Google, MPAA Disagree on Who Should be Responsible for IP Captions
Google and Microsoft continue to take a different view than the MPAA on whose duty it ought to be to ensure subscription-video and broadcast TV programming is captioned when it’s sent online using Internet Protocol. The companies and the association reported in docket 11-154 (http://xrl.us/bmjc36) on meetings with staffers in the FCC bureaus working on an order to require such captions. Internet companies want the responsibility for ensuring traditional video programming is captioned when it goes online to lie with video program owners, while those representing VPOs, including the MPAA, want the responsibility to be with TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors.
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The issue of responsibility is one thing FCC officials in the Media and Consumer & Governmental Affairs bureaus are said (CD Nov 23 p3) by industry and agency officials to be considering in working toward an order. Executives from the cable industry and from makers of consumer electronics also visited the commission last week to discuss captioning and video devices. Fixed media players, packaged media and applying the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act to video clips and outtakes were raised with staff from the two bureaus by representatives of Adobe, Apple and Panasonic, the Information Technology Industry Council recounted (http://xrl.us/bmjc45). Those companies are members of the council.
"Google would prefer that captions be required on all television content provided as online video, with exceptions only where mandated by regulations,” the company said of its FCC meeting (http://xrl.us/bmjc25). The agency should finalize a proposal from a rulemaking notice to require program owners that give content to distributors for IP delivery “provide program files containing captions, or to certify why captions are not required,” the Internet company said: It’s “critical” that the program owner “assume responsibility for providing captions in the first instance.” Microsoft continued to back (CD Oct 20 p4) the thrust of the rulemaking notice, while the MPAA still wants the commission to depart from the September NPRM.
"Because there exists a captioning regulatory framework that has functioned successfully for more than a decade” without regulating content creators, the rules proposed in the notice would “impose a greater burden on free speech than is necessary,” MPAA said (http://xrl.us/bmjc7b). “Even if the government has an important interest in ensuring that hard-of-hearing Americans can access online television content, First Amendment principles and jurisprudence require that the government not impose a burden on speech that is more extensive than essential to achieve the governmental interest.” Spokespeople for Google and the MPAA had no comment.
Microsoft believes the rulemaking “properly assigns responsibility for providing captions to VPOs,” the company reported (http://xrl.us/bmjc6g) executives told staff of the two bureaus. “VPOs are in the best position to assess whether captions are required since they are likely to have knowledge of whether a program was shown on television.” Distributing televised content online “even to a single viewer may involve many” video programming distributors/providers “transmitting programming across a complex chain,” the company said. “In contrast, there are a very small number of VPOs per program that have the legal right to insert captions, and that legal right is vital since, contrary to the suggestions of some in this proceeding, the addition of captions would be a copyright violation."
The FCC shouldn’t regulate video equipment cable operators lease to subscribers when it implements the legislation, the NCTA recounted (http://xrl.us/bmjc5m) its executives told staff from both bureaus. “MVPD responsibility for leased devices used in connection with its traditional cable service should continue to be governed by the existing rules,” the association said. “Regulating leased devices under the Commission’s Section 203 authority would be unnecessary and duplicative and create uncertainty around which entity, the MVPD or the manufacturer of the leased device, is responsible for compliance with the rules.” NCTA said a cable operator might provide an application to view authenticated TV programming on a PC, where the application decodes captions and renders them for viewing. “In other cases, the operator might provide a different application that may pass through the captions to be decoded and rendered in the device,” NCTA said. “An application created for TV Everywhere to be used on an Apple iPad passes through the captions, which are rendered using elements in the iPad."
Google explained to the FCC what it called the “challenges” of determining whether video uploaded to its YouTube website was originally broadcast on TV and subject to captioning rules. “When Google asks premium content partners who upload broadcast videos to YouTube to also upload captions, they generally decline or indicate that doing so is too difficult and time consuming, particularly for content produced more than five years ago,” the company said. “Often, they have no idea how the original content was captioned for broadcast or cable, as the responsibility for television captions may lie in an entirely separate business unit which has no connection to the digital distribution arm.”