In exciting news Netfilx, an online streaming heavy weight, has agreed to caption all of its shows by 2014. Although the company already captions 82% of its videos, according to the census decree that was established in court on October 10 2012, it will caption 90% by 2013 and complete this initiative with 100% by 2014 .The National Association for the Deaf (NAD) called this agreement “a model for the streaming video industry.”
Additionally, Netflix has agreed to continue to caption new content in a time efficient manner. The agreement states that Netflix will put subtitles on new content within 30 days by 2012, within 14 days by 2015; and within 7 days by 2016. The ultimate goal is for Netflix to eventually simultaneously stream shows with captions at the same time.
Currently Netflix offers its services to more than 1,000 devices. However, subtitles work on most, but not on all of them. Although they function properly on the majority, no guarantee can be made that Netflix will be able to have captioning work on 100% of the devices. The company did state to make, “good faith, diligent efforts” to get it working on all devices according to CNN.com.
This agreement puts an end to a lawsuit that has been ongoing since 2010 between the The National Association for the Deaf (NAD) and Netflix.