Caption request letter template

Video resources from third party providers are generally copyright protected.  You will need a formal letter of permission in order to add close captioning to such video resources.  Listed below are sample form letters requesting permission to captioning video.

Sample Letter (Word)

Sample Letter (PDF)

You may also find the following template helpful when initiating communication with the owner of a YouTube video:

To whom it may concern,

My name is [Name] and I’m an instructor in the Language Arts Department at Butte College. I would like you show your video, [video title], to the class I teach, but it would first need to be captioned. Many students like to read along with the captions, and students who are deaf or have hearing impairments require captions to understand the content.

If you are willing to work with me on this, there are a couple of ways we can proceed. First, if you already have a transcript of the video, you can upload it as a text file and YouTube will synchronize it with the video to create captions automatically. If you do not have a transcript, I can assist you in creating one. A third option would be for you to change the copyright license in YouTube from “Standard YouTube License” to “Creative Commons Attribution License.” The Creative Commons license allows others to reuse portions of your video, and this would allow us to add the captions to a copy of your work.

Your help will be greatly appreciated. This video can be an important learning tool for my students, but it must to be accessible to all of them. Please let me know your response and any questions or concerns you might have.

Thank you for your consideration.

[Name]