More than a decade ago, the disAbility Law Center of Virginia litigated with a major movie theatre in Virginia to require the theatre to offer closed-caption movies, soon after the movie’s release. The practice in the theatres at that time had been to offer very limited closed-captioned options, and only long after the initial release of the movie. The technology existed, but the theatres felt that there would not be any audience to view the captioned movies. At that time, we reached an agreement with the theatre for selected captioned movies during the first week, and settled the case.
How times have changed! The emphasis now is on “open” captioned movies, where the captions are available for everyone to see. Virginia’s legislature has taken steps to be sure those are available for all.
HB 602 (Hernandez) and SB 722 (Williams-Graves) require all indoor motion picture theater companies with five or more locations to provide open captioning on any film that has at least seven showings per week. The bills specify that there must be at least four open captioning viewings in the first two weeks, during the most popular viewing times. Theaters are required to respond to requests for open captioning screenings at other times and to publicize when the open captioning screenings will be held.
Both bills were approved by both chambers. They now go to the Governor for review.
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