - but Hai demanded a split from her husband three months ago, on the grounds of incompatibility. But he tried to resist, since both were already on their second marriage - as well as having difficulties related to their disabilities. Using sign language, he said: 'It is hard for disabled people to get married and I wanted to make it work.' Judge Xue Lixin tried to broker a compromise at Dagang Court in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin - but struggled to get over the communication pitfalls.

But she revealed: 'In the end we found using mobile phone text messages was an effective way of communicating. 'The case was not complex but it was hard to judge because they were both deaf-mute. 'I made some phone calls and met with Wang's relatives and friends and asked them to change her mind, but they failed. She came to court four times and confirmed in writing she was determined to divorce. 'Zhang lived a long way from court so I sent mobile phone text messages to inform him of our thinking and how the court operated. I think this was a good way of communicating.'

Zhang eventually accepted his wife's will to divorce, and agreed to the split - though it took 200 texts to finally reach a conclusion. He added: 'I was so grateful the judges made such an effort to mediate in my case. They showed a lot of care.'

SOURCE

Caron's Story

Being Deaf in New Zealand has its drawbacks too. I have never heard my son's voice, but sadly an CI is an non-option.

Deaf Librarian claims 32yrs of discrimination.

An deaf/disabled librarian from Orange County, has claimed she was forced to resign from her job after 32 years of discrimination. One asks WHO would suffer that length of discrimination for that length of time without taking it further ? Who would tolerate being told never to talk to people in case she frightens them ? and let that situation carry on ? She is now threatening to sue... I don't buy it, would you ?

"I am not allowed to talk to any people in the library because I have been told that I might scare them," Sager wrote. "So for 32 years, I have been unable to communicate with anyone at my job. As you can imagine, this has been very difficult for me." She also states that she disagrees with details of the book-throwing incident. "There will never be a record of my account of the incident in my employee file. This is wrong," she writes. "I can only pray that someone will read this letter of resignation and try to make changes so that no deaf worker will have to bear the discrimination I have had to endure for 32 years."

Background

Australia to include sign language in Curriculum.

Couldn't happen in the UK.... could it ? We'd be expecting an comprehensive approach and not convinced supporting one mode and not the rest, is an positive step forward, would others agree, only an comprehensive approach to supporting those with hearing loss and deafness, is the only fair way forward ? Or is supporting sign language at the expense of other means, and at the expense of other signing modes to focus only on Auslan/BSL is meeting the real need ? Why are 'deaf' continually forced to campaign twice, for access fully acknowledged as a right to the 'Deaf' ? Even the awareness has to be campaigned for on a different level, and twice over too..

Deaf Australia claims each deaf child has a right to education in their own language, but, the inclusion in the curriculum doesn't state that, it states as an additional language hearing can learn.

Story: Sign language as well as 14 other languages would soon become a part of Australia's National Curriculum.

This development is the result of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority's (ACARA) issuance of a final paper which aims to have primary students spend 5 per cent of total teaching time learning another language. By the time Australian students reach years 7 and 8, the amount of time spent on learning a second language would go up to 8 percent.

At 5 per cent, that would be the equivalent of 350 hours, while even at 8 per cent, the total amount of time would actually go down to 160 hours for older students.

ACARA said that the Italian and Mandarin languages would be the first to be developed for the new curriculum, plus there are 13 more under consideration including sign language. Other languages being considered are Hindi and classical languages.

Although some states have expressed apprehension about the plan, the federal Ministry for School Education assured parents, students and educators that the second language would not be mandatory. However, it wants to ensure that Australian students are entitled to learn another language from their kindergarten years, onwards.

Deaf Australia said it was happy with the inclusion of Australian Sign Language (Auslan) in the curriculum.

"We believe every deaf child has the right to communicate in the way that suits them best, and for many deaf children, this means being bilingual in both English and Auslan," Deaf Australia Executive Officer Karen Lloyd said in a statement.

"The announcement brings up a step closer to realizing this goal for young deaf Australians and will change how Auslan and deaf people are perceived by a new generation of Australians, both deaf and hearing," she added.

SOURCE

The AAD foundation..

Today, there are thousands of deaf people in our country who have no working ears, who have to watch a TV via subtitling and captioning, and go to private 'clubs' to meet in up in darkened rooms, desperately trying to develop a culture, a language, and somewhere to have a really good moan, and recant endlessly what happened last week.. Apart from TV and each other, nothing to communicate about... AAD provides an third way...

