[Irl-dean] Accessibility in the future

[Barry McMullin]

Well, since Mark guessed this might exercise me, I will indeed
throw in my tuppence worth:

> First, that the greater the quantity of information, the lower
> its cost of production; and second, that the lower the cost of
> production, the greater is the additional percentage cost of
> making it accessible.

The theory here seems to be that the cost of making multi-media
resources accessible does not benefit from any economy of scale
(so that if other costs do benefit in that way, the relative
proportion of the cost represented by accessibility will go
up). It is not at all clear to me that this is generally so; or
even if it is so, that it must remain so (i.e., that technologies
which help in making resources accessible may not continue to
improve, and thus drive accessibility costs down).

But anyway, moving swiftly along, we come to this:

> So the question is, do we expect multi media providers to
> provide a full range of accessibility services, regardless of
> their economic capacity?

I'm sorry, but this seems like a complete straw man. That is, I'm
actually not aware of anybody who would seriously argue that
content or service providers must provide accessibility services
"regardless of cost".

So I don't think that is the real point being made in the article
in question.  The real point seems to be here:

> This, in turn, means that regulation of content will have to
> shift from the country of origin to the country of consumption,
> which would mean enormous cost shifts from publishers to
> internet service providers (ISPs) and information brokers. If
> ISPs are to become pornography, security, virus and
> accessibility police, they are going to need paying through a
> combination of consumer and public sector revenue.

I suppose this is an interesting speculative leap.  But
certainly, I, for one, will remain adamantly opposed to ISPs
taking on *any* of these roles (i.e., for them to abandon, or
have taken away, their "common carrier" status). We'll have to
await the outcome of our local legal battle between copyright
holders and Eircom which is currently testing this issue in this
jurisdiction.  But, on this rare occasion, I am solidly on the
side of the former state monopolist. If you happen to have missed
this case, here's an (admittedly biased) entry point:

<http://tinyurl.com/4w3ooy>

OK, back to the climax (?) of the original article:

> This is an important discussion because the globalisation of
> production and publishing will sound the death knell for
> accessibility unless we can forge alliances with those
> concerned with security, privacy, child protection and public
> service content in order to achieve a public stake in the way
> we filter and receive content.

Possibly I am hopelessly naive, but I don't really see things in
such cataclysmic terms.  Even in the face of globalisation, any
organisation offering a service in Ireland can be prosecuted in
Irish courts.  The question mark, of course, is whether
judgements against them can be effectively enforced when they are
operating from outside the jurisdiction.  I don't know. But I'm
not ready to dive into the unlimited surveillance state (which
appears to be the proposal here) even before this has been
attempted. And, to be honest, probably not even then!  Whatever
hope there is for accessibility into the future, I am sure that
it is completely reliant on the survival of open, democratic,
societies.  (See, I can be apocalyptic - or is that apoplectic? -
too!)

Best regards - Barry.

--
Barry McMullin, Dublin City University
   phone: +353-1-700-5432
   web: http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~mcmullin/