The posters up at LoveFilm
Well known TV Comedian Mark Thomas has put two large posters on the windows of Amazon UK’s London headquarters in protest at the company’s inaccessible content for deaf people.
Website Tech Digest reported that as part of his new show, 100 Acts of Minor Dissent, Mr Thomas put the posters up in support of a petition asking Love Film, now Amazon Prime, to subtitle their content to allow deaf audiences to watch.
The posters, in bold capital letters say: LOVEFiLM HATE DEAF PEOPLE
So far campaigners have failed to draw any response from Amazon about making more of their online content subtitled or specifying which rental DVD’s have subtitles or not. A petition has attracted 14,000 signatures and the company has been written to by MP Sir Malcolm Bruce and Chief executive of Action on Hearing Loss, Paul Breckell. Both of which they ignored.
Mark Thomas
Reacting to today’s direct action by Mark Thomas, Paul Breckell said: “Hopefully the stunt will prompt Amazon to engage with the deaf community and make a commitment to improve their service – especially as this comes hard on the heels of a 14,000-strong petition calling for better provision of subtitles and the numerous attempts we have made to raise this issue with them.
“Why should deaf and hard of hearing customers of on-demand TV and film providers, like Amazon, miss out on what their hearing peers can easily access? In the USA, Amazon’s on-demand services provide subtitles, so it’s extremely disappointing that they don’t here.
“While we welcome recent moves Amazon have made to indicate whether their DVDs have subtitles, this only scratches the surface. If they stock a DVD that does not have subtitles, this must be immediately clear to customers so that some with hearing loss doesn’t rent a film they cannot watch.”
Update from Tech Digest
An Amazon spokesperson has got in touch and says the following:
“Amazon is committed to ensuring that all our customers can enjoy the full benefits of our products and services. We expect to begin rolling out closed captioned titles on Prime Instant Video movie and TV streaming service this year, and will continue to expand the range of closed captioned movies and TV shows over time. In addition, our DVD product detail pages provide information about the availability of closed captioned titles and subtitles where provided by studios, and we will continue to actively pursue closed captioning from all of our studio partners.”
Social Media reaction
Nice work whoever you are – phaps now @amazon might do me courtesy of replying to my letters http://t.co/kb87t444fd … pic.twitter.com/CjA4Im6Vzt
— Paul Breckell (@pbreckell) May 13, 2014
@deafpower @pbreckell @amazon @ActionOnHearing @hearinglossSCO who says it didn't make sense? Just questioning the tactics. Time will tell.
— The Tree House (@treehouseviews) May 13, 2014
. @markthomasinfo Awesome direct action what you did over at @AmazonVideoUK . A real filip to our campaign http://t.co/OyXUQ8MiuR
— Subtitles lovers (@lovesubtitles) May 13, 2014
While I do think the #lovefilm stunt was clever, I'm a bit gutted to find out that it wasn't done by a deaf person. #humour or #paternalism?
— Jen Dodds (@deafpower) May 13, 2014
Comedian @markthomasinfo did some ace guerilla activism today at Amazon HQ http://t.co/7gc9GI41Z8 (ht @VanessaFurey) pic.twitter.com/JnVXs077NB
— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) May 13, 2014
And Twitter goes crazy in support of the petition
Tweets about “lovefilm have rebranded”
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M
May 13, 2014
Why are they so stubborn and arrogant?
Why if not, someone from the Equality stepped in to address this?
Something is very wrong here with their Sales and Goods Act?
I feel the Government are not doing enough to represent our situation?
DeafVigilante
May 13, 2014
I can’t help but to smile that someone has finally thrown the spanner into the works and its getting most of us pretty fired up to do something about it. If you see it in Pardon and Tree House – they’re pretty keen to take matters further via bombarding the CEOs with emails, possibly doing crowdfunding to take them to court as the Americans did with Netflix.
In a way I’d have to say thank you to Mark Thomas.
vicmart009
May 13, 2014
Squaring the Circle
First they came for the Disabled, I did not speak out – because I was not Disabled .
Then they came for the Socialists , I did not speak out — because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Muslims , I did not speak out — because I was not a Muslim.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for unemployed Welsh , I did not speak out – because I am not unemployed or Welsh .
Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.
Copyright VM Hunt 2014.
Michelle
May 13, 2014
After being actively involved with the online campaign started by Stephanie McDermid requesting Lovefilm to provide subtitles, this was a refreshing boost and confirms our belief that we are not the only ones asking for subtitles! The campaign has been very successful since before christmas, gathering over 14k signatures, but sadly all of this has to date been ignored by both Lovefilm and Amazon. This is an amazing boost and I implore you all to continue signing the petition and retweeting/sharing with everyone you know. It is such a simple gesture to provide subtitles, but one that has a HUGE impact on our lives! My thanks and appreciation to Mark Thomas for his support 🙂
amanda
May 13, 2014
whilst I agree they should have subtitles, action like this could lead to legal troubles for the petition organiser, the person who posted etc. Amazon have made it clear that they aren’t interested so just look elsewhere like what hearing people do if they aren’t happy with something. This is taking up too much time and energy now. And I’m speaking as a deaf person
Michelle
May 13, 2014
Amanda, why on earth would this lead to legal troubles for the organiser?? Nothing illegal has been done or said – just simple facts – Lovefilm withdrew the subtitling information on their website which meant deaf subscribers could no longer make informed choices about what titles to add to their rental list, and on their streaming service there are NO subtitles at all. FACT not fiction. We have all said nothing but the facts. And I disagree that hearing people would just give up. A recent example is the drama Jamaica Inn whereby thousands of hearing people complained they could not follow the series due to sound problems.
