By 2016, Amazon has agreed to provide captioning on nearly all of its videos for rent or sale as part of a deal with the National Association of the Deaf (NAD). NAD announced that Amazon will caption 100% of movies and television shows that have been watched at least 10 times in a 3 month period.
Since the beginning of the year, Amazon has provided subtitles on all shows and movies on its streaming service through Amazon Prime. However, only 85% of its cache of videos for rent and sale outside of Prime has captions.
In recent years, NAD has pressured online video companies to provide subtitles for people who are deaf. In 2012, NAD took Netflix to court where a settlement to caption all of their video content was reached. The Ninth circuit of Appeals reached a separate decision in April that because Netflix’s services are not connected to any “actual physical place,” they are therefore not subject to the disabilities law.
Unlike with Netflix, the deal with Amazon was made without litigation. Howard Rosenblum, the chief executive of NAD said, “The NAD is thrilled by Amazon’s decision to make its online entertainment experience more accessible to those who are deaf or hard of hearing.”