Pornhub sued by deaf man over lack of captions

[Frank Cox]

https://canoe.com/news/weird/pornhub...ck-of-captions

A deaf man who can’t get off the fact that there’s no subtitles during his enjoyment of adult films that he’s decided to sue Pornhub over the issue.

The New York Post reported Yaroslav Suris of Brooklyn, N.Y., has filed a class-action lawsuit against the adult video site stating the lack of closed captioning violates his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act because he can’t interpret the sounds of moaning and skin slapping in porn flicks because of his hearing impairment.

In the lawsuit, Suris claimed he viewed a number of sexually-explicit videos on Pornhub, which included such titillating titles as: “Hot Step Aunt Babysits Disobedient Nephew – Sofi Ryan – Family Therapy,” “18 YO Blonde Stripper Samantha DP In Homemade Gangbang Porn,” “A— Lesbian Action and Dirty Talk” and “Sexy Cop Gets Witness To Talk.”

However, because of the lack of captioning in the films, he couldn’t fully enjoy his monkey-spanking sessions.

“The websites are ‘places of public accommodation’ which deny equal access to their video content which is available to hearing individuals and violates the ADA,” the lawsuit stated, as reported by the Post.

The randy Suris also claims he signed up for Pornhub Premium, the adult site’s subscription service which features millions of skin flicks.

According to the United States Department of Labour, the Americans with Disabilities Act forbids discrimination against individuals with disabilities in areas of “employment, transportation, public accommodations, communications and access to state and local government programs and services.”

Through the lawsuit, Suris is seeking financial compensation, civil penalties and fines from Pornhub.

In an interview with TMZ, Porhub’s vice president Corey Price said he understands Suris “is suing Pornhub for claiming we’ve denied the deaf and hearing-impaired access to our videos.”

Price said Pornhub doesn’t normally comment on lawsuits, “we’d like to take this opportunity to point out that we do have a closed captions category.”

[Marcel Birgelen]

While this news might be somewhat hilarious, the result of this lawsuit could actually be far reaching.

There are tons of video sites out there and a lot of them are carrying user-generated content. While YouTube offers an auto-captioning service that's only halfway useful, this could have quite some impact on the content offered via those sites. Is everybody going to be required to offer closed captioning for all the videos they offer on a site? This will also be a major problem for all those independent content creators.

[Martin Brooks]

While there are some interesting points in the lawsuit, my bet is that it gets thrown out of court. If it doesn't, as Marcel says, the ramifications could be far-reaching. Will live music shows at bars have to provide a captioning system for song lyrics? Will supermarkets and delis have to provide someone who can sign so questions could be answered?

[Allan Barnes]

REASON # 101 to hate lawyers.

[Randy Stankey]

What would the captions for a porn video be? "Ooooh!... Aaaaah!... Ooooh!... Aaaaah!..."

Most people turn the sound off just so they don't have to hear that crap. Now, this guy wants to have it in captions?

You guys are right. This suit probably won't go anywhere because it doesn't make sense.

Internet porn video is primarily a visual medium. Sound is secondary.
People turn on porn videos to see people having sex. They don't really care what the people say. Have you ever heard anybody repeat a quote from a porn video?

Even with the hearing vs. deaf issue, it is not reasonable to think that captions on a porn video would make a difference in the experience.
Thus, it is not reasonable to require captions.

Part of the A.D.A. does include exceptions for undue hardship due to cost or difficulty providing accommodation.
There are so many videos on the internet, porn or not, that captioning them all would be unwieldy at best. The cost of creating captions for the huge number of videos out there would be astronomical. The task of doing so would be nigh on impossible. Even automated speech-to-text programs would not be able to do the job. As much as speech recognition has improved in recent times, it still has a long, long way to go before it would be up to the task.

The fact that websites already try to provide captions when they are able goes to show that companies that provide videos on the internet are trying to make accommodation. The problem is, as said above, it is impossible to caption them all.

1) Sound in porn videos is not a significant part of the experience.

2) It is too difficult to caption the huge number of videos on the internet.

3) Companies are already trying to caption video when they can.

I don't think this case will even make it to court, much less get past opening arguments.

[Bobby Henderson]

Just wait until someone blind sues PornHub for not offering a verbal descriptive service to describe what is happening on screen. Let's also not forget the need to offer captions and verbal descriptions in every freaking language possible.

[Randy Stankey]

What if the caption text got placed over some body parts of interest?

Would we see lawsuits from people complaining that they can’t see the woman’s boobs?

[Gordon McLeod]

They should just move their company and servers off shore and as such would not be under US disabilities regulations

[Bobby Henderson]

I was under the impression their servers were outside the US already. Don't most porn sites do that?

[Marcel Birgelen]

Simply putting your servers off-shore isn't enough. As long as the U.S. market is a considerable amount of your business, you can safely assume that almost all local laws are equally applicable to you. Even if you don't have any legal presence in the U.S.

Sometimes that results in questionable actions, like when the U.S. forced the shutdown of Megaupload, which was operated from New Zealand and had their servers all over the world.

[Gordon McLeod]

They would be forced to take their legal action in the jurisdiction of the accused and it would be under the laws of that land. The exception is if there is a mutal treaty that is contravened

[Marcel Birgelen]

They would be forced to take their legal action in the jurisdiction of the accused and it would be under the laws of that land. The exception is if there is a mutal treaty that is contravened

It's never that simple, isn't it? If it was, YouTube would move its headquarters to some African backwater where they give a shit about privacy and call it a day.

In the end, if you target your business explicitly on the U.S. and you do have a substantial business there, you will be held accountable to local laws and regulations. Maybe, to some extend, you can avoid paying certain taxes, but in regards to stuff like product liability, I.P. rights and compliance, they'll give you a hard time.

[Gordon McLeod]

I do not believe they could enforce any action against a foreign company unless the government of the state it is in agrees. Plus how would they be served a summons

[Frank Cox]

When you're doing business in another country, that other country can simply target your revenue. "Everyone who owes money to Foreign Company X is now required to remit it to the Government Revenue Office instead." That gets the company's attention really fast and can be used to force compliance and cooperation.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I do not believe they could enforce any action against a foreign company unless the government of the state it is in agrees. Plus how would they be served a summons

Just look at the Megaupload / Kim DotCom case how they do it. This was a company officially headquartered in Hong Kong, while the founder itself lived in New Zealand.