9th Circuit Rules Netflix Isn't Subject To Disability Law 278
An anonymous reader writes with news that the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has ruled that Netflix doesn't have to caption their videos. "A federal appeals court ruled (PDF) yesterday that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) doesn't apply to Netflix, since the online video provider is 'not connected to any actual, physical place.' Donald Cullen sued Netflix in March 2011, attempting to kick off a class-action lawsuit on behalf of disabled people who didn't have full use of the videos because they aren't all captioned. A district court judge threw out his lawsuit in 2013, and yesterday's ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upholds that decision. The decision is 'unpublished,' meaning it isn't intended to be used as precedent in other cases. However, it certainly doesn't bode well for any plaintiff thinking about filing a similar case in the 9th Circuit, which covers most of the Western US."
Not to mention they aren't a monopoly (Score:3)
Hulu has captions. Amazon Prime Video has captions. It's not like you're being completely denied the joys of interwebs TV.
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And to be honest, though my hearing is fine I like having the captions (watch it on phone in bed while wife is sleeping).
They made a new invention called earmuffs and you put them on your wife.
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And to be honest, though my hearing is fine I like having the captions (watch it on phone in bed while wife is sleeping).
They made a new invention called earmuffs and you put them on your wife.
Better yet, how about a nice set of 5.1 surround sound headphones. You get a fun new gadget and she gets a good nights sleep... Win-win....
Re:Not to mention they aren't a monopoly (Score:5, Informative)
Hulu has captions. Amazon Prime Video has captions. It's not like you're being completely denied the joys of interwebs TV.
Netflix has captions too. They are suing because Netflix doesn't have captions on 100% of its programming. As in "they aren't all captioned".
Blame the lawyer surplus.... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are being sued because a lawyer saw a chance to extort money from Netflix. AFAIK this lawyer didn't even have any plaintiffs.
For those that aren't aware we have a HUGE surplus of lawyers in this country. I'd wager better than half the law school graduates these days can't find jobs. What that means in practical terms is that we have a whole lot of lawyers trying to survive by launching lawsuits in "creative" manners. In plain English there are a bunch of sleazy lawyers trying to extort money from anyone they can using their law degrees. You see this in suits like this and the blatant extortion going on in the copyright trolling regime. It doesn't help that the legal profession seems to draw sociopaths to the career.
Expect to see these type of lawsuits all the time for the next decade at least.
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Medical bills in the US are high for a variety of reasons, more expertly laid out than I can here by one of the vlogbrothers [youtube.com]
Most of the reason is your costs.
e.g.
Lipitor, 30 days dosage ; US $124 ; New Zealand $7
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Well, they all look the same to me.
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Shows are required by law to have captioning but they are not required by law to have good captioning. Hence networks taking minimum cost automated voice to text option.
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Netflix also has captions/subtitles. Just not -everything- has it. It's not a deficiency of the service but rather the content.
Take into account that:
a) Most DVD's have "hard" subtitles, so anything from a DVD source is not going to have subtitles on Netflix unless someone goes out of their way to OCR them (like pirates do)
b) Most BD source content has actual "text" subtitles that can be styled, and thus no transcription is required.
You're going to find that Anime will normally have subtitles for the dialog
Re:Not to mention they aren't a monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another way in which illegal file sharers provide a superior product.
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I've not run across anything on Netflix that didn't have titles. The Netflix subtitles are superior to anything I've seen with close captioning or pirated anime.
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Some of the pirate subtitles I've found are quite superior to the on-disc subtitles on a few of my anime movies. I end up ripping the movie off dvd/blu-ray, but adding in the 3rd-party subtitles to the resulting file.
Re: Not to mention they aren't a monopoly (Score:2)
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If it has closed captions. Don't they generally just use DVD bitmaps these days?
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Re:Not to mention they aren't a monopoly (Score:5, Informative)
The actual FCC rule about whether captions are required for streaming depends on two things: when the content originally aired on TV and when the device displaying them was built/updated (so that devices that were built before the rules don't apply). It's actually pretty fair.
