Re: EME impact on accessibility

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for that. Thinking about it though, there is nothing stopping people developing those types of features with (and for) non-DRM content.

The issue would be that you then couldn’t apply the features to DRM content without the publisher and/or platform building it in. Perhaps without that, you might not try creating it in the first place. As many people have said, the purpose of DRM is to prevent tampering & competition rather than copying.

It is still very difficult to see the practical impact on accessibility though, as these features haven’t been forthcoming before EME either.

Cheers,

-Alastair


From: Jonathan Avila


Hi Alistair, I agree this puts us in a tricky situation as we cannot conceive all of the possible research that might happen in this field.  In addition to the items in your list (some of which I have raised questions on) I also think tools can be created that might also buffer video and detect flashing content and hide the video reduce luminance etc. to reduce issues cases with flashing content.  There are some many aspects of automation and other accessibility features beyond captions and audio description that we need a way to modify the stream but do it in a verified and agreed upon way.   Just as approved user agents can decrypt and render with keys there should be a way for researchers to test these new accessibility concepts and create features that could be certified or approved to assist but still protect copyright holders.

Jonathan