Lots of people here upset with the officer’s tactic, but he didn’t interfere with any right to record. If anyone is at fault it is YouTube for preemptively taking down videos containing copyright that fall within the Fair Use Doctrine…of course that is YouTube’s legal right also, they don’t have to host anything.
If it were my video, and if it were actually important to share online for one reason or another, I would look at it like an opportunity to request a limited license from the copyright holder to post the video…then they would have a great YC application also.
Its that police officers use tactics to prevent recordings of themselves being uploaded and spread. The fact that they explicitly go out of their way to avoid accountability is bad. It is bad because, given the privileges we give police, a strong force of accountability is needed.
This situation is worsened by the fact that this happened at a hearing where police conduct was the subject. There already are doubts in that community about police conduct. If they close ranks, that suggests there is indeed something wrong. Certainly, it means the relationship between police and the community is becoming more and more adversarial, and police aren't trying to bridge that gap. That is simply bad.
I won't argue about the police actions in US. I've said my piece on the matter.
[1] https://github.com/deezer/spleeter/releases [2] https://paperswithcode.com/task/speaker-separation
I haven't tried speaker separation, but it seems there are some models from SpeechBrain on HuggingFace that seem to handle this:
or perps.
A good idea for an experiment. We could try different things in different places (states?) and see what is what.
I suppose the cops playing Taylor Swift could pay the ASCAP mafia or whoever and be above board.
Generally, I'd say that if the public wants to watch all police activity, they'll have to get used to sausage being made. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, life isn't as clean and sanitary as you might think from a cubicle.
I'm glad some precincts burned down last summer. I'm glad a bunch of cops quit, and the ones remaining are all on edge, maybe negative reinforcement works on them too xD
Be careful what you wish for.....
Edit: You may hate the cops, but do you really think that mobs will be more accountable than the police?
Considering cops currently face accountability that approaches 0, yes.
(I do see the post is now flagged but presume that's users disagreeing & abusing the flag button as it's within guidelines; I see what users may disagree with but still don't see what they should be "careful" about)
To the currently politically powerful who disproportionately control what is done by government, no.
To people on the other side of that power imbalance? Well, who do you think the mobs are, and why do they use that mechanism instead of the formal political system to attempt to impose accountability?
Obviously, not a desirable durable state of affairs, the desirable condition is to resolve the power imbalance in the formal systems. But if you can't convince those who control those systems that the systems they control will be forcibly rendered irrelevant if the imbalance in them persists, that is unlikely.
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/police-officers-convicte...
The officer here was, to my view, the more sane one. He said you could record. If something happened bad enough to justify publishing the video to expose the interaction, a little Taylor Swift music shouldn't stop that dissemination of information. What it can do is dampen Ambient Outrage; a citizen surveillance state of uploading every police interaction out there to social media for Internet Crazies to get angry about because Cops Are Just Evil, where there is no nuance, no context, just outrage and ad dollars for the protestors behind the uploads.
Its memey and sad that this is the lengths officers have to go to. That's it. But if it works, especially in a situation when the officer flat-out says "yeah you can record, that's fine" (good on him!); I think their underlying rationale is perfectly sound.
The fact that he plays the copyrighted track is evidence that his statement about "oh, sure, of course you can record ;)" was not made in good faith. I give the officer zero benefit of the doubt here. Transparency is necessary in all police interactions in public, not just the ones that are "bad enough to excuse a little Taylor Swift." Cops can cry me a river about the internet outrage machine.
The Court of Public Opinion is the court that drives teens to suicide through internet bullying, that accused the wrong man of bombing the Boston Marathon, and killing students at Sandy Hook, even suggesting Sandy Hook didn't happen. That's the internet.
The standards for evidence on the internet are low, and tempers are high. Transparency in "all" public police interactions isn't necessary, just like transparency in "all" doctor interactions isn't necessary in order to judge doctor competency. Its an infuriating distraction; it gives you an excuse to be angry about everything. And moreover; media outlets fuel this outrage machine by purposefully omitting context and nuance in order to drive clicks.
You believe you're using a critical eye to analyze these situations. You're not. This is undeniable, because it is difficult even for the people there, at the scene, to analyze a complex situation like these critically, to have all the information, and understand if the right call was or was not made, let alone someone sitting in a dark room in their basement a thousand miles away getting all of their information from Buzzfeed and The Verge.