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/capt... [fcc.gov]
The lawsuit was basically an attempt by lawyers to apply the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) to Internet closed captions to argue that those reasonable FCC rules aren't enough, and they should "get money" from companies that are really trying as hard as they can to follow the actual rules...
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Netflix also has captions. They're just noton every single thing available from Netflix. The same applies to Hulu or Amazon Prime as well, as it is an additional expense.
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Well I heard this bite tornado stuff also seems to have a pretty extensive library of media available, but probably won't be able to afford that high quality stuff
Amazon has some but not many (Score:2)
Hulu has captions. Amazon Prime Video has captions. It's not like you're being completely denied the joys of interwebs TV.
My experience is that Netflix has a lot more videos with captions than Amazon Prime. Last year I had a girlfriend who spoke English as a second language. Her English was pretty good, but not fluent. She wanted to improve, so sometimes we would stream movies and I would turn on the captions or subtitles (whichever is the right term) if available as she said it helped her. There were several times when both Amazon and Netflix had a movie and only Netflix has the captions. It got so common that basically
Nonprecedential but citable. (Score:3, Informative)
Ninth Circuit unpublished cases issued after 2006 can be cited to. They are not binding precedent, so a court doesn't *have* to follow them and you don't want to cite to them if you don't have to, but they do have a small but important persuasive role where the facts are very similar to a new case.
Re:Nonprecedential but citable. (Score:4, Informative)
Only in number of cases, not percentage. You have to take into account the vast size of the 9th district and the number of cases they take to understand why that often quoted statistic is meaningless.
Re:Nonprecedential but citable. (Score:4, Informative)
The 9th circuit is the largest court with the most cases. So of course it has more overturned. When viewed by percentages they're one of the least overturned courts. The whole "9th is the most overturned court" meme is from Republican wishful thinking trying to downplay importance of cases out of there,
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If a 9th Circuit case goes up for review, it has more of a chance of getting overturned. However, it has a higher rate of cases that are left to stand (not affirmed, not struck down) than the other circuit court. I suppose you could oversimplify by saying that the 9th circuit doesn't blow it that often, but when they do, they REALLY blow it.
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Actually, you need a little more info than you supply. For example, what are you using to determine reversal rate? Reversals of all cases heard by the court, or only those appealed AND heard by SCOTUS?
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/intelprop/magazine/LandslideJan2010_Hofer.authcheckdam.pdf for the full details.
Looking at the 9th Circuit: From FY99 to FY08, they closed 114,199 cases (the largest number of all circuits...the 5th and 11th are distant second and third overall numbers-wis
Re:Nonprecedential but citable. (Score:5, Informative)
Enh... where I'm hesitating here is that the 9th has a reputation as the most overturned court in the nation, and that may have a bearing on the argument also. (Although, IANAL, I believe if a lower decision is upheld, as in this case, it can't be sent to the supreme court, so they can't be overturned here.)
No; the Supreme Court can generally hear cases from Circuit Courts of Appeals or State Supreme Courts (on Federal or Constitutional issues) regardless of which way the case went. The only obvious exceptions are where they lack jurisdiction because there is no genuine "case or controversy" as required by the Constitution, or where Congress has specifically excluded a law or area from being reviewable by them. (Congress has a Constitutionally granted power to do this, with some limitations. It rarely does.)
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Congress has specifically excluded a law or area from being reviewable by them. (Congress has a Constitutionally granted power to do this, with some limitations. It rarely does.)
Can you expand on this? I was pretty sure the only things SCOTUS couldn't review (i.e. they deny themselves the power to review) were Political Question situations and core functions of the other branches, like Congress' internal rulemaking, executive power to conduct foreign relations and make combat decisions, etc.
I was not aware of a constitutional grant of authority for Congress to pass certain laws that were unreviewable by their own say so.
Article III, Section 2 of the constitution specifically provides that "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]
In practice, both the Supreme Court's power t
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There is no such thing as a "binding precedent", just as there is no such way to make a un-unprecedented. Something has either preceded or proceded. Declaring public records and rulings as unpublished is about as whacko-liberal as you get. If you actually live within the 9th ditrict, this probably suits you just fine, but you double-speaking OJ lovers are stewing in your own mess.
