Normally, I tend to think that most regulations are bad. In a free market, businesses should be allowed to operate with a wide degree of latitude. At the same time there is a pragmatic part of me that understands there can be exceptions to this. Everyone should have the right to free speech, but that doesn’t make it right to run cigarette ads on Saturday morning cartoons or to claim that you’re a Doctor when you only bought your degree from an internet spammer.

For the most part, the television world has been forced to accept reasonable restrictions in exchange for the public bandwidth they use to deliver their content. In the internet world though, the content rules are more like the old west because consumers are opting into the service by paying for it. As long as you have the quickest draw, your behavior doesn’t matter as much and so far companies like Netflix have been more concerned about digital market share, then doing what’s right.

Maybe this is because internet audiences are still small compared to television or it could be that it takes time for rules and standards to develop and emerging markets don’t tend to care about these things. Whatever the reason though, there are parts of the television experience that aren’t making the jump to the internet.

Specifically, I’m talking about closed caption data. For years, television studios have been legally required to provide this information, so that people who are hard of hearing can also enjoy the content. While there are some technical issues associated with adding this kind of data to a movie file, technology is at a point where it could easily support this. The Matroska container for example, is able to include optional sub-title information along with video and audio data. Alternatively, because online delivery can microstream to people, files with the embedded sub-titles could made available to viewers who opted into them. This would involve keeping multiple copies of the same movies though and so far the digital movie industry hasn’t wanted to bear this cost.

While I’m loathe to suggest new regulations on a burgeoning industry, I also feel like we have a responsibility to consider the needs of everyone. It costs companies extra money to include wheel chair ramps at their physical locations, but we pay for that as a society because we want to treat everyone as equally as we can. As the traditional line between telecommunications and entertainment becomes blurred, it’s important that we don’t leave behind those less fortunate in life. Having a law that requires subtitles in order to qualify for DRM legal protections wouldn’t be popular with the entertainment industry, but it would fill a void that the market isn’t interested in addressing. Personally, I don’t know whether or not I’d actually support a legal mandate for firms like Netflix, Amazon and Apple to require this data, but I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the issue.

Update – Interestingly enough, I found out that the FTC is actually hosting a hearing (not sure if there was a pun intended) on this topic on Friday Nov. 6. It sounds like the entertainment industry’s position may not be represented, but they will have several prominent members of the deaf community weigh in on the topic. The event will run from 9am – 1pm EST and will be broadcast on the web at the FTC’s website.