Bob Schwartz wrote:
First a disclaimer:
heheheh I had to have my rant off-list before I could respond !:)
How and why did the web get singled out from among all of the other
"publishing" mediums to be "by law" accessible?
It hasn't.
Why aren't book, magazine, and newspaper publishers "required" to
produce an audio or braille version of everything they publish?
Why aren't TV broadcasters and movie production companies "required" to
sub-title all of their broadcasts or films, or have an "off screen
reader" describing the scenes?
My question to Helen Coonan was "Why aren't DVDs sold in Australia
required to have captions?" I got a half-arsed response from both Helen
Coonan and Philip Ruddock. Their response was "it's up to the
manufacturers" which is a totally cop out answer, because they know, as
do all of us, things only ever happen in Australia when it's legislated.
You might think captions on a DVD is a silly thing to enfore: here is a
test for you. Go into your local video rental place, and check out the
Australiana shelf. What percentage of those are captioned?
THEN go onto Amazon.com and see whether or not the same film released
for the US audience has captions.
Guess what region encoding that DVD from the US has? Guess what region
encoding is enforced upon us? Doesn't match, does it? Therefore, those
that need captions on Australian films can't have it -- although they
can see it on AMazon.com -- because of region encoding.
It's a nasty little catch 22.
And I still didn't avoid my rant.
Isn't saying one can't (shouldn't) use, for example, a popup window on a
web site because screen readers have trouble with them, like telling
Hollywood they can't (shouldn't) use certain special effects because the
"off screen reader" would have trouble explaining them to a blind person?
No, it's like telling the Australian Film Industry to stop being such
discriminatory wankers and ensure they have captions on their Australian
releseasd DVDs.
Kat
Who doesn't watch Australian movies because the lack of captions
isolates a family member who needs them.
*******************************************************************
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*******************************************************************