FYI, it has nothing to do with liberal v. conservative. "Published" just means "published in the official reporter." Almost all of them are published in the ordinary sense of the word "published."
It has to do with judges either being risk-averse or being pressed for time, or both. You don't have to edit an opinion as thoroughly or be as careful about the implications how you decide the case will have for future cases if future cases won't be decided based on how you decide your case. It also becomes les
Yify (Score:2)
Yify torrents have subtitles and don't cost a dime, piracy FTW once again.
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Yify torrents also have more artifacts than the Smithsonian. It may *technically* be 1080p but it's not fooling anyone.
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Mod parent up. I get better quality from my potato.
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Yify torrents also have more artifacts than the Smithsonian. It may *technically* be 1080p but it's not fooling anyone.
So, just like Netflix, then? Netflix is "best" at low resolutions, where quality is defined as perceived image quality divided by used bandwidth.
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Yify torrents have subtitles and don't cost a dime, piracy FTW once again.
Thanks, but I'm not interested in torrenting furry porn.
Why Netflix ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely the case should be against the film studios that made the films and not Netflix which is just distributing them ?
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Or they should sue the company who made the copper wire that brings the internet to their homes. Makes about as much sense.
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I could be wrong on this, but if the studio captioned the film, wouldn't the film be "hard captioned", where the captioning is part of the image, and can't be turned off? I'm aware that technology has gone beyond this, but that doesn't mean the studios have adopted it.
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What idiot would put hard captions on anything? This is just let another issue with DRM laden rent seeking, I DL a movie and I can get captions for a multitude of languages and often of a higher quality especially for content like anime that has a vibrant culture. Hell at this point it's automated, the fetching of subs in my preferred languages just happens every time a new piece of content is added to my library.
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It's common for movies that are distributed in a country that generally doesn't speak the movie's language, of course. Though they are called subtitles in that case.
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Surely the case should be against the film studios that made the films and not Netflix which is just distributing them ?
According to the film studios, adding subtitles creates a derivative work and the distribution of it a copyright violation, and the person doing it a horrible human being that should be burnt alive after being fined a hundred trillion dollars for damages.
He should have just sued the MPAA instead, then everyone wins! :P
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The customer also pays the cable company (or whoever provides their connection). Why don't they have to answer to this customer grievance?
FCC (Score:2)
Unpublished (Score:5, Informative)
It's unpublished because it wasn't considered consequential. The panel affirmed the judgment without hesitation because existing precedent was crystal clear. Per the unpublished opinion:
We have previously interpreted the statutory term “place of public accommodation” to require “some connection between the good or service complained of and an actual physical place.” See Weyer v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 198 F.3d 1104, 1114 (9th Cir. 2000). Because Netflix’s services are not connected to any “actual, physical place,” Netflix is not subject to the ADA. See id. Therefore, in light of Weyer, Cullen’s ADA-predicated Disabled Persons Act and Unruh Civil Rights Act claims fail as a matter of law. See id.
In other words, the actually interesting case occurred in 2000 where it was decided that there must be a nexus among the good or service, the public accommodation, and a physical place. Your TV or computer might exist in a physical place, but it doesn't constitute a public place of accommodation. If we presume for the sake of argument that Netflix headquarters is a public place of accommodation, that's not where the relevant good or service is provided. All three things must come together for the ADA to apply.
It would suck if the plaintiff won. I love captions, and am glad that Netflix recently added them, but if Netflix lost this case then anybody with a business website would be required to make their site compatible with screen readers, etc. That's a good idea in principle, but to require by law everybody to do that would be insane.
Congress or a regulatory agency can always craft a much more narrowly tailored law which provides the same substantial benefit.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. - would seem to have come to the other conclusion in a somewhat similar case.
Was this under a different section of the ADA - or is this discriminated from in some manner.
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Target has stores, Netflix does not. The Target website was in some way related to the stores, so the lawsuit was tied to a public accomodation.