Its the job of the Court of Law to look past the Taylor Swift; they're held to a higher standard, just as officers themselves are. That doesn't mean mistakes aren't made. But those mistakes are not an excuse to break the system and raise tensions in every police interaction. This will only lead to more violence.
it would just be harder to publish on youtube itself and there are other social medias
Edit: on reading the rest of this thread I’m more convinced of the dubious legality of the cop’s playing music with the expectation that the recording will be made public
You're convinced by angry internet hobby-lawyers sitting in their Aerons taking a quick break from writing HTML? This is precisely the very low standard of evidence that the officer involved here is trying to short circuit.
It's not the cop's job to do prevent this video from getting onto YoutTube. We have a whole SLEW of legislative channels that could be used to "protect" cops from people recording them. Don't want videos of cops being posted on the internet? Contact your local representative and have them sponsor a law.
Also, in an environment in which trust with the police has been eroded to the point of rioting because people feel the cops are dishonest and hiding bad behavior, admitting on camera "I'm trying to hide my behavior from scrutiny" is about the worst thing you can do, and will get a national publication to pick you up.
The cop has a police union, qualified immunity, and the entire law enforcement segment of the government to protect him. It's assumed that whatever his report said happened is what happened. Protesters only have cameras to prove their side of the story.
(edited for spelling/grammar mistake)
The line is drawn where that footage is distributed and used. Unfortunately, that's less a line, and more of a hazy, impossible to legislate boundary.
A courtroom is, undeniably, the best place. This is where this footage should be used; as one piece of evidence in a very long-term narrative about what happened and who is at fault.
A neutral site whose entire purpose is to document encounters with the police in an almost database-like format? Maybe there too. Transparency does matter. Dissemination can matter, especially in instances of extreme police brutality or corruption, which does happen (especially outside developed nations).
YouTube? Facebook? Twitter? No. Stop making YouTube the single place for all internet video. Stop letting the algorithm make you angry. It won't do it for you. It will surface videos which make you angry. You share those videos. Like a virus, the outrage spreads. What's the plan? Be angry? Tear the system down, or let it tear you down? Defund the police? Get him fired? So, Destruction in any form? All that matters is revenge disguised in a veil of "making the world better", but destruction never ends this way.
You believe you can escalate tension because "the police can take it". Its still escalation, and they can take it. Do you want every encounter with a police officer to mean War? Do you enjoy the fact that officers approach cars pulled over for speeding with their hands on their weapon? Do you think this policy actually makes the world safer, or is it self-defense in an unsafe world that actually increases the probability of a negative outcome for citizens? A scale with one pound on each side is balanced; a scale with a hundred pounds on each side breaks.
What would a law look like that would prevent people from posting videos of police officers on the internet while also complying with the First Amendment?
And it didn't work. So it was neither original nor effective. There's nothing to laud.
There were people who noted the cleverness of it months ago. This is merely script-kiddie stuff... and ineffective at that.
The issue here is that people have justifiable reason to think that the police themselves are breaking the law, in very brazen ways because the system that should hold them to account has broken down. When the system that maintains order breaks down, there is going to be violence, and trying to contain that violence to just the ones with the badges and guns is not a better outcome.
Reducing tensions at this point must begin with police not supporting every single police act of violence, no matter how obvious. Until that happens, anything that people do will be considered "raising tensions". Since the situation is lose-lose for them, you're the one who's going to have to reconsider what outcome you want.
The good that can come from it is motivation: it's more clear than ever that gradual reform is not occurring, and something has to change at a fundamental level. Enabling people to get justice civilly will sharply reduce the number of people resorting to incivility.
We're each entitled to our own perspective, but fwiw, I think you'll struggle to find any cohort less accountable than the police. Whereas "the mob", being traditionally a phrase used broadly by established powers to derogate the opposition, is almost by definition always the cohort held most to account in any given situation.
Furthermore, perhaps one of the biggest false assumptions many seem to have about abolition movements is that there isn't reasoned proposals for (existing or new) accountable institutions to fill potential voids left by abolition.
But you can do it.
And there's no penalty for it, either. You get to suppress whatever you want for however long it takes to reach the Supreme Court, and if the law gets struck down, well, at least you stopped those abortion clinics/gun owners/protesters/whatever for 5 years and you can push through another law next month.
