While posting some key information on the discussion board at the Facebook Internet Captioning group, a radical thought occurred to me. If people can illegally download software, why not illegally download caption files?? Anyone can use the tools
CCExtractor..ccextractor.sourceforge.net (free) or
CaptionKeeper..ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/captionkeeper/ (not free) to extract captions from media in different formats. Then they can create caption files.
What is there to stop frustrated deaf and hard of hearing people and their hearing friends from creating caption files (in formats like .srt) and posting them secretly to databases that people can download from secretly? Like a CaptionTorrent?
Do we dare rebel against the concept of "intellectual property rights" with regard to closed captions? Do we dare disregard the fact that a company has paid for professional captioning, and go ahead and extract those captions to share online for people to use in captioning the same video in different formats?
Would companies stop paying for professional captioning services if they knew that the captions would be extracted and shared? I don't think so, because the companies are either required to caption (television) or expected to caption (voluntarily on home video, etc).
I guess the radical thought that I am edging closer to is this: Once created, should captions be considered "public domain?" Captions..and descriptive audio...are for accessibility, not for profit. I would love to see a court address that question. If captions could be considered public domain once created regardless of who pays to have them created, that would go a long way towards addressing the inadequacy of captions online and elsewhere!
Intellectual property rights be damned, deaf and hard of hearing people need and deserve access! Caption Action 2!
6 comments:
Unfortunately, the captions are still copyrite; and it would be just as illegal to download the caption files as it would be to download the actual video files, without first licensing.
But, re-read those last three words: "without first licensing"
My suggestion would be to pressure the studios into licensing the (caption file) intellectual property for $1.00.
Violating someone else's IP is theft. You're a professional writer paid to create articles; and I'm sure you wouldn't like it if someone cheated YOU on the income you earned by stealing your own intellectual property.
And I don't like it as a professional photographer when someone steals my photos without paying me, either.
Dan Schwartz
@Hi_Dan on Twitter
Legalities aside, this could be a moral issue.
Denied captions, one could say one has to steal the material to put them on his own material that he purchased in another format. That would only apply if the captions were from the same source as the purchased material.
Would Netflix, for example, then feel that they could ignore captioning on downloads? "Let 'em eat cake, they can get it anyway."
Or, like in the case of food, a starving person still has no right to steal it when he has access to soup kitchens, food stamps, and food pantries that give it away free.
DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING CAN'T HEAR THAT BEHIND CC ON THE SHOWS. BECAUSE THEY CAN'T HEAR SO THEY CAN USE THE CC. THEY CAN READ WITH CC.
YES... WHY NOT?? YOU CAN REQUEST TO PRESIDENT OBAMA ABOUT CC ADVOCATE. PLEASE SIGN AND PASS BY THE LAW. DEAF COMMUNITY NEED CC WHAT THEY SAY AND CAN READ.
OR
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION. WHAY DO YOU THINK??
THANKS
I already download subtitles for all the serial TV shows I follow. I only make the exception of avoiding pay channel shows (HBO, Showtime, and etc..). I download anything that's readily available on Network TV or on basic cable because I already pay for basic cable. My justification is that those network websites do not always have captions and choppy video play back.
Check out: www.tvsubtitles.net
Works well with all torrents I download, sometimes the timing is off..and I have to use subtitle workshop to correct the time delays...
http://www.divxsubtitles.net/ offers a lot of subtitles also, and some guides and links on how to use them.
http://dvd-subtitles.com/ gives ratings on DVD subtitling.
Good question. You might consider that users are already creating and sharing caption files, and they're doing so out in the open too. On sites such as http://subscene.com/, http://tvsubtitles.net/, and http://www.subtitlesource.org/, users are sharing caption files in multiple languages. These sites are popular because of a desire among the (mostly hearing) user base to make subtitles available in multiple languages (including English). Crowdsourcing is driving the creation of a massive database of caption files. These sites are much easier to use than CCExtractor, which can be buggy and slow. I'd encourage those who support the effort to make the web more accessible to deaf/HoH people to take note of the robust community of subtitlers who are not strictly motivated by a desire to make video accessible so much as a desire to make video available in multiple languages. The result is sometimes not ideal for deaf viewers who usually want more than the dialogue captioned, but it may be sufficient in some cases and is certainly something worth building on.
The legality of downloading caption files in this way is a whole 'nother matter. I simply wanted to call your attention to these sites because your post suggested you weren't aware of them.
Sean
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