Re:Unpublished (Score:4, Informative)
In the Target case, the court certified the plaintiff as a class that could initiate a class action suit on the basis that they may have been being discriminated against in the "enjoyment of goods, services, facilities, or privileges". An out-of-court settlement was reached between Target and the plaintiff, so the matter was never settled in court.
The problem? The court handling the Target case is in the 9th Circuit Court's jurisdiction, and the 9th Circuit Court had already established a precedent over this exact same topic [leagle.com] way back in 2000 (if that case looks familiar, it's because it's the same precedent they're citing in the current case). If you look in section II.B, what you'll see is that the 9th asserts the whole "enjoyment" thing only pertains to places of "public accommodation", and that if you understand "public accommodation" in the context in which it was used [gpo.gov], it's abundantly clear that Congress was specifically talking about physical locations (it really is pretty clear...even without being a lawyer, the language is easy to understand). Congress even gave examples, like zoos, restaurants, auditoriums, and laundromats. Notably missing: mail order catalogs, infomercials, or any number of other ways that people might have procured goods and services (that text was written in 1990, so it's understandable that the Internet wouldn't have been mentioned).
Which is to say, the lower court decided that instead of following precedent, they'd ignore it and interpret the ADA text in a way that was both contrary to how the relatively plain and easy to understand language was written by Congress and was also contrary to how the higher court they are under had said it should be interpreted. The judge in the Target case even made comments indicating their interest in seeing the plaintiff's success in the case help extend the law into areas where it hadn't reached before (i.e. places where it wasn't supposed to reach to begin with, a fact which the judge was ignoring). Moreover, had that case been allowed to progress, it would have established a wide-reaching precedent that could have been used to impose ADA restrictions on practically anything and everything, even when it would make no sense to do so.
All of which is to say, whatever precedent might have been set by that court would have been wiped out by the 9th's earlier decision that was completely contrary to theirs. Had Target not settled, I'd wager that they'd have easily won in appeals, since the next court up is the 9th, and they appear to have a better memory for precedent than the lower court does.
Disclaimer: IANAL
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The person ordering doesn't necessarily have to be the person driving the car.
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AFAIK the only people that can control closed captioning are the FCC.
It's a voluntary entertainment service, not access to a vital place. For example, the ADA would come into play for a physical store a disabled person might need because they might not be able to function in society without access. But an entertainment system where there is no "place" and no compelling interest for access means it isn't going to be regulated by the ADA. Though the FCC could step in and apply their own regulations I doubt th
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Though the FCC could step in and apply their own regulations I doubt they would even consider it for non-broadcast access.
Actually, they already have very specific rules for captioning Internet streaming content that Netflix and all other streaming companies follow (the misunderstanding that Netflix "doesn't do captions" is totally wrong - the vasty majority of their content is captioned):
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/capt... [fcc.gov]
This lawsuit was trying to claim that those already extensive rules aren't enough and the ADA requires all content to be captioned. Luckily the courts didn't agree...
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I'm a web developer, and there are already fairly strict requirements about catering for various disabilities if you are writing websites for the public sector (varies by jurisdict
What was Netflix supposed to do about it? (Score:2)
They didn't make those video and they certainly provide a way for content creators to submit captions. Require new releases over certain budget to include captions, but don't expect one company to be responsible for entire entertainment industry.
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
The ADA is horribly abused and has been a gold mine for slimy trial lawyers for years.
So many of their rules are stupid. Take ramps for example, the rules are TWELVE FEET of distance for every FOOT of rise. That's 1/12... By this logic, half the streets in san francisco are in violation of the ADA... that is the fucking hills have grades that are steeper than that. It is stupid.
The ADA should generally be repealed. Most businesses want customers disabled or otherwise to feel comfortable there and use their
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Get in a wheelchair and try wheeling your ass up anything steeper than 1/12. It's not as easy as you seem to think. Oh by the way at 1/10 be careful your chair doesn't tip backwards and land you on your head.
Naturally occurring hills cant be helped. An entry ramp can.
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Naturally occurring hills cant be helped. An entry ramp can.