Like, bro, you made an illegal law and you know it because you said "this law is illegal...for now."
The practice seems to be somewhat wide spread (in the distance between departments case). That might be because it came from a Facebook group or forum where Law Enforcement officers exchange tips. The second is the choice of artist (Swift) who has been in a pretty visible battle with ownership of her music. I suspect that if the officers who use this technique thought about it, they might find that using Disney tunes would be more effective in terms of triggering DMCA takedowns.
What it implies, and is explicitly stated in the referenced video, is that a law enforcement officer is explicitly attempting to deny you your 1st Amendment right (as adjudicated by the courts). While the doctrine of qualified immunity would likely shield them from prosecution, it is still a violation of your civil rights and should certainly merit disciplinary action on the part of the police department.
> A “public performance” of music is defined in U.S. copyright law to include any music played outside a normal circle of friends and family that occurs in any public place.
[0]: https://www.bmi.com/faq/entry/what_is_a_public_performance_o...
If this was a regular citizen with intent to cause copyright strikes it would not be an issue.
The fact that these officers are acting on behalf of the government means that it is arguably the government acting to restrict the distribution of these videos.
In the US, there are strong restrictions on officers acting in a way that could have a 'chilling effect' (legal term) free speech.
It doesn't work now, just like it didn't with the old urban legend. (You can view this video)
Amendments or rights are irrelevant to this. They don't protect you from being so lazy you can't be bother to subtitle something to put it on your favourite media host. Pretty sure the founding fathers didn't design the constitution for that.
In fact it feels like people want the right to easily harass other.
I disagree. It's YouTube that is denying your first amendment right. You have the right to record the officer, but you have no right nor control over what the officer can do. There is absolutely no law against playing a taylor swift song, as distasteful as it may be. He's not stopping the person filming.
There is explicit, and there is reality, and this just doesn't rise to the level of a constitutional violation.
Which I do think is a bad thing, and YouTube should not have automated systems that can be exploited to violate people's rights, but the intention of YouTube is certainly not to violate rights, and the intention of the officer certainly is to violate rights.
Some of the episode Operation Righteous Cowboy Lightning[1] has the central characters singing an argument to each other to the tune of 'Uptown Girl' by Billy Joel, to stop a reality tv show that's following them from being able to air the footage, due to the copyright burden it would cause on them.
Of course reality is far more tragic.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Righteous_Cowboy_Lig...
Apparently the strategy doesn't work.
Yet. Take-downs are carried out somewhat arbitrarily. The point is that there's no guarantee it will continue to be available.
I've seen some videos of people following officers around with a camera and harassing them trying to get some sort of response, so they can post the video on their Instagram/YouTube and make money from ads.
As a Canadian the most prominent in my memory is when the Alameda county sheriff's office outright lied about circumstances involving Masai Ujiri (president of the Toronto Raptors) and one of their deputies at the 2019 NBA Final.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masai_Ujiri#2019_NBA_Finals_in...
For those who’d not know the song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4′33″
When I recently reported a crime police didn't show up and when I asked them to come for a follow up, they lied that I have not asked anyone to come. The lovely lady even said "We listened to your call and you didn't ask us to come when incident happened."
This is why the quality and success rate of call recording apps varies - it depends how many kinds of configurations the app authors managed to implement support / workarounds for.
Corrupt and destructive individuals should just simply not be admitted into positions of authority. Any position where they can enact their hate and evil onto people, is a disgrace to all of us.
it’s generally allowed. They just get any money from it.
It does allow me to either mute or replace the song if I don't want UMG claiming my video, but most likely it will just completely destroy the audio in the entire video.
(https://youtu.be/7_C14lT4Tzw if anyone's actually curious)
One is a random guy recording the cops then being able to cut it and edit it how he pleases to spread any info they want. Other is full recording of what happened from the officer's point of view.
That, and it also trips up algorithms that scan live feeds (e.g. Facebook Live, Instagram Live) to make live streaming the encounter more difficult.
(citation: my virtual fitness instructor who gets booted off of Facebook Live mid-workout when certain songs are playing)
Anyway, a possible solution would be to swap the audio with a fsk encoding of a timecode plus decentralized hard to take down p2p address in which the users can find the original audio. A browser plugin could automate everything by finding the audio track then play it in sync with no apparent difference from the original.
