America's Redbox DVD kiosk accessibility lawsuit: what it means for Australia

Transcript

5 October 2014

Roberta: The DVD supplier Redbox has agreed to make its kiosks in California accessible for blind and vision impaired consumers after several advocates for the blind lodged a class action against it in 2012. Media Access Australia project manager Ally Woodford is here with us today to discuss this further. Welcome Ally.

Ally: Thanks Roberta, hello everyone.

Roberta: Now firstly, can you just remind us what a DVD kiosk is?

Ally: Yeah, yeah, a DVD kiosk, it’s really a DVD vending machine. It offers new release titles to the general public for rent. They don’t need to have a store membership anymore and rental time is usually a bit longer, possibly up to 10 days instead of the maximum seven you get from the store. The kiosks themselves, they’re mainly found in or just outside shopping centres and sometimes public transport stations. So they’re places that people will visit on a daily or a regular basis.

Roberta: Now how did this class action come about?

Ally: Well there was a group of blind individuals in San Francisco that, along with a blind advocacy group, they sued Redbox in a class action as its kiosk couldn’t be independently used by them. Very simply their argument was that renting and watching a movie, it’s a piece of entertainment that’s part of everybody’s life, and anyone using a DVD kiosk should not be made to feel embarrassed or helpless from trying to use the kiosk.

Roberta: So what was the result of the litigation?

Ally: Well it took a couple of years of mediation, but the end result was a class settlement, where Redbox agreed on a number of things, namely to incorporate audio guidance on the kiosk and that was by headphones and text to speech output, tactile keyboards and 24-hour phone assistance. Part of the settlement was also that there’s to be one kiosk at each Californian location that will have these features within 18 months and all Californian kiosks will have these features within 30 months. So the settlement does only extend to California, but there is an expectation that Redbox will continue the fit outs nationally.

Roberta: I’m unsure of the popularity of DVD kiosks here in Australia, but are they very popular in the USA, compared with here?

Ally: I couldn’t say for sure, but I know that they’ve had a longer history of operation in the US and Redbox alone has installed over 40,000 kiosks over the last seven years. Look, having said that, there’s evidence that their popularity may have peaked as Redbox announced a few months back that they are actually removing 500 of them nationally, revenue just hasn’t increased significantly enough for them in their last financial year. And one of the reasons for this is the growth in competition from on-line streaming services like Netflix.

Roberta: Of course the other thing could be that people don’t know about it.

Ally: That could be another thing, yeah, yeah, and look, it’s only through my own work here that I’ve begun to realise what these kiosks are. I thought they were ticket vending machines for car parks at my shopping centre.

Roberta: So do you think that the class action will have effects here in Australia?

Ally: Yeah, I’m sure people in the industry, for sure will be taking notice as our most popular brand of DVD kiosk, which is Hoyts Kiosk, it doesn’t offer the services that they’ve just been agreed upon by Redbox in the US. But beyond DVD kiosks, kiosks in general are becoming a really popular means of accessing services without human interaction. So we’ve got other examples such as airline check-in kiosks, check-in kiosks at hotels and even car rental places have kiosks these days. So there’s significant exposure to potential lawsuits here if accessibility isn’t taken in to account when they are first installed. So I do hope people are taking notice here in Australia and accessibility of all types of kiosks improves off the service provider’s bat, rather than via a lawsuit in the future.

Roberta: The airline ticket kiosks, my family use them, but I still go to the counter. It’s just a matter of getting used to it.

Ally: Yeah.

Roberta: Well, for more information on DVD and DVD kiosks you can Media Access Australia on 02 9212 6242 or e-mail info@mediaaccess.org.au. And to find out more about access to media and technology, visit the Media Access Australia website, that’s mediaaccess, all one word, dot org, dot A-U. Thank you Ally for all of that.

Ally: Thank you Roberta.

Roberta: I’ve been speaking with Media Access Australia project manager Ally Woodford. And you can call Ally any time at all to find out more about this, 02 9212 6242. And Media Access Australia is a supporter of this program.

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