How and why did the web get singled out from among all of the other "publishing" mediums to be "by law" accessible?
I don't know that there's a definitive answer; but I would suggest that part of the picture is that the web was created from the start to be usable to everyone. To put it another way, it's entirely possible to make an accessible website; so it's reasonable to expect that people do so.
Why aren't book, magazine, and newspaper publishers "required" to produce an audio or braille version of everything they publish?
Because a lot of of it is tosh people can live happily without? :) But seriously folks... Organisations publishing critical information generally are required to make it accessible. Government departments for example - they must make information available to all constituents. If they don't do this, they can seriously disadvantage people. Laws generally say that everything should be accessible - it's just that total enforcement isn't possible yet. So, ultimately people are picking their fights - is it more important to chase governments or gossip magazines? Really it should all be accessible, but people are being a little pragmatic.
Why aren't TV broadcasters and movie production companies "required" to sub-title all of their broadcasts or films, or have an "off screen reader" describing the scenes?
They are in some countries... eg. the US http://captioning.robson.org/articles/law/ Not sure about the legalities here in .au (captioning is a bit outside my usual focus), but captions are certainly available for a lot of TV shows. They might not be great quality (another issue) but they're there....
Isn't saying one can't (shouldn't) use, for example, a popup window on a web site because screen readers have trouble with them, like telling Hollywood they can't (shouldn't) use certain special effects because the "off screen reader" would have trouble explaining them to a blind person?
I would say a closer analogy would be telling them that since they *can* caption their product (and in most cases can afford it out of petty cash), then they should. cheers, Ben -- --- <http://www.200ok.com.au/> --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