It’s not a weapon. The officer is using music to prevent videos from being put online. I really don’t see the problem in this.
You do the little you can to enforce rules in the most effective way possible with the least opinions being raised at the methods you used to get there. “How do I do my job and create the least amount of fuss?”
Yes, but under current law, states can ignore the royalty requirement with impunity: "[C]opyright owners suffering infringement by state entities cannot seek the remedies provided by the Copyright Act." [0]
Police departments are almost certain to be held to be state entities, I'd think, and therefore immune from individual personal liability for copyright infringement liability.
And the doctrine of "qualified immunity" might shield the police officer from personal liability for infringement as well.
But I haven't looked into this specific issue.
(Usual disclaimer: I'm an IP lawyer but not your lawyer.)
[0] https://www.copyright.gov/policy/state-sovereign-immunity/
I suppose I’m wondering whether this is an actual potential legal issue for the people making/posting these videos or whether the only issue is the headache of YouTube’s takedown process? If someone posts a video like this how likely is it they’ve infringed on someone else’s copyright? Being careful not solicit legal advice maybe a better question is, what factors would be relevant to weighing whether or not the video infringes on the copyright?
I guess it’s difficult for me to wrap my head around how there could be infringement without the (intentional?) misappropriation of the work.
Some scenarios:
A) like here, I just play on my phone. Idea is that it is for myself, say I left my earphones at home, but I just need my tunes.
B) I have my open headphones on, so the music is clearly audible to anyone near by me
C) I have earbuds (no sound for people near by), but they get disconnected and my phone goes on speaker
This is actually a problem I've seen on multiple (more innocuous) occasions: so-called "content-creator" youtubers casually mentioning that they had to throw away clips or rerecord sections during editing after realising there was copyrighted background noise. So I'd say there's definitely a market.
Although I don't really know how often it's going to be necessary. Here I am watching this police officer blast some garbled mess on a YouTube video.
In some ways, the whole debate could be more civil if officers faces and voices were blurred.
After all, it's not really the individual officer who is at fault: it's the system that trained the officer, and the department policies that require officers to apply unreasonable force.
There are also many other contributing factors to policing issues in the US. But the argument that it's just "a few bad apples" seems like deflection to me. And if it's not just a few bad apples, then why do we need to publicly shame individual officers who are just doing their job as they were trained to do, in line with department policies? (Doesn't such public shaming just create opposition and resentment, distracting from the issue at hand)
Just saying... in other countries media don't go around posting/shaming people publicly if there is no conviction. (Sure, there is a balance, a few exceptions, and lots of nuance)
Police have no expectation of privacy when performing their official duties, at least in the US, so that should be a non-issue. If they don't want to bring consequences unto themselves for what they're doing, then perhaps they should stop doing such things or think really hard about their chosen career path.
> After all, it's not really the individual officer who is at fault: it's the system that trained the officer, and the department policies that require officers to apply unreasonable force.
At some point you can't just blame "the system" and there needs to be individual accountability. Mayhaps if they like the lack of it and with less bodily risk, they could pursue politics instead.
That "defense" never really uses the full saying, does it? "A few bad apples spoil the barrel" is the full phrase. Without removing the few bad apples, what happens to the remaining apples in the barrel?
That's why we need to bring these "few bad apples" to the forefront. If they're left alone, or treated as part of the group, they'll either spoil the rest of the department, or the entire department will take the heat for just a few of their coworkers abusing their power.
Holding all officers accountable for the actions of few seems in poor form to me, though I have no data to back this up. To me though, it feels like we'll end up polarizing the LEOs that just want to do good work, much like how "Not all men" began.
EDIT: Bummer, it looks like this route is not available to the copyright holder, since states have sovereign immunity against copyright infringement claims. See _Allen v. Cooper_, 589 U.S. ____ (2020).
The cop isn't hiding anything.
YouTube, may decide not to publish something, and that's not 'concealing' anything either.
There's almost a 0% chance that if this went to court on copyright claims, that someone playing music while on the job i.e. cop, insurance adjuster, home appraiser etc. is going to be found in copyright violation.
There's almost a 100% chance that if you film people who are listening to music - and that copyrighted music is in your production ... that's it's going to be in violation.
