Staff writer

Keiko Yamada wanted hearing-impaired people to be able to enjoy a popular TV show.

The program, Nippon Television Network’s “24-hour TV: Love Saves the Earth,” was scheduled to be aired without closed captions just like most other programs.

Through the Association for the Hard of Hearing (Zen’nancho), Yamada, who is also hearing impaired, asked the network on July 7 to give her volunteer organization permission to make captions for screening on the Internet during the show.

NTV said no.

Masaharu Sato of NTV’s programming division explained the broadcaster’s stance, saying it did not have enough time to clear copyright problems before the show was aired Aug. 21.

“There are many copyright problems,” he said, adding that the network also would have to review the quality of the captions if NTV was to take responsibility for their distribution.

According to 1996 Health and Welfare Ministry figures, about 304,000 people in Japan are officially recognized as hearing impaired.

But according to Zen’nancho, about 6 million people, or 5 percent of the total population, have hearing difficulties.

TV programs, however, are rarely closed-captioned in Japan, forcing volunteers concerned with the issue to transcribe scripts for distribution over the Internet.

Although this service has been welcomed by users, Writers Guild Japan last year claimed network provider Nifty Co., which provided the framework for the Internet caption service, violated the Copyright Law by failing to obtain permission from scenario writers.

Nifty agreed to a blanket contract under which the provider must pay 100,000 yen in annual royalties to the guild.

However, hearing-impaired people seeking the exemption of such captions from the Copyright Law are finding this difficult to digest.

“It is not fair that disabled people must pay extra for their disabilities,” Zen’nancho President Tadashi Takaoka said. For them, “it is natural that copyrights should be limited to some extent for the purpose of public welfare.”

Meanwhile, Akiko Terashima, vice president of the writers’ guild, said the Nifty deal was not for profit.

“They don’t understand,” she reckoned. “(To use copyrighted work without authorization) is like disabled people freely taking goods from shops.”

At the request of groups representing the disabled, the contract between the guild and Nifty was terminated after two months.

Representatives for the hearing impaired recently submitted a petition to Education Minister Akito Arima and to the chairman of the Diet’s Copyright Committee, demanding a revision of the law so they can have closed-captioned TV programs and distribute them without having to obtain permission.

According to the Cultural Affairs Agency, the Copyright Law allows translation of copyrighted works into Braille without authorization because the translations are regarded as corresponding word for word with the original works.

It does not, however, allow closed-captioning on the same basis, because such texts must be modified somewhat from original scripts.

Orie Kishimoto, assistant manager at the agency’s copyright division, said her agency launched a study of the issue in June after receiving the petition from disabled people.

“The law aims to protect copyright holders, and we must consider the balance (between their rights and those of the hearing disabled to access information),” she said.

Other nations’ policies on captioning for the hard of hearing may point the way for Japanese broadcasters.

In the United States, for example, according to a report by the Posts and Telecommunications Ministry, about 70 percent of major networks’ total broadcasting hours carry closed captions.

But in Japan, captions are rarely seen in commercial broadcasters’ programs.

Although NHK is increasing the use of captions, only 14 percent of its total air time is covered.

Live broadcasts, including news and sports programs, are never closed-captioned, even though they are what the hearing impaired say they most want to watch.

“Conversion to kana and kanji is the biggest difference (from English captions),” said Kouki Nagano, associate director of NHK’s programming department.

While stenographers simultaneously caption news or other live shows in the U.S., it is virtually impossible to do this in Japanese, Nagano said.

Hideo Ohshima, engineering controller at NHK, said the broadcaster is now developing a system to automatically transcribe voices onto a computer.

But the technology is only about 85 percent accurate and must improve to 95 percent for practical use, he said.

On the other hand, representatives of the hearing impaired said they do not necessarily need perfection.

They at least would welcome captions in cases where newscasters read prepared scripts.

“Actually, they pretty much add to and change scripts at the last minute,” another NHK official said.

“As long as it’s news, there is a premise that there can be no mistakes,” Nagano said.

Despite realizing the technical hurdles, Takaoka of Zen’nancho still feels broadcasters do not take the need for closed captions seriously.

“They may feel like they are going through the trouble to offer additional services, but it would seem natural for them to endeavor to make their broadcasts understood by everybody.

“In light of the rapidly graying society, we are not a minority anymore,” he said.