While the majority of these disenfranchised deaf people are looking quite earnest and determined, their access to the real world, is in reality, quite limited, and often non-extant. This situation is not isolated; in fact, it is growing at an ever-increasing pace, and deaf people are falling through the net, and beginning to suffer real exclusion, there's been no deaf darts matches or domino tournaments in Wales for 5 years now, and we're reduced to skittle matches...suffering is real..

In contrast, there are thousands of hearing people in our country desperately trying to help deaf people, but they are faced with a complicated and cost prohibitive enablement process, bolshie deaf people, sign language lessons that do not come cheap, awareness courses that can cost thousands and run by egotistical deaf adjudicators, and many hugely biased and corporate run for vast profits, yet you may still find you're none the wiser, because the deaf and HI may lip-read or use signed English. This is where AAD comes in. What IS AAD ? it is Access a Deafie.

As the gap continues to widen and more deaf people gain hearing aids, cochlear Implants, and those who genetically had the decibels driven out of them get less, so pro-deaf families struggle to find the resources to adapt to deaf people. AAD will rid the system of its ineffective awareness courses, and chaotic communication approaches. Deaf awareness doesn't work, AAD DOES !

The AAD Foundation is bridging this gap by creating deaf-friendly AAD centres (All with a terp in-house and complete with flashing door-bell too), which are to be conveniently annexed to deaf clubs and deaf bars, with an generous grant from the national lottery, to provide a healthy supportive and nurturing environment for deaf people to thrive in an hostile and oral hearing environment. The aim ? to get deaf people out there and its healthy, getting deaf out there increases their Vitamin D levels too..... (No pun intended).

Already we have seen some deaf people benefiting, while living in this highly supportive and hearing oriented environment. Just think, no more struggles with a telephone, seeking the holy grail of an easily available interpreter, dicing with death, suffering huge frustration while you struggle to call an ambulance or undertaker, or even trying to communicate, or endlessly campaigning for access no-one can really afford to give you, now, a hearing and adoptive AAD co-ordinator will do all this for you, but we still need your help.

Next year CIN (An UK TV sponsored telethon), will for the first time ever give over an entire televised evening to D.I.N (Deaf in need), and hope to raise millions to help deaf people participate equally in the hearing society. For the first time EVER on this planet an entire telethon will be given over to nil sound and signed/captioned access, so total awareness, and signing presenters too !

With your help, we can do even more, there are 90,000 deaf people out there desperate to get into mainstream. AAD can prevent deaf introspection, cure depression, reduce isolation, build real bridges of communication, and be a deaf person's real hope and sense of belonging in this world. Please support the AAD Foundation.... you would be silly not to....

Note NO such foundation exists, but wouldn't it be nice to have one....

Alleged Deaf man tasered, now dead.

Deaf man Tazered ? A 61-year-old Halifax County man died Tuesday, a day after police shocked him with a stun gun while he was riding his bike, family members said.

Scotland Neck Police Chief Joe Williams said they received a call Monday night about a man who fell off of his bicycle and injured himself in the parking lot of the BB&T bank, 1001 Main St. The caller was concerned that the man was drunk.

When Officer John Turner arrived, he saw Roger Anthony pedaling away along 10th Street. He followed Anthony in his patrol car, briefly put on his sirens and lights and yelled out of the window for him to stop, but Anthony continued to ride away, police said.

Williams said Turner then saw Anthony take something out his pocket and put it into his mouth. At that time, Turner got out of the car and yelled for Anthony to stop. When Anthony didn't stop, the officer used a stun gun on him, causing him to fall off of his bike.

Anthony was transported to Pitt County Memorial Hospital, where he was declared brain dead, his sister Gladys Freeman said. He was taken off of life support on Tuesday.

Freeman said her brother was disabled, suffered from seizures and had trouble hearing. She said he was riding his bike home from her house on Sunday night. Anthony lived alone in an independent living community.

SOURCE

When Lip-speaking support is Unreasonable.

Much has been made of an deaf diplomat being denied support to do her job, here, is why. We also read of an deaf student in University having sign language support at a cost 5 times his University fees per year, at what point do we deem access is 'Unreasonable' ? Is it access at ANY Price ? Clearly NO !

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (“FCO”) has successfully defended a deaf employee’s claim that it had failed to make reasonable adjustments. The FCO withdrew an offer of a posting to Kazakhstan when the cost of providing the employee with lip speakers became apparent. The combined cost would have been £250,000 - five times the entire annual wage budget of the Kazakhstan embassy and more than twice the cost of similar support that had been provided to the employee at the Polish embassy.

