The act instructed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to come up with new regulations governing these requirements by 12 January 2012, including a date from which the new requirements become effective. The MPAA argues that basing the new requirements on a single date would result in random episodes of some series being captioned online. In addition to this, "Attempting to search for and replace uncaptioned content with captioned content on potentially thousands of Web sites on an episode-by-episode basis is so logistically complex that it would be difficult if not impossible for content owners and their distribution partners to comply."
MPAA also argued that the timetables initially proposed by the FCC were unrealistic, given the size of the task. It is therefore proposing a more ‘comprehensive’ and ‘systematic’ approach which would result in more captioned content being made available online.
The timeline it is proposing is as follows, based on the date when the rules become effective.
- Within 24 months: Content owners will caption all full-length content hosted on their wholly-owned and operated web sites which aired on or after 1 January 1998. (This was the date when caption regulations first came into effect in the US.)
- Within 48 months: Content owners will provide captions to third-party web sites for movies produced on or after 1 January 1998 and licensed for TV.
- Within 72 months: Content owners will provide captions to third-party web sites for TV shows produced on or after 1 January 2006. (This was the date from which all new full-length TV content had to be captioned.)
- Within 96 months: Content owners will provide captions to third-party web sites for TV shows broadcast between 1998 and 2006.
In Australia, online TV services are currently not required to caption content.
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