Do Captioning Advocates Dare Do This?

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!

Is the Deaf Community Out of Patience?

And if they are, who can blame them? After waiting for two years for Netflix to add captions to its streamed media, the reaction to Netflix's public statement that they will have captions on their streamed media in "about a year." I admit to feeling some impatience myself because a year seems like a long time! The older you are, the longer a year seems to be.

Here is a sampling of the reaction thus far via Facebook, blogs, and Twitter:

On the Facebook group Netflix Watch-Instantly Needs Closed Captions! someone wrote that they had called to complain, and the people they spoke to seemed "irritated."

On Twitter, @deafpundit writes: might have to make Silverlight more stable for #captions, but a year to do that? Rubbish. @queenalpo wrote: Excuses, excuses. @jaredevans wrote: Silverlight is just a programming platform. It can support captions if you develop it. @jaredevans also wrote: I'm still digesting the Netflix response. One year isn't a reasonable time frame to get started with a few movies captioned.

Marlee Matlin especially seems to be out of patience with Netflix. She has been tweeting her heart out on Twitter, beseeching her 10,000 plus followers to pressure Netflix to add captions to their streaming media (thanks Marlee!).

On Netflix's own blog, the comments clearly reflect the impatience: People urging Netflix to dump Silverlight (which is not likely to happen because Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, is on Microsoft's board!) ; people claiming that the technology already exists to make Silverlight caption-capable, and even complaints from hearing people who want the captions.

In the deaf blogosphere (so far):

Give us a better answer, Netflix. Not looking at the gift horse in the mouth, but the fact you’re letting your own “constraints” affect customer service. - from Meryl Evans

Even the hearing blogosphere seems to reflect some impatience with Netflix:

If Hulu [Hulu uses Flash, not Silverlight] could figure out how to do it, Netflix can. If they didn’t want to re-encode everything, they should have solved this earlier. - Digital Media Bytes

If the deaf community is upset now, just wait until a year from now if Netflix doesn't keep its announced commitment. Meanwhile, the issue is actually broader than just Netflix! We need legislation to mandate captions on the Internet. To promote THAT objective as well as the Netflix objective and helping Hulu to expand their captioning, a companion Facebook group has been set up with a discussion board: Internet Captioning.

Update: Tonight Robert suggested that we adopt the name Caption Action 2 for our fight for captioning on the Internet. The first Caption Action, in late 80s, was for captions on home video. Now it is 2009 and time for another Caption Action - but this time, call it Caption Action 2.