Wrong. Both are simply an issue of budget and geometry. But sometimes enough is enough.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Naturally occurring terrain isn't regulated by the ADA. Access to a business is.
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they're not naturally occurring hills, they're ROADS on hills. No one says the roads have to go up the hills perpendicular to the peak. You could zig zag the roads or spiral them up the hill. That would give you any grade you wanted.
As to you landing on your ass at 1/10... so for four feet of rise you expect me to build you 48 feet of ramp. I would sooner carry you into the store/restaurant myself and place you in your chair of choice.
If my offer to personally carry you into the establishment is not suffici
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Given that business owners are routinely forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to comply or sued millions for not complying and then forced to pay for the remodel on top of that... you can jam that comment in sideways.
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Except for restaurants have been literally carrying wheel chairs into establishments for years. It was a common thing to do. A guy would show up in a wheel chair, 4 waiters would go out there, each grab a corner, and carry him up the stairs. Many wheel chairs used to have handles there specifically for this purpose.
And that ignores the fact that a pretty steep ramp is totally reasonable if someone is pushing you up it. Which is something any establishment would be happy to help with. I've never known a busi
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Naturally occurring hills cant be helped.
What? Who told you that? You can't do much about it for new construction, but you absolutely can address it for new. You can make laws stating that roads shall be on grades no steeper than X, and then require that any roads be constructed such that they avoid any grades steeper, even if that means taking a longer route and spending more on construction. And this is precisely what the ADA does, except on a smaller scale. What exactly causes you to imagine that we can't do it on a larger one?
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I would never be so self absorbed and entitled to suggest that the entire world should mold itself to my disabilities.
The number of places that have spent tens of thousands to have these ramps in place and yet not had a single disabled customer are legion.
if there were any kind of disabled traffic going on, that would be one thing. But when there isn't, you're asking me to shell out a lot of money for nothing.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
And living near San Francisco, there's streets my mother or grandmother wouldn't be able to climb. Even most locals won't walk in those areas. We can't control nature, but that's no excuse for not doing better than that when we can. Out of all the point of the ADA that could use fixing, you picked the one that makes perfect sense to complain about?
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You're right, when I sided with human decency, I must have sided against civilization as well... if your civilization has no concept of human decency.
In which case, yeah... fuck your civilization.
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As others have said, you don't know what you are talking about. Put yourself in a wheelchair sometime and try it sometime.
No it shouldn't. I wouldn't have a problem with repealing y
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As others have said, you don't know what you are talking about. Put yourself in a wheelchair sometime and try it sometime.
I agree with you that GP is being a jerk. On the other hand...
The ADA should generally be repealed.
No it shouldn't. I wouldn't have a problem with repealing you though.
While I absolutely agree with the ideas behind the ADA, in practice it has led to some serious legal abuse. Google "ADA extortion" or something like that, and you'll find dozens and dozens of stories about people -- who often aren't really disabled and go around threatening small businesses with lawsuits in the name of the ADA. Often the accommodations demanded by these folks would require a complete reconstruction or redesign of a building ju
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The ADA doesn't "wrap the world in bubblewrap" as you claim, what it does is allow the disabled to take care of themselves with dignity.
No, what it does is force the rest of us to take care of the disabled. If they were taking care of themselves, they would be installing the wheelchair ramps, and paying for them too. That's not what's happening.
Obviously you think that this is something which we should be doing — I would personally argue that only utilities and necessities should have to accommodate access — but it's unclear why you have to disingenuously mischaracterize the ADA if it's such a positive thing.
And EVERYONE benefits from the accommodations.
You say that, but th
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As to wheel chairs needing that rise, if they do they're poorly designed.
Given you've never designed or had to use a wheelchair, your assertion is not very convincing. Making a wheelchair that can go up steep gradients is going to have lots of knock-on effects to the design like weight, size, cost, and since you can't push yourself up such gradients with your arms for any length of time it would be a waste anyway.
I told you, I'd be happy to carry you into the store myself. I'd be happy to push your wheel chair up my ramp. No need for anyone else. I would do it gladly.
