{"id":624,"date":"2012-06-23T19:12:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-23T19:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=624"},"modified":"2023-12-21T17:17:04","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T17:17:04","slug":"websites-are-public-accommodations-so-netflix-must-provide-close-captioning-on-web-streamed-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2012\/06\/23\/websites-are-public-accommodations-so-netflix-must-provide-close-captioning-on-web-streamed-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"Websites are public accommodations so Netflix must provide close captioning on web-streamed movies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that websites are &#8220;places of public accommodation&#8221; regulated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. \u00a712182(a)), and thus the online movie service Netflix was required to provide closed captioning for all it &#8220;Watch Instantly&#8221; content.\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nad.org\/sites\/default\/files\/2012\/June\/MJP%20DENIED%20-%20JUDGE%20PONSOR%20ORDER%20-%206-19-12.pdf\" class=\"mtli_attachment mtli_pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Nat&#8217;l Ass&#8217;n of the Deaf v. Netflix, Inc.,<\/a>\u00a02012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84518 (D. Mass. June 19, 2012).\u00a0The court&#8217;s judgment rested on the First Circuit&#8217;s conclusion that &#8220;places of public accommodation&#8221; under the ADA were not limited to &#8220;actual physical structures.&#8221; Carparts Distrib. Ctr. v. Auto. Wholesaler&#8217;s Ass&#8217;n, 37 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 1994).<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/antidiscrimination-law\/\" rel=\"tag\">Antidiscrimination Law<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/consumer-protection\/\" rel=\"tag\">Consumer Protection<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that websites are &#8220;places of public accommodation&#8221; regulated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. \u00a712182(a)), and thus the online movie service Netflix was required to provide closed captioning for all it &#8220;Watch Instantly&#8221; content.\u00a0Nat&#8217;l Ass&#8217;n of the Deaf v. Netflix, Inc.,\u00a02012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84518 (D. Mass. June 19, 2012).\u00a0The court&#8217;s judgment rested on the First Circuit&#8217;s conclusion that &#8220;places of public accommodation&#8221; under the ADA were not limited to &#8220;actual physical structures.&#8221; Carparts Distrib. Ctr. v. Auto. Wholesaler&#8217;s Ass&#8217;n, 37 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 1994).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[39,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antidiscrimination-law","category-consumer-protection"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}