Read Here

Here

Tinnitus sufferer commits suicide...

Father-of-two Robert McIndoe, 52, was unable to sleep for three months after attending a concert that left him with a permanent ringing in his ears. But he was put off and turned away several times by doctors. A letter of referral to a hospital ear, nose and throat specialist finally arrived the day after he is believed to have stabbed himself to death.

His wife Shirley McIndoe told the hearing that the day after he went to see the band Them Crooked Vultures last July, her husband was ‘cross with himself’ for not taking ear plugs. She said: ‘When it first happened he wasn’t too bothered about it because he thought it would subside, and the friend he had been with also had ringing in his ears that day. ‘But it was a constant irritation. He didn’t get a night of sleep after that.’
Mr McIndoe, a management consultant and a keen guitarist, visited his GP surgery three times and was referred to see an ear, nose and throat specialist at King’s College Hospital in London.

But when he went to the hospital, he was told it had no specialists in the field.

Read more

More Deaf club closures...

Following the pattern of many welsh deaf clubs, yet more English deaf clubs are set to go, Middlesbrough the latest... The closure of a deaf centre in Middlesbrough would have a devastating effect on the lives of its users, it has been claimed. Middlesbrough Deaf Centre has been earmarked for closure as part of the council’s wide-ranging cost-cutting plan.

More than 80 people attended a highly-charged public meeting at the centre in Park Road South yesterday to discuss the proposal. Dave Walker, a user of the facilities, speaking through signing, said: “I was born and bred in Boro - for over 65 years and what people need to realise is that there are two worlds. “There’s the hearing world and the deaf world. Moving us out of our world and just telling us to get around in the hearing world is not simple. It’s not helpful and it’s not what we want.

“Splitting us up would be like you moving to Nepal and just when you started feeling part of the only English speaking club, finding out the club could close or move to another part of the country - and without any language skills you have to find your own way there.” Brenda Moore, whose 93-year-old aunt, Marjorie Johnson, uses the centre, said: “Shutting this centre will shut people out of the only world they know.”

Read More

Patti Durr, arrests unconstitutional...

An RIT professor who was arrested as part of the Occupy Rochester protests is calling these arrests unconstitutional. As someone who is partially deaf, Patti Durr, of Brighton, also feels that police weren’t properly equipped to deal with deaf individuals.

Durr said that the Rochester Police Department handcuffed her from behind.

“It should be protocol to handcuff deaf individuals from the front to allow for signing. I had requested this numerous times as did others on my behalf to no avail,” she said.

Rochester Police Department Public Information Officer Stephen Scott said that protocol for all arrests is to put the hands behind the person who is arrested. Scott said that this is done even for deaf individuals because it is a safety issue.

Durr added that the jail is not equipped with a videophone and that she was not allowed to use her phone to text her husband to come and bail her out.

“Instead I had to depend on someone in the jail to call my house for me because they only had a TTY (Text Telephone), which is outdated, and hardly any deaf people have TTY's in their home anymore,” she said.

According to Monroe County Sheriff's Office spokesman John Helfer: "The TTY has been the industry standard for many years and is still widely used."

SOURCE/MORE

Video relay restrictions, CRAZY !

Video telephonic relay access campaigns rumble on, but is universal access for the BSL user unlikely to be universally adopted unless the deaf pay for it themselves ? or at best such a service would be barely used and restricted to being pointless ? Who meets the cost ? Where is the broadband to deliver ? and who pays to offer these services to vast parts of the UK that cannot access the service BB speeds required ?

There are rural areas here STILL on dial up parity. Will it be a service only city areas can use ? Where will they get interpreters ? off the street ? So many questions, so much expence so little response in the shape of answers.... and worse NO surveys of potential uptake. Even a tiered system of video relay access creating an have, and have not, access for the deaf ?

The 1:1 system (Which isn't VRS), will be expensive, VERY expensive. Technically not an vital service to access emergency or medical help, who monitors content to filter out potential abuse ? What child protection is in place ? we haven't seen any mentioned...... Ms Daniels claim it is penny pinching, the fact is calls would cost an minimum of £3 ($1.9), a minute, Skype and other areas online FREE..... BB speeds to make the system function effectively, do not exist in many areas...... It requires an telephonic cabling most still do not have. Unrestricted access costs to be met by.... whom ? I trust parents of deaf children have deep pockets since they need the equipment too...

