FCC Shouldn't Impose New Rules for IP Clip Captioning, Say NAB and NCTA

filing, a host of consumer groups representing the hearing impaired disagree. Despite objections to the additional rules, “no commenter seriously disputes the immense public benefits of ensuring that consumers who are deaf or hard of hearing can access IP-delivered video clips on equal terms,” said the filing by National Association for the Deaf, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and other groups. To make sure IP clip caption rules don’t have unintended consequences, the FCC “must allow its recently appointed rules to take effect and study their impact before considering expanding the scope,” NAB said. Proposed additional rules requiring captioning for third party clips would be a “vast expansion” and extremely challenging, NAB said, echoing comments from NCTA. “In contrast to the relatively limited number of distribution channels for full-length programming, the number of potential online outlets for clips is virtually unlimited,” NCTA said, saying that within a few hours of last weeks Antares rocket explosion, a Google search for footage of the explosion returned 3.6 million hits on a wide variety of websites. No individual third-party providers have filed comments opposing the proposed clip caption rules, the consumer groups said. “The lack of apparent concern by affected providers should assuage any concerns over the impact of a nominal requirement to render captions for video clips owned by an entity other than the third-party provider itself."