Forum - View topicNEWS: Funimation Sued in Class-Action Lawsuit for Allegations of Violating Americans with Disabiliti
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TheTJ87
Posts: 3 |
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Audio description is often the primary way for blind folks to consume content, but in cases of content with out such we will often use clues from dialogue and sound effects, music etc. |
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Aresef
Posts: 914 Location: MD |
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A lawsuit is a proper way to pursue an ADA complaint. There's no requirement to ask nicely before suing. It's also worth noting that ADA suits brought by an individual can't seek a monetary payout, only legal fees. |
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Agent355
Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Yes, Disability Rights Activists file multiple lawsuits on purpose. No, they're not doing it for profit. The United States Department of Justice has not clarified in what ways businesses need to keep their websites accessible, and they don't enforce ADA rules properly, so it's up to individual activists to motivate companies to be compliant with basic accessibility standards.
Source: https://www.essentialaccessibility.com/blog/web-accessibility-lawsuits |
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YamiWheeler
Posts: 97 |
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Well if Funimation's site being garbage has been common knowledge for over a decade now and nothing has been done, then it seems like escalation to force change would be welcome, no? What exactly about this is a "waste of time"? |
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Darkabomination
Posts: 89 |
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Being legally blind myself and also using the same screen reader, I can confirm it's true. But there are ways of getting around figuring out what a product is. But it's no excuse for exclusionist design, regardless if it was intended or not.
I'm not sure where I stand here. I support the cause, but the community/s been trying these for years and the mainstream just doesn't care about our problems. |
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Showsni
Posts: 641 |
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I'm not an American, but I've had a quick glance over the ADA requirements to see if I understand things correctly. It seems to me that Funimation definitely falls into the class that are required to follow the regulations, and that a website based shop definitely falls under the category of thing that would need to be compliant. So if anyone wanting to use their website shop service (i.e. buy things through the website), but, because of their disability, is not afforded the same opportunities to use the service as another person would be, Funimation are breaking the law. Let's say a normally sighted person has the opportunity to see what products are available and buy them, but a legally blind person has no opportunity to tell what products are available, then that would be illegal. Any provisions they put in place must be exactly as effective for disabled people as for others at using the service. Correct?
Would this also mean they need to provide an (exactly as effective) alternative for people who might be deaf and blind? Say, a braille based copy of all the products they have available for sale? |
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blahmoomoo
Posts: 493 |
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Screen readers can output to a braille display. |
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BlueRex666
Posts: 234 Location: El Paso, TX |
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I feel like we all focused on the wrong things with this story
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar Posts: 16961 |
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If you actually read the full article you'd see right at the bottom where it says Funimation declined to comment further to ANN. |
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Triltaison
Posts: 778 |
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Just wanted to let you know that my heart goes out to you. I had a friend back in college who was a tremendous Sailor Moon fan and also totally blind who just wanted to know what happened in the final season of StarS. Even around 2005 it was super hard trying to navigate websites relying on Flash or Java or other elements that the text-to-speech completely scrambled by being unable to parse between content and code. It also couldn't handle Japanese characters usually, which didn't help things. I bet it's only gotten more irritating to navigate websites since then. We weren't ever able to find her a website she could browse easily to load script synopses, so I ended up transcribing a chunk of episodes myself so she could finally know what happened with Queen Nehellenia. I really hope that descriptive audio becomes a thing for fans. Or at the very least, a text document made available as an accompaniment describing on screen action. |
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Spike Terra
Subscriber
Posts: 361 Location: Maryland |
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Whoops my bad, I guess missed that one. |
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Suxinn
Posts: 249 |
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A disabilities rights group actually had to sue Netflix for Netflix to add audio descriptions on their service. So, lawsuits do work, folks! And they're often (unfortunately) completely necessary in order to get companies to take any action. Anyway, good on her. Hopefully this'll open the door for Funi (and other anime companies) to be more accessible in the future. |
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Covnam
Posts: 3795 |
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I think the fact that the person who brought this suit can't get a monetary payout is an important point and would probably be a good note to add to the article. Litigation for money is so common that people just immediately jump to that as the reason any time a lawsuit comes up in the news.
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Mr. slicer
Posts: 112 |
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I’m curious, why is monetary compensation not a possibility in this case? |
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deidara517
Posts: 34 |
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I feel for a fellow disabled person. I know what its like to be discriminated against. But she's gone after a ton of various people since august of last year (over 68! the search count says 122 but unless their are more mixed in further in the list her lawsuits end at number 68 before switching to search results that include Los Angeles.). Somethings off and it looks like she's doing this to multiple places including ones she has no business being near or at (one was a snowboarding website if your legally blind why are you snowboarding? im literally not even sure that physically possible to be done safely with current technology) [url]https://www.accessibility.com/search?groupId=19966467967&term=jenisa+angeles&type=SITE_PAGE&type=LANDING_PAGE&type=BLOG_POST&type=LISTING_PAGE/url]
some of these that are closed are were all done outside of court or terminated with or without prejudice. and it seems that almost all the times she files the plaintiff seeks Compensatory damages, payment of her attorney fees all court related fees she has incured. https://www.accessibility.com/digital-lawsuits/jenisa-shildan-2020-10-01 This type of abuse of the system and using your disability for personal profit actually hurts the people with disabilities. Because your making a mockery out of peoples struggle if you truly wanted to fix things and make the internet more accessible for people like us then you would become an activist at this point not go after each individual company while asking for a personal payday in such rapid succession like this. It feels like the equivalent of throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks. Likely outcome is each will be settled out of court that she drops the lawsuits if they pay her attorney fees only so she breaks even and the best case for her is she wins and gets a massive payday. regardless of your personal opinion on funimation as a company or as a website design There is so much that is suspicious about the plaintiff that screams she's doing this solely for the money between the massive amount of filings, the claims and requests for damages and compensation in each one, the places she's suing are so wide and vastly different that i doubt even half of them are places or products that she even wants/needs/can legally use (i saw motorized one wheel skateboards, a childs learning website , snowboarding, obviously the one anime website, motorcycle and dirtbike manufacturers etc.) |
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