Those were taken down because of some complicated lawsuit about use of public funds to make available content that wasn't accessible to people with disabilities. It was too expensive to make the recorded lectures work with tools used by people with disabilities, so the university took down the content instead instead of spending even more resources making it compatible with screen readers, adding captioning, etc.
CMU is a private university so this doesn't apply.
This is the most wtf thing I have heard all day. Basically "me can't have so you can't have." It's like shutting down a public Library just because it doesn't have a ramp for people with wheelchair. Do people really go hmm 10 out of 100 people cannot have it so the other 90 will not have it too. Doesn't make sense.
I don't understand anyway since screenreaders are a thing on computers and smartphones and you can load an ebook into either. Meanwhile a paper book either needs a very expensive braille copy or some kind of complicated electronic shit to read the book for you.
My guess is the publishers knew ebook piracy is a thing and bribed some officials to use the ADA line.
By the same token, would the course material be available under California's Public Records Act which is essentially a state version of the Freedom of Information Act?
Since the course material was created by public funds, shouldn't a state resident be able to request access to it?
This is an awesome idea. They should record the videos, not post them, have someone file a public records act request for them, and then that person can post them.
Well Berkeley wasn't wanting to take it down, but there are evidently people who like to sue Berkeley who would prefer a world where those videos aren't available to anyone.
CMU is a private university so this doesn't apply.