Audio & Video Legal Requirements

[Author: Bill Fischer]

Overview

There are three reasons to integrate universal color into everything we create as artists and designers.

  • Legal Responsibilities: The Americans With Disabilities Act requires places of public accommodation, educational institutions, government, and federally funded organizations to comply with regulations designed to ensure equal access to all.

  • Design Citizenship: It is our moral imperative to be inclusive and qualitatively equitable in everything we create as artists and designers.

  • Digital Media Availability: We now have digital video that we can use to simultaneously deliver information to persons of all sensory abilities.



FCC CVAA (21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act)

Title I of the CVAA

Requires advanced communications services and products to be accessible by people with disabilities. This includes, for example, text messaging, e-mail, instant messaging, in-game, and video communications. It also requires access to web browsers on mobile devices by people who are blind or visually impaired.

Title II of the CVAA

Requires television programming that is repurposed for online delivery to have captioning and audio descriptions available. It does not cover user-generated content (e.g., YouTube videos posted by individuals).