FCC IP Clips Captioning Order to Apply to Clips Of Any Length
An upcoming FCC order requiring closed captions (CD June 18 p10) for online video clips will likely apply to all video clips of material that previously aired on TV, on websites owned by video programming distributors no matter the clip length, said FCC and industry officials in interviews Wednesday. The order is still being finalized, but would also give VPDs a 12-hour grace period to caption “time-sensitive” or live clips, defer the issue of responsibility for third-party clips to a further rulemaking and sets deadlines for compliance starting in 2016, they said. “We are really thrilled the commission is taking steps to address this issue,” said attorney Blake Reid of the University of Colorado, who represents consumer group Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Democratic commissioners are all seen as supporting the order (CD Feb 21 p5), which is on the preliminary agenda for the July 11 FCC meeting.
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Broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors have pushed for online clip captioning rules to apply only to “straight lift” clips -- sequences lifted unaltered from longer programs -- that are 15 seconds or longer. The current draft order applies to clips of any length, said commission and industry officials. That issue may still be in flux, a broadcast attorney involved in the proceeding said. An exemption for clips shorter than five or ten seconds would greatly change the burden on VPDs, the attorney said. The push to apply to all clips comes from the Media Bureau and Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office, the attorney said, so the item may see little movement. The bureau had no comment.
The grace period for VPDs to caption time-sensitive clips -- such as highlights from sporting events -- is still being actively negotiated, said parties involved in the proceeding. VPDs had pushed for a 24-hour period during which such clips were allowed to be online before being captioned, but consumer groups have argued that even the draft order’s current 12-hour period is too long. “Denying viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing access to time sensitive clips for a period of 12 business hours would plainly contravene Congressional intent to ensure equal access to critical areas of programming,” said TDI and several other consumer groups in a joint ex parte filing posted online Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1o9LqjB). NAB called a 12-hour grace period “aggressive, but potentially reasonable,” in an ex parte filed Friday. The consumer groups want any grace period to have a sunset clause to incentivize programmers to develop infrastructure to caption time sensitive clips.
The draft order doesn’t focus much attention on enforcement, said industry and FCC officials. That’s OK with consumer groups at first, Reid, assistant clinical professor of the University of Colorado’s Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic told us. The initial focus is to get the infrastructure to caption online clips in place, he said. “Aggressive enforcement is not what we're pushing for right now,” he said. “Enforcement will be on the table down the road.” The draft order currently requires “straight lift” online clips to be captioned by January 2016, FCC and industry officials said. Montages, where clips are cut together, have to be captioned by 2017, they said.
Online captions will have to follow the same caption quality standards -- approved earlier this year (CD Feb 21 p5) -- as TV programs do, said industry officials. That’s not expected to be a major problem for VPDs because of the light enforcement provisions of the order and the two-year time frame, said a broadcast attorney involved in the proceeding.
The draft order comes with an FNPRM, seeking comment on what entities should be responsible for clips on third-party websites, said industry and FCC officials. They said the FNPRM also seeks comment on whether to use the 12-hour grace period, how the rules should be applied to clips that contain a mix of footage that was previously captioned and footage that hadn’t previously aired on TV, an issue that is very complicated legally.