Let's assume for a second that you really are that nice (hard to do based on other things you have said, but OK). Do you think it is important for a person to be able t
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Given that at most I might see one person every two months with such a condition, it really would be no hardship at all.
And if I had to do three times a day, I still wouldn't mind.
Really.
I'm not a bad guy, brother. You just can't expect people to drop 30k on something like that when often as not no one that is disabled ever comes. I mean... ever. Sure they could... but on that basis you can't ask me to spend 30k. I'm very happy to go out in the cold and wind and help anyone. Really. And if I need some help
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Why should it attack your dignity to need help and ask for it? Maybe that's the problem that should be addressed.
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Thanks... I was hoping someone with a disability would validate my position here. :)
So many moral crusaders about these days... people that bitch just to feel superior without any real objective besides that.
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I've always wondered, why doesn't someone build a castle or something out there? I would totally consider building a compound in the middle of that hell hole. 20 foot walls with spikes on the tops of course... and gate possibly with a portcullis... maybe a moat... full of something horrible that can live in detroit. I guess I could heat the water in the winter but I'd prefer not to.
The land has to be so cheap that you could do some funny stuff with it.
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I love that you think naked trolls where you just make dumb insults is somehow giving you any kind of edge on me. All your dumb insults do is make you sound petty, childish, and weak.
You sound like a petulant child.
And the fact that you're hiding behind the AC to troll doesn't speak well of you either.
Corollary (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be like suing a book store for not having audiobooks and braille for all of their titles. Sometimes that little prick in a wheel chair causing trouble at the end of the day is just a little prick.
Re:Corollary (Score:5, Insightful)
I sometimes hear that people with disabilities are "just like everybody else". Which, of course, is true. That means that some of them are heroically overcoming adversity, but it also means some of them are self-absorbed jerks.
DRM (Score:2)
That would be like suing a book store for not having audiobooks and braille for all of their titles. Sometimes that little prick in a wheel chair causing trouble at the end of the day is just a little prick.
I see a potential argument that DRM prevents assistive technologies that can do transcription for you...
It true that many books aren't available as audiobooks or braille, but they are not intentionally covered with a plastic film designed to make it impossible to scan them into a program that can read out loud...
In fact many people with dyslexia relies on a scanning books and text-to-speech technology for their studies.
Anyways, yes, requiring all titles to have subtitles might be crazy... But NetFlix is
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As much as I don't like DRM, suggestively equating DRM with a lack of accessibility for the disabled is a disservice to both of those issues.
If someone is trying to do an automated transcription from Netflix, there's nothing stopping them today. The audio signal is readily available. It's not like it's DRM'd all the way to the speaker. It's not even DRM'd the entire time it's on the playback device. This isn't HDCP, and your suggestions that their DRM is blocking these sorts of efforts is only serving to co
This sounds familiar. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I was once part of an audio book venture that created a book reader app and and associated library application library that was specifically designed to be used by the blind and severely disabled. It actually met all its goals in regards to usability.
You must be from the future, because if there is a silver-bullet book reader solution for blind people, I certainly couldn't find one for my half-blind mother.
Currently, there is the audiobook reader provided for free by the Library of Congress. That reader is great in terms of physical interface design, but it's limited only to books that have had professional voice actors read them.
And then in terms of text-to-speech technology, the best technological solution out there is currently Ivona (now owned by Am [wikipedia.org]
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I was once part of an audio book venture that created a book reader app and and associated library application library that was specifically designed to be used by the blind and severely disabled. It actually met all its goals in regards to usability. So the company took it to the largest national organizations to get their seal of approval for it. The company was turned down by all of them
You must be from the future, because if there is a silver-bullet book reader solution for blind people, I certainly couldn't find one for my half-blind mother.
You must be from a place where they don't read comments before replying, since the GP clearly said both "It actually met all its goals in regards to usability" which doesn't actually mean that it was any good, and that "The company was turned down" for the "seal of approval" for their product — it may consequently have never been produced and marketed at all.
extremists (Score:3)
I understand not being an asshole to disabled people. Not making their life intentionally more difficult than it is.