PLANS for a hi-tech service enabling deaf youngsters to talk on the phone were last night at risk from “penny-pinching” telecom chiefs.

The video relay link, in which users with a computer and webcam see messages delivered by a sign language interpreter, is due to go nationwide next year. But regulator Ofcom wants to limit monthly usage to just 30 minutes per per month. It says the four telecom giants fear they will have to pass the “substantial” cost of their own scheme on to other consumers – just days after they posted record quarterly profits of nearly £1.12billion.

But even its top estimate of £113million a year for the service represents less than two weeks’ profits for BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Sky combined. The National Deaf ­Children’s Society branded the snub to Britain’s 45,000 deaf youngsters “penny-pinching and preposterous”. Chief executive Susan Daniels said the companies were not meeting their legal obligation of “equal access” for the deaf. She added: “The cost of this link is a drop in the ocean compared with their profits.”

Student Sonia Choudhary, 16, of East London, would be hit by the move. She said: “The only ­telephone I can use is my mobile to text. This link could let deaf young people using British Sign Language like me make any phone call.

“Limiting it to 30 minutes a month is just crazy.”

Read more

Deaf Teen confesses to stabbing by text...

A deaf teenager has admitted repeatedly stabbing a 12-year-old boy in an attack in Ayrshire.

Gareth Young, 16, pleaded guilty to attempted murder after the attack on the boy - who cannot be named for legal reasons - in Kilwinning in June.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard how Young - who also comes from Kilwinning - wrote his confession on his phone and showed it to police.

Sentence was deferred until Monday 12 December.

Advocate Depute Andrew Brown QC, prosecuting, told the court that Young pounced on the victim and his friend after they had sneaked out of a house in Kilwinning just after midnight on 19 June.

As Mr Brown addressed the court, a sign language expert stood in court translating the proceedings for the benefit of Young.

Mr Brown said the boy will face lifelong psychological trauma as a consequence of being attacked.

The prosecutor said the boy had six stab wounds to his body.

One wound led to a loop of intestine extruding from his abdomen and another wound to his chest led to a collapsed lung.

Young was taken to Saltcoats Police office at 04:50 and he typed a message on to his mobile phone which he then showed to the police officers.

The officers noticed that the accused had typed the message: "I hide my knife and shoes and jacket cupboard in my house."

The police then went back to Young's house and found the weapon used in the attack.

Spot the Difference

The original idea for 4 deaf Yorkshireman perhaps ?



2006

Four Deaf Yorkshiremen



Released 2007

Deafness, a listening problem ?

Surprising the things you can come across online. This blurb uses 'Listening Disability' to describe some children with hearing LOSS.

Listening to speech requires hearing. All in all these people are not alone in misleading the populace on deaf or hard of hearing people, they should know better. An inability to hear, is NOT an inability to listen, it depends on the communication. Time they clearly identified those with an inability or issue of concentration or retention and not we are all "Deaf to reason," or worse, not attempting to listen.

Listen is relative a term, as most depend on visuals not sound. Don't know why we bother to raise awareness..... What they describe is THIS which can affect anyone deaf OR hearing. An inability to listen is also misleading, and in part derogatory to deaf, and readers unaware of what they are actually saying, will assume, "Deaf never listen". That is an very negative image of deaf people.

Quote: "Parents of deaf children find themselves in a difficult position when they try to find appropriate schools for their youngsters. There are very few schools available to cater for children with a listening disability."

This comes via an department of the Carel du Toit School in Bloemfontein, situated at a National Hospital.

SOURCE & MORE

Testing, Testing ?

Do or die for UK signed relay systems ?

Sign Video blurb: SignVideo is pleased to announce the signing of a trial with BT providing their deaf customers, for the first time, access to their customer services from anywhere in the UK. This will be delivered through our innovative web based solution - BSL Live.

BSL Live is our unique cloud application that connects deaf people, unable to use the phone with customer contact centres via an on-line interpreter. It works in conjunction with web-cams and enables communication to flow in real-time over the two links - the on-line video link and the phone line.

Warren Buckley, managing director customer service, BT, said: ‘We hope that the trial will make it easier for our customers who prefer to communicate in BSL to contact us. BT is determined to be inclusive and we hope that through this trial, the innovative use of technology will mean that deaf people need no longer suffer the frustration that can occur when trying to manage their communications services.’

