IP Clips-Captioning Order in Flux
The language of a draft order that would require closed captions for Internet video clips remained in flux on the FCC’s eighth floor, said industry and agency officials in interviews Tuesday. The IP clips closed captioning item is set for a vote at the FCC monthly meeting Friday. Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office is still considering possible changes to the language of the item requested by the Republican commissioners’ offices, said an FCC official. The length of a “grace period” for companies to post time-sensitive clips, how those clips should be defined, and what aspects of the rule may be deferred to an further rulemaking are all under discussion, said an industry attorney and FCC officials.
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Despite the back and forth, FCC and industry sources expect the draft order to be approved. All three Democrat members of the FCC are seen as supporting captions for online video clips (CD Feb 21 p5), and an FCC official said the requested edits from other offices don’t involve much change to the substance of the clips item. An industry attorney pointed to a recent blog post by Wheeler on the issue as a sign that he feels secure the item will be approved. The IP clips captioning item is also slated to be the first on the agenda for Friday’s meeting, a position not usually occupied by controversial issues, an FCC official said. A spokeswoman for the Media Bureau, which wrote the draft item, had no immediate comment Tuesday.
Broadcasters and consumer groups were filing dueling ex parte filings on the draft order as the sunshine period on the item began Monday, in docket 11-154. The order shouldn’t require video programming distributors to track and remove uncaptioned advanced or time sensitive clips with their captioned versions, NAB’s filing said (http://bit.ly/TR1b5q). Such a clause “would present an extraordinary resource burden and would act as a deterrent to providing these types of clips online,” NAB said. “For the purposes of linking and aggregating, there will likely be numerous journalistic reasons why one version of a clip (uncaptioned) may be retained on a programmer’s website at the same time” another is added, NAB said. The commission should reject that argument, said a joint filing (http://bit.ly/1mG0dpG) from consumer groups representing those with hearing impairments, including Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. “The Commission should not base any policy judgments on this unsupported and vague speculation."
The commission also shouldn’t apply captioning quality standards to online clips, or hold third-party licensees responsible for online clip captions, NAB said in its last ex parte filing on the matter. “Ensuring that online video clip captions play correctly, and meet any applicable quality standards, is difficult enough given the many variables that exist with online video vendors, different Internet browsers, and content delivery networks.” That “appears to suggest that no one should be responsible when a clip is hosted by a third-party website -- an untenable state of affairs,” said the consumer groups. They conceded that “deaf and hard of hearing consumer groups are open to discussing the contours of an appropriate responsibility model."
Most aspects of the draft order remain largely unchanged since last week (CD July 3 p1), said FCC and industry officials. They have said the captioning rules would apply to clips of any length that previously aired on TV, with “straight-lift” clip requirements going into effect in 2016 and a year later for montages. -- Monty Tayloe (mtayloe@warren-news.com)