Suit Settled Over Uncaptioned DVDs

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Walt Disney Co., Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and other movie distributors have settled a lawsuit brought on behalf of hearing-impaired customers who bought DVDs containing bonus material that wasn’t closed captioned.


The class-action lawsuit, filed November 2004 in Los Angeles, said DVDs labeled “closed captioned” often had only the main feature enhanced with text for the hearing-impaired and not the bonus material, such as director interviews and outtakes that are frequently included.


Under the settlement, the studios, which also include Time Warner Inc. and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., will provide more closed captioning, pay $275,000 to nonprofit groups for the deaf and hard-of-hearing and up to $1.3 million in lawyer fees.


The studios deny liability and are settling to avoid further litigation.


“The settling companies will expand closed captioning of bonus material on major categories of DVDs, in addition to closed captioning of feature presentations that we have provided for many years,” Warner Bros. spokeswoman Susan Fleishman told Bloomberg News on Wednesday. “We hope this expanded captioning will benefit all users of closed captioning, including, in particular, people who are deaf or have hearing loss.”

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