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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

Deaf people aren't a charity case. The content needs to be accessible from the beginning, not as an afterthought.

That's a confusing sentiment. So deaf people shouldn't be given something for free, but they should get something for free "from the beginning?" Which is it?

The communication needs to be made accessible by the person or group who produces it. Not by some outside organization that goes around cleaning up other people's accessibility messes.

Fair enough. So you're saying that deaf people ARE a charity case, you just want them to be a charity case for the original content producer rather than a third party?

Yeah, that could have been clearer. Deaf people are 100% as deserving of this content as non-deaf people. They should not be treated as a separate group. Captions are a required part of the distribution, not an optional add-on. There is not "the real message" and then "the message for deaf people".

So would you rather they don't distribute it at all, if they can't (or won't) caption it? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm actually asking you.)

Keep in mind that these are recordings of a professor talking - there is no script, no captions exist already.

The choice is paying for captioning, or not releasing at all.

If they are unwilling to pay, which should, in your opinion, they pick: Not release, or release without captions?

this is a false choice; no one would credibly make that sort of claim about audio-only courses in podcast form or video recordings without audio. you're focusing on the economics, and that's fine, but the court is focusing on whether it complies with the law.

In their vicious PR http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... they specifically call out a particular Harvard podcast.

No, it is not a false choice.

I'm kind of blown away by the down votes you're getting. I would be curious to hear why people are down voting?

If you want to give away something for free, why should you be forced to spend time and effort (and possibly money) to increase the value of your free offering?

Can you see why this would have a stifling effect on giving things away for free?

What would be the net gain to the world - is it better to have only a few free things that are accessible, or have many free things, only a fraction of which are accessible?

Making things accessible isn't free. Somebody has to pay. Forcing the producer to pay will reduce production. It's that simple.

This makes no sense. What's wrong with outsourcing something you're not very good at?

I don't speak Hindi, I'll happoly outsource the translation of video to an agency that can do this for me.

Same with sign language, I don't know it. I'll happily outsource to an agency that can do the sign language translation.

Care to explain why you think I should have the skills inhouse to suport multiple types of accessibility when those skills can be hired in via a third party?

Outsource if you like, but at least pay for it. Don't make deaf people pay for something you gave for free to everyone else.

Should they also have to pay for translation to all languages?

All languages in the target society, I guess. If e.g. Harvard doesn't have much presence in Swahili-speaking societies, there's not much damage in not having the video translated to Swahili. But if you are giving an advantage to some members of a society over others, you're treating the others as second-class citizens. They might even feel separated, because they can't participate in something that everyone else has access to.

Alright, then who will pay for it, either in time or money? You are free to go caption videos all you want, but why should people be forced to caption videos they make in their spare time?

No-one is saying that anyone should be forced to do anything.

Personally, I caption the hobby videos that I put on YouTube, because doing so brings in far more views, both domestically and from around the world.

>No-one is saying that anyone should be forced to do anything.

This lawsuit is literally about forcing the universities to pay to caption the educational materials they release for free.

The message I commented to was about the idea that suddenly "people" would be forced to caption videos that they had made in their spare time.

> No-one is saying that anyone should be forced to do anything.

That's actually exactly what they are saying...

Actually, all consumers of free online courses are charity cases. Deaf people are suing because MIT's and Harvard's largesse doesn't always include them.

MIT and Harvard's "largess" is funded in part by tax money collected from deaf people. Anyway, donating to a a discriminatory cause is still discrimination even if it is generous or well-intentioned.

What's the "discriminatory cause" you're talking about here?

It was hypothetical, but I guess you could say that donating courses only to non-deaf people is a cause.

So what about any charitable effort that discriminates on the basis of a protected class. If you can't do something for free to help one group without excluding some others no charity would be possible. Should MIT/Harvard intentionally avoid captioning? No. Should the government force them to use CCing? Hell no.

Your charitable cause is putting some people at a disadvantage then. If your charitable effort somehow must discriminate, it should do it in favor of the less-privileged group.

So, I should only help the bottom 1% and not help the bottom 2% - 5%?

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