It's not a perfect civil rights situation, because these laws were not designed for that.
It just is what it is.
Probably they will have to make some policy change for this issue.
Generally, yes:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106
---begin quote---
17 U.S. Code § 106 - Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
---end quote---
There are some exceptions to this regarding specific permitted performances at 17 USC § 110 as well as the general exception to copyright in fair use at 17 USC § 107, but I don’t see an obvious argument that these or any other copyright exceptions apply to this use for this purpose. (I can see an argument that the police use would render the recording and reuse by the person recording the officer fair use, but that's not an issue here, because we already know that copyright protection schemes by platforms are hostile to fair use.)
It probably wouldn't have passed judgment, but it was enough to scare the shop into forbidding its employees to play music at work.
Nobody is going to be charged for playing a song on their phone in public.
That's just not going to happen.
Edit: Wow, it really is considered unlawful. I reflexively hate the idea that playing a song can be considered violating copyright. Yes, I know there's more to it than just that, but wow.
Generally speaking, "public performance" means outside a small social group consisting of friends and/or family.
It's YouTube and Instagram that are broken. The right to record is preserved. The ability (not right) to distribute is hampered by these organizations.
Why are you trying to diverge the attention spot here?
I suspect the idea that they can play music in the background to prevent YouTube views is a misconception about how the system actually works.
Also, YouTube is not the internet or the world's preservation archive of video. It's a massive tv station from a massive ad company. I can't imagine there won't be a time where YouTube doesn't start deleting videos that are uploaded to their service just because they are taking up storage. So let's not give YouTube that power.
On one hand there is a personified "evil", which we are very good at handling mentally, dishing out imaginary punishments, righting their wrong etc. On the other hand there is a faceless corporate entity that not only scales massively in their "evil" but also in a way that is not quite intelligible to us right away. And our minds immediately flow to the more graspable object which is the cop, even though the cumulative harm of automated rent seeking is probably greater.
You think YouTube has any incentive in this? If it were up to YouTube they would just bring in rules that give creators ample flexibility while still making sure there's no infringement.
I'm not sure the phrase "and yet" is precise; it seems like these are cause-and-effect. This is power corrupting, with the corruption approaching absoluteness as the power does.
I often wonder what a police force with a zero-tolerance sobriety requirement, on and off duty, would be like. Is there some places in the world with a policy as strict as that and actually enforces it?
Now if a cop was calling you those things and you had all of those weapons and verbally engaged in escalation, i think maybe, you might not survive the encounter.
If the officer really wanted to engage with the protestors, all he had to do was not play the song. The cops care more about protecting themselves than protecting the citizens they aren't even sworn to protect.
https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-y...
> I don't really know how often it's going to be necessary. Here I am watching this police officer blast some garbled mess
I don't know how it'd fare in this instance but continuous improvements to the Shazam-esque algorithms used by copyright-flagging bots might make this less and less likely to go undetected.
For this purpose, city- and county governments and their various departments are regarded as subdivisions of the state.
But can you un-spoil all the other apples of the barrel, by only removing the bad ones?
I think not... once police stands idle by their bad apple co-workers, they are spoiled.
I don't think you can unspoil the culture by just removing a few individual apples.
Culture is hard to change.
True, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to escalate to the point of publicly shaming officers. Or at-least maybe we don't always need to, sometimes it's definitely called for.
> At some point you can't just blame "the system" and there needs to be individual accountability.
I don't think any actions by any individual police officer is likely to scale far.
If not being published on YouTube were the criteria for concealment, then wouldn't the person making the recording also be guilty if they simply decided not to post/share it?
Preventing publishing or distribution isn't concealment.
Enforcers of policy in any field have some commonalities. One of them is I will check on another but I won’t like someone checking on me. Unless they are just like me ie responsible for doing checks.
There is an understandable amount of leeway put into these things. Inspectors try not to be total jerks. And try not to push rules to extremes. And when they do, they do it with a camaraderie, like if you improve on the following I will let go everything else. Similar to police officers.
But the average joe who is not versed in such things like young unseasoned citizens have stranger expectations.
I think the issue is that people are entitled and intoxicated by their "freedom" and publicity. It is not enough if what people say is consumed it must be mass consumed. The freedom of mass publicity is limited by DMCA takedown.
