Today the Federal Register published the advance notice of proposed rulemaking, "Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Movie Captioning and Video Description." This notice, which solicits comments up until January 24, 2011, asks 26 questions related to movie theater captioning. A sample question from the notice:
Question 8. Should the Department adopt a requirement that movie theater owners and operators exhibit captioned and video described movies beginning on the day of their release? If not, why not (e.g., could such a requirement impose additional burdens and if so, what are they)? Should a different requirement be imposed on small business owners? If so, why? What should that requirement be?
To read the notice and get instructions on how to submit comments, go to http://tinyurl.com/33bnsyd. Go ahead and submit your comments to the Department of Justice - this is the deaf and hard of hearing community's chance to influence a future rule on movie theater captioning!
Maybe it’s just me, but the link to the notice is just giving me an error message.
We found a very direct link to submit comments online. This one also connects to the notice and other ways to comment (snail mail, phone):
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480b20af0
Help support open captions in movie theaters. Equal access for all!
Greg Rice
Owner
Deaf Access Films
How about a link being posted to the proposal in the Federal Register, that would be helping reading on which to provide better educated comments.
Thanks
The blog post has been updated to link to a link provided by another About.com reader. The original link was not working.
On January 3, 2008 at a multiplex outside of Chicago, a PDA captioning system was demonstrated providing text captions of 10 different films on 10 different screens simultaneously.
The technology to discreetly caption 100% of films 24/7 has been available for years.
Until captioning of first run movies is a law it won’t get done.
And NO ONE cares enough to make it a law.
Murray Fisher
Thank You Greg, I also got an error message but, was able to call up and comment on the site you gave. I hope we win this one!
Joan