Stephanie McDermid
May 13, 2014
Hi Amanda -I understand your point but this has generated a lot of publicity and as a result, AmazonUK have gone on public record to state that subtitling will begin to be rolled out this year. Of course, we need to make sure they stick to this, but this is the most promising result yet. Whilst I understand your comment about moving services due to dissatisfaction, as you’ll be aware, deaf and hard of hearing people don’t have the luxury of having accessible services to choose from.
I’m glad I didn’t give up, as it meant today we finally got somewhere and yes, it was a hearing person but someone who believes passionately in inclusion and social justice. We got the result and in my view, that’s the most important thing.
Stuart
May 13, 2014
Stephanie, I’m grateful that you are still determined to take this somewhere. If Amazon didn’t stick to their word that they would roll out subtitles this year, why not set up a crowdfunding to take them to court like the Americans did, as someone suggested here? I’m sure we would be happy to chip in some money to see this through. This would cause a ripple for other online providers and possibly affect accessibility law to update.
Jason
May 14, 2014
A while back, I used to subscribe to LoveFilm (now Amazon Prime), when they rolled out the new on demand service but was really disappointed to find its not subtitled at all… after hearing Netflix which offers subtitles for their on demand service so I promptly fired off an email to them asking why there’s no subtitles for their on demand service… the first response with a couple of excuses it being a new service etc… which was understandable. So several months later, I had a look around on the net to see if there’s any news that LoveFilm will start offering subtitles but nothing! So nothing has been done or is in the pipeline so I fired off another email asking why it has not been developed or actioned on it like Netflix did with their on demand service. The response I had is not so nice and very dismissive! At this point I ended the subscription immediately with the reason left that their customer services were unnecessary rude and needs looking at and no provision for equal access. From this point, I signed up for Netflix and never looked back!
Oh Dear
May 14, 2014
What a waste of time. Why don’t deaf people simply do some research and get up to speed with the latest technology and software available for free on the internet.
I do not waste my valuable time moaning, nor do i need to waste money on crappy services.
I simply download what i want to watch and then download the subtitle. Plenty of websites offering these. Using KMPlayer, my preference, i am able to watch anything on my TV, connected using a cable from my computer to the TV. KmPlayer has the additional bonus of being able to fine tune your viewing experiences like subtitles.
I can change the size of subtitle to suit MY preference and not what is dictated to me by hearing people.
I can change the colour of subtitle to suit MY preference and not what is dictated to me by hearing people.
I can change the font of subtitle to suit MY preference and not what is dictated to me by hearing people.
I can change the style of subtitle (that being shadow, 3D, thickness etc) to suit MY preference and not what dictated to me by hearing people.
This has been on offer for free for over 10 years as part of the internet revolution, deaf people need to keep up instead of moaning and accepting hearing people standard of subtitles.
Take control of your own life and set your own preferences and standard using KMPlayer.
I rarely ever watch anything on TV any more. If i like a program then i simply download the program and watch it at my own pace, using my preference and my way.
Stephanie
May 14, 2014
Hi that’s your choice to do that. Not everyone has the tech savvy or time to do what you suggest. I don’t feel deaf people are being dictated to re size of subtitles – who is to say that there aren’t deaf people working at these companies and also they will have user groups to determine fine details. I don’t feel dictated to. I don’t feel this is a hearing vs deaf argument. It’s a huge global company vs accessibility argument. I respect your decision to download but I think we should have a choice, especially if you’re not able to download things yourself.
The Tree House
May 14, 2014
We have also composed an open letter to the CEOs of LOVEFiLM on behalf of the Tree House members and blog http://viewsfromthetreehouse.com/2014/05/13/an-open-letter-to-the-ceos-of-lovefilm/ to show our support to Love Subtitles and their petition.
Natalya D
May 14, 2014
The question I always have for these providers is why subtitles aren’t rolled out when the products are launched. For us they are the equivalent of the sound. Providers wouldn’t release products with broken sound therefore they should not be allowed to release products with broken or absent subtitles.
Amazon: too little too late. Next year is not good enough. Less than 100% subtitling of decent quality is not good enough.
Stephanie
May 14, 2014
I agree Natalya. Perhaps one good thing that’s come of this is AmazonUK is very aware of the strong feeling absent subtitles generates – not just for deaf people, but hearing people too (if you look at my petition, many signatories are hearing people). The subtitles begin this year – I’d like to know exactly when and make sure they’re the highest quality and the same 100% level customers in the US will soon enjoy. This is why we need to keep up the pressure on them. All of this fuss can’t have gone unnoticed by other companies even (gasp!) SKY (who should also be on receiving end of some action to get them to improve access to subtitles.
Michelle
May 14, 2014
Like many others I have experienced the lack of accessibility to Lovefilm for years, but rather than moan and not do anything I continually contacted various people with feedback and trying to spread awareness of why subtitles are very important. If we all simply left it to others nothing ever would be achieved. In the past I have had successes with Museums providing transcripts, theatres and cinemas providing subtitles etc through constructive feedback. The only diffference here has been that we are dealing with a global corporation who has far reaching powers. If we gave up every time we could not access something, then nothing much would be achieved. If this action (and I am not the only one involved) benefits just one person then I am happy. As it stands, if Amazon carry out their promise, hundreds of thousands of people will benefit and that is something we can be proud of. I dont believe in being negative but instead like to give constructive criticsm, whereby I may criticise but also give suggestions on how to resolve.
Oh dear, I certainly was not aware of KM player and will have a look. However at first glance it does look rather technical and I could find no mention of subtitles. If you were able to direct us towards a page that explains all about the service in layman terms and how to download etc that would be very helpful! It certainly sounds on the surface a very useful service to be aware of.
Stephanie
May 14, 2014
Well said 🙂