I understand helping others if possible. Adding captions when you're doing subtitles in other languages anyways, putting ramps next to stairs when you're rebuilding the entrance anyway, that kind of thing.
I understand you might want to add these things by themselves for a bigger market or because of customer loyalty, or just because you can and it's not a big expense.
What I don't understand is this extremist approach of having the entire world change for your specific need. Old buildings that need to be damaged and reworked to cater to wheelchair people. A lawsuit not because you refuse to do captions, but because you don't have 100% coverage of them. This kind of crap gives people less desire to be friendly to disabled people, and very soon they'll do it only because the law requires it and only to the extent that the law requires.
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You could make the exact same argument about the whole ADA, the truth is that it wouldn't happen by itself. I can't count the number of wheelchair users but I very rarely see one out and about shopping, strictly from a business point of view they're a <0.1% market that wouldn't even pay off the ramp. The only reason we give them special privilege in law is because they're not trying to be special snowflakes, they don't have a choice about being disabled. And beating shop owners over the head with the law
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The only reason we give them special privilege in law is because they're not trying to be special snowflakes, they don't have a choice about being disabled.
They have a choice about where they shop.
It's reasonable for things which people need (utilities, food, government services) to have to accommodate the disabled, but not things which people don't need. But the same cudgel is used against all.
I don't have any disabilities, but I do have a few food allergies. I can with certainty say I'd be pretty furious if I went to a restaurant and they said we serve a set menu, either you eat it or not but we don't care about your allergies and won't offer any alternatives.
Apparently, you're not smart enough to find out ahead of time whether a restaurant will coddle you. There are certainly high-concept restaurants which don't give a shit what you can eat, you can skip a course if you like but they're not giving you anything else.
It's not as if I went to a sushi restaurant and they don't have steak.
But that
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Life is cruel and those who rant about the "abuses" now may find themselves needing the things they want abolished eventually.
Like I said, covering needs is precisely what the ADA should do. All government buildings, all utilities, all groceries and even all clothing stores which are open to the public ought to be accessible. We all need these things.
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Makes me want to watch Sense and Sensibility tonight on Netflix. Wow. An ADA ruling that isn't completely asinine. What will they think of next.
From the Ninth Circuit no less.
Did they start putting meds in the water out there ?
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We'd just be happy with having water out here, little more meds in them to work on the 9th. :)
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have they even thought of that "caption option" might become a burden for other Netflix users?
Why would it be? It's not like you can't turn it off.
Comparing captions to wheelchair ramps is a stretch.
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Cost. When the captions are mandated, all those who don't use them pay for them as well.
It costs money to have captions put on things, it isn't free.
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Re:Sense (Score:5, Interesting)
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The government has the constitutional right to control all economic relationships.
Where exactly in the Constitution are you finding that? The feds have limited powers to protect interstate commerce and anything crossing the national border, but they certainly have no authority to control anything and everything to do with commerce.
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The government has the constitutional right to control all economic relationships.
OK, step away from Wickard v. Filburn [wikipedia.org].
It is, probably, the stupidist SCOTUS ruling in history. (Closely followed by Schenck v. US [wikipedia.org] and Jim Crow [wikipedia.org], in that order.)
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I REALLY hate the concept of service animals...
Haha, What?
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You have an issue with a seeing eye dog?
Service animals are problematic as no training is required and it was open to abuse (NYC service purse dogs).
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Legally there are a few types of animals. A real service dog is like a seeing eye dog, or a seizure warning dog. They're ridiculously trained and only available from a prescription...which is fairly difficult to get, and bringing them with you is backed up by the force of law. I'm sure the people who need service dogs really would prefer they didn't need them.
On the other hand, "emotional support animals" and "therapy animals" require little more than self-report, or an advisory note, and most of the time a
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The problem is the ADA pretty much turned anything anybody said was a service animal into one under law. They have no training requirements merely that somebody (including the owner) say it's been trained. They had to go back and reword it to specifically be dogs (but throw in service horses with a lower requirement).