Customers can access the new contact facility via bt.com. They will be connected to the SignVideo Translation Service and a BSL interpreter will make the connection to BT’s customer-services. The interpreter will then relay BSL to voice and vice versa. Customers will need to have a computer with video capability and broadband. The call will be free of charge, as it is to any BT customer-service number and it will be available Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm.

The REALLY important small print.

The service will be promoted amongst the deaf community for a six month trial and it will be testing whether BSL access to customer services will really work and that customers will want to use it.

Signvideo

Article link

Wales has NO system to test

13yr old Singer provides BSL access.

Help for Heroes, and access for the Deaf.

A YOUNG singer has impressed the judges with her heartfelt song about life as a soldier.

Heather Cameron-Hayes from Winkfield Row, has made it through to the under-16 area final of OpenMic UK when she performed Frontline in support of people who have served in the armed forces.

The 13-year-old is planning to sell copies of the song to raise money for the charity Help for Heroes and is hoping to generate more support when she performs at the southern area final in Portsmouth on November 27.

Heather, who performed Frontline at the OpenMic UK regional final on Ocober 30 in Aldershot along with a British sign language interpreter, said: "I am so pleased to have got to the next round, it is just amazing.

"The publicity from being in OpenMic UK will raise so much awareness for Help for Heroes as well as the deaf community. I decided to use a BSL interpreter

and try and open up my song 'Frontline' to the deaf community as many people who serve in the armed forces suffer problems with their hearing."

SOURCE

Re-Branding for Deaf Charities....

How I do it......... (And save a shed-load of cash too....)

Sign language clips from NHS not captioned ?

Yet advertised via SIGN HEALTH because lip-reading is 'less effective', so what happens if you are deaf and DON'T sign? or are NOT able to lip-read an deaf translator of BSL ? most 'Deaf' signers are unable to be lip-read at all, they form few if any words orally.

It looks like sacrificing one form of access for another late deaf won't understand. It's not as if they have EVER put up an lip-spoken video anyway. Does nobody else see the weird understanding some people have of deaf awareness or communications ? Why isn't it a given ALL signed videos carry captions ? Especially those designed to INFORM, this is PUBLIC INFORMATION awareness but focused on one sector of deaf only, and they are not offering the rest access. Which I think is a poor show from SIGN HEALTH and the NHS who should be ignoring 'selective' access demands..

What it means in reality is late deaf and hard of hearing have to go back to the NHS and make another plea for access, for the same information, when £10,000 has already been spent elsewhere and they are unlikely to get it. when WILL these people start acting in unison ? I think they need to understand even BSL users need captions too. You expect a shop that sells cabbages not to understand needs, you do not expect the NHS or SIGN HEALTH to be totally unaware of near 9 million people. It looks deliberate. I suggest the NHS is violating access laws by its non-provision of captioning.

Report: "Deaf people from this month (November, 2011) onwards are being given access to important health information in British Sign Language (BSL) thanks to a partnership between SignHealth and NHS Choices.

Supported by Tesco Charity Trust, the healthcare charity for Deaf people has created the clips to give Deaf men and women access to information about cancers, diabetes and heart disease.

Steve Powell, Chief Executive of SignHealth, said: “We are targeting some of the nation’s biggest health-related killers and have produced the BSL video clips with NHS Choices, which were very kindly funded by a £10,000 grant from Tesco Charity Trust.

“For many Deaf people English is not their first language and health information often contains words and concepts that are complex and unfamiliar.”

However adept they are at lip reading, a Deaf person will rarely take in the full detail of a discussion.

Steve added: “This is the first time that Deaf sign language users will be able to access information on the NHS Choices website.

“We have covered topics on breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung cancer and prostate cancer in these first film clips. They have been launched on the video section of the NHS Choices website, www.nhs.uk* and will also be launched on our website, www.signhealth.org.uk."

“The five health areas were chosen because they affect a lot of people in the UK. NHS Choices produced the scripts for the topics and once these were agreed, Remark!, which is the largest Deaf-run and Deaf-led film company in the UK, did the filming.”

Late deafened screwed by equality again !

UK Lip-Reading Bill dumped ?

Looks like the UK Parliament aren't interested in validating lip-reading as an essential skill. Why isn't lip-reading classed as an essential means of communicating, and sign language is ?

Background Proposal: A Bill to require lip-reading to be classified as an essential skill for the purpose of skills funding; to require the Secretary of State to ensure that people who are deaf or hard of hearing have access to lip-reading classes provided by local learning providers at no cost to the learner; and for connected purposes.

Response: The Bill was not moved for debate on 4 November 2011. The order to read the Bill a second time has lapsed. There is no indication when the Bill will progress further.

LINK

Back to the drawing Board ?

When do we need Hearing Aids ?

Depends on to what degree you loss of hearing is, is one suggestion I read recently. It isn't a plug for sign language, but a look at those with hearing loss who want more and more powerful aids despite them contributing to more hearing loss and even Tinnitus onset as an side issue.

It is many years since I was able to benefit personally at all from a hearing aid, mostly in my time you would be better off at that time not wearing the NHS free ones, which were crude amplifiers and not much else. I am told today's digital and all singing, all-dancing hearing aids, are a step forward but there are still a few around that really depend on amplifying sound and are not discerning, whilst our newspapers are still allowing adverts for 'Miracle Amplifiers' that allow you to hear a whisper 100 feet away, yeah..... right !!!

When I had hearing I couldn't do that, (Why would anyway whisper at you knowing you have hearing loss at that distance ?) maybe you want to listen to others talking without them knowing !! There was a debate by an deaf charity recommending powerful aids as I recall, and they were condemned for it, mostly the issue is US at ground level. We need to be informed what we are NEVER going to really hear and balance it with what we might be able to, and get an aid and attitude that is with this premise. Why anyone gets issued an aid without appropriate counselling is a mystery. Or, that private providers of aids aren't monitored and include counselling too. Basically they will sell you whatever they can and advertise you get your hearing back ...... at a price.

No place for a free market in that respect I think, it's promoting false hope, and dare I suggest is illegal advertising too ? We know there isn't an aid or an operation that will ever do that, and the only cures held out as possible mean neither. The issue is one of realism and acceptance, a lot of those with hearing loss are simply too terrified to accept loss and grab as may straws as are apparently available. As our hearing gets worse we abuse volume controls to compensate, we turn up TV's, radios, ipods, car sound systems, amplify telephones, whatever.... which effectively hastens hearing loss by noise damage, certainly older aids contributed to tinnitus too. As for silence making tinnitus worse, this is not really true, many profound deaf people manage quite well, and not a high percentage of them have tinnitus either, it's one of those assumptions.

The issue is only in as much as people tend to over-focus, especially on Tinnitus, the key as ever is to use whatever means that are available to distract you from that inwardly focusing, because overdoing that creates stress, which is catch 22 and can make tinnitus worse and peace of mind less likely. It's attitude, acceptance, and a realisation no aid is really going to make you hear as you used to. As one charity was quoting recently, 3 MILLION of people in the UK will not even accept they need an aid.

(How do they now ? anyway...). The next issue is then to Identify which aids suit, which aids won't and prevent adverts that promise what they cannot deliver. Manufacturers are hoping our fear of deafness will keep them in business aren't they ? It's worked the last 50 years....

Captions can violate Copyright.

Will this mean those that attempt to improve poor captioning (Or even provide captions for the deaf where they don't exist ?), will face an legal challenge preventing that ?

The Federal Communications Commission is in the process of implementing the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. Passed by Congress last year, the CCVA requires the FCC revise its rules to mandate closed captioning on IP television, and the Commission is running a proceeding on how to implement the law. Not surprisingly, copyright questions are coming up fast in discussions between the agency and video providers, especially when it comes to enhancing captions in various ways.

Under the FCC's proposal, video programming distributors and providers "would not be required to improve caption quality," the agency's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking explains. "[R]ather, they would be required to ensure that the quality of captions does not decline when delivered via IP as compared to when shown on television. To the extent that VPDs/VPPs have permission to alter captions on the programming so that they improve the viewing experience, we propose that they be permitted to do so."

But some IP video distributors and their representative trade associations insist that intellectual property restrictions require the FCC to tread gingerly on this requirement. Expressions of caution have been submitted by AT&T and Microsoft. Here is the National Association of Broadcaster's commentary on the matter:

"'[E]ncouraging' captioners to provide high-quality captions (a goal fully supported by NAB and its members) should not be confused with a rule that would impose a quality mandate," the NAB notes. "To the extent the Commission takes any action regarding performance objectives, it should establish a safe harbor by which a covered entity that uses the same or substantially the same captioning used on television will be deemed in compliance."

In various contexts, VPDs would be unable to provide captions better than those available on television "because any alteration to the captions would violate the VPOs [video programming owners] copyright to those captions."

SOURCE & MORE

Let's Be Friends

Takes a Kid to say it...