Sure the video could still be held as legal evidence, but the uproar required to get the attention to get it there will not be possible.
People aren't upset police are doing this because it's infringing on their right to record, it's infringing on their limited ability to hold them accountable.
IMHO the person posting the YouTube video with the Taylor Swift song in background would have an excellent shot at a fair-use defense against any claim of infringement of the copyright in the song or the recording (which could be two different things). See, e.g., https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/
I also strongly suspect that the owner of the copyright(s) in question would think very hard before making an infringement claim in the first place, for fear of the adverse publicity.
Except the entity that would make an infringement claim is an algorithm, not a person
"As a general matter, copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner." https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html
See also a useful FAQ-style article, especially Myth #4: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law...
------
> I guess it’s difficult for me to wrap my head around how there could be infringement without the (intentional?) misappropriation of the work.
Intent isn't a factor in determining whether infringement exists (as opposed to whether a fair-use defense is available). "The U.S. Copyright Act is a strict liability statute. In other words, following a “rule” that you believe to be true but which turns out to be a myth will not excuse you from liability for infringement. Under certain circumstances, it is possible to plead “innocent infringement,” but even that only serves to reduce the amount of damages you may owe and does not excuse your infringement." (From the ABA "Myths" article cited above.)
There's even a strong case for a third problem: copyright itself is a tool fundamentally one-sided and OP.
Three different things can all be true at the same time without detracting from each other.
The problem with focusing on just the police here is that there are any number of circumstances where copyrighted audio will be naturally occurring that the issue will require more than just getting the police to refrain from using the loophole.
Also, they're not trying to collect anymore:
Disney C.E.O. Apologizes to P.T.A. Asked to Pay After ‘Lion King’ Screening - link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/lion-king-berkeley-mov...
It clearly has been edited to add the subtitles and the watermark to the top left corner and it has fade to black and then fade in their logo and donation link at the end.
There are deep fakes that are good enough to fool some humans. There are deep fakes that are good enough to pass by some AI detection. Then there are some deep fakes that can not pass either.
By definition this is unquatifiable problem since you won't know how many deep fakes you aren't detecting since you aren't detecting them.
Seriously concerned. Not that I want to defend the cop (o haven’t watched the video), but I feel that if we start enforcing these restrictions we are going to get ourselves into a rabbit hole of no fun.
If I hope to hit the bullseye with my dart, but miss, it doesn't change my intention. Neither does a low likelyhood of success.
Copyright law has a lot of subtlety and courts have to make reasonable decisions. Considering this a violation is not in any way a reasonable decision. Taylor Swift and her record company are not harmed.
Others probably are harmed (the public), but that isn't a copyright thing.
Because purpose is an element of Fair Use analysis, and because fair use is an exception to copyright, and because the purpose differs radically between the two cases, there are a whole lot of other assumptions you need to make for this “if...then...” statement to hold.
I believe this is the case, yes.
It would indeed be so, if you were playing it with the express intent of having others listen to it.
Also, never underestimate the eagerness of the entertainment industry to decide that you need license to play something.
You can't really claim an intent to suppress and an intent to play for an audience at the same time.
Regardless, you simply don't know anything about IP law if you think this to be the case. There needs to be a harmed party, and that needs to be the copyright owner.
Ironically, the security cameras on people's private property that cops are choosing to put tape over before possibly committing crimes are closer to "full recordings" than what body cameras offer.
Body cameras are sold with features that cops and their bosses like, like features that exist for the purpose of keeping the public from accusing cops of violating their rights or worse.
That means that many body cameras are designed to only record short 30 to 60 second segments of video after a cop feels that "something bad" might happen to them. Many of the cameras also come with convenient on and off switches, too, and some come with features that allow cops to delete videos.
Taking an egregious example of the murder of George Floyd, there is no context that could have preceded the footage of his murder that would have justified kneeling on a man's neck for over 9 minutes. It also would have been trivial to detect if someone had extended the video to make it appear that he knelt longer than he did.
What are some examples of situations where you imagine that footage taken by a regular citizen could be edited to make an officer's reasonable actions look like police brutality or other major forms of police misconduct?
