Re: [171] accessible rebroadcasts

>Not sure if it is worded well, but I THINK the idea was...
>
>That if web access requirements are GREATER than broadcast requirements,
>that broadcast requirements should be enough if you are just rebroadcasting.
>- if broadcast is captioned - you would need to pass captions through (as
>you suggest below)

It's a no-backsliding rule:

For audiovisual materials that originate in a medium where a 
percentage of programming must be captioned or described, those 
materials, when presented online, must meet or exceed the 
requirements of the original medium. Audiovisual materials that meet 
accessibility requirements in their original medium, particularly 
requirements for quantity or quality of captioning or description, 
will conform to Level [X] when presented online.

>By the way, the working group is having a lot of difficulty with this
>checkpoint in determining where captions and descriptions would be REQUIRED
>since this is a CORE technique and violation would mean that you can claim
>nothing.  ANY and all input and thoughts on this are welcome.

No captions for audio-only feeds even if they're nothing but voice. I 
don't want WAI essentially invalidating net radio. Compact discs 
don't have to be made accessible to the deaf because their sound 
contents have no visual component, but music videos must be captioned 
because they do have a visual component. The same principle applies 
here.

I think we need to bite the bullet and say that every piece of online 
video that contains a soundtrack (I could think of very unusual 
exceptions) must be captioned. But I think that guideline could be 
implemented differently. I think there should be a two-year grace 
period before it kicks in. Until that point, providing any amount of 
captioned video on a site would qualify you. After that point, all 
new video must be posted with captions. The no-backsliding rule could 
supersed that requirement in limited cases.

*However*, it should be permissible to post an uncaptioned version 
for a short or "reasonable" time while the captions are being 
prepared. The CBC News Online example does this-- uncaptioned clip 
first, captioned clip later. It all gets posted the same day. It's 
unequal, but the inequality is not, in my opinion, important in all 
cases.

No audiovisual content should be categorically exempted from 
description, but some could be considered higher priority than others.

Where a medium has no primitives for captioning and/or description, 
those should not be required. That applies to Flash at the moment, 
for example. One could argue that open captions or open descriptions 
could always be provided everywhere. But while I feel and can readily 
demonstrate that those are generally the better way to go online 
(Magpie notwithstanding), if the technical format doesn't support 
accessibility we shouldn't encourage people to develop myriad 
homegrown kludges.

I could think of a few other issues, but not today.
-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
     Weblogs and articles <http://joeclark.org/weblogs/>
     <http://joeclark.org/writing/> | <http://fawny.org/>

Received on Friday, 20 June 2003 17:39:36 UTC