OBVIOUSLY if police officer is committing a CRIME the footage of that crime is evidence enough, but I've seen many times cut up security footage of "cops harassing someone" only to see the full footage of the "someone" in question being the aggressor the whole time and then yelling about police brutality when he is apprehended and escorted into the police van.
We've witnessed this US LARP in my country just recently where protestors were nicely carried into police vans by the cops, but some intentionally went completely limb to hinder the operation and footage of these limb people getting dragged into the van was used as evidence of how brutal our police force is even though there was dozens of removals where people were carried without even touching the ground.
The success rate varies, because of the cat and mouse game with manufacturers.
I don't know what you mean by this exactly, but from the manufacturer's view, any method of allowing the modification of the operating system software is a vulnerability (because the same could be done to e.g. install rootkits). This is why many devices allow unlocking the bootloader (as the official way to modify the OS) but announce this loudly on boot.
Edit: also some parts of the US!
It is painfully obvious that he did NOT want to do that. The protestors wanted to engage with him and nitpick on whatever order he had given them. They are acting hostile and trying to land the officer in question in trouble.
Yeah he kind a does it to himself by trying to play the music so the video won't end up on Youtube, but I can only see this as anti police folks having bad blood. When the protestors do anything that prevents their surveilance / recording by the police (like in Hong Kong when they were shining blinding lasers into officer's eyes and into recording equipment that was touted as genious use of technology and civil disobedience. Now that a cop tries something similar they are touted as trouble makers and assholes for simply not wanting to be recorded.
Yes it is a public place and you are allowed to record them but you don't have to bring your phone into their face.
By your logic, if someone is playing music in a park or beach, I could start filming them and they'd have to turn it off. Obviously that is ridiculous.
He should be fired for other reasons (making the department look bad by attempting to avoid accountability), but he is not violating copyright. Nor would the person filming it be, since "courts consider whether the use in question acts as a direct market substitute for the original work", and this isn't. No one is going to say "I'm not going to pay for Taylor Swift's version because I can just watch this video of a cop playing it on his phone" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#4._Effect_upon_work's...
That literally is the definition of "public performance." He is in public, playing for an audience that is not his private close family and friends.
> By your logic, if someone is playing music in a park or beach, I could start filming them and they'd have to turn it off. Obviously that is ridiculous.
You can't perform publicly without the copyright holder's permission regardless of whether someone is filming you. You have to turn it off anyway, recording or not. I agree that this is a ridiculous part of copyright law and should not exist. I'm leveraging the system we have here to fight oppression.
The fact that he plays it knowing that it is being filmed for broadcast is what adds the "willful" piece to the already "infringement" piece of the public performance.
I'm not making a normative argument here - copyright law in the US is asinine and needs major reform. I'm just combing through this like a determined prosecutor/RIAA goon would, looking for the right charge.
Yes, it does; most public performances other than radio/TV broadcast are, by nature, only for those in the immediate vincinity.
> By your logic, if someone is playing music in a park or beach, I could start filming them and they'd have to turn it off.
No, because asserting that this case, independent of how other Fair Use factors might apply to it, doesn't fall into Fair Use because its purpose is to suppress commentary does not indicate that your counterfactual would not.
Market effect is 1 of several factors courts consider for fair use.
If you knew you were being recorded, had reason to be believed it would be broadcasted and your stated intention was to turn that otherwise normal and non-infringing broadcast into copyright infringement, ya, you might have an issue with the courts.
Don't pretend. Don't make up funny narratives, because you think that a police officer "deserves" it.
This silly hypothetical just isn't going to happen. And people are lying to themselves that something like that would happen, because it sounds cool.
The law is not a piece of code that is run through your computer, and if you can find some technicality, or "well actuuuaaallly" argument, then it means that someone is going to go to jail.
Instead, the law is interpreted by normal, human beings.
And any actual normal human being, is not going to fine someone, or send someone to jail because they played a couple seconds of a song, in a public street, on their phone.
The technicalities, and debates, and loopholes that you think that you found in the law simply do not matter.
----
Absolutely nobody, in the entire world, would ever have a recording of police brutality taken off of youtube because the police played a couple seconds of music, on their phone, while walking down the street.
Don't pretend. Don't make up funny narratives, because you think that the recorder "deserves" it.
This silly hypothetical just isn't going to happen. And people are lying to themselves that something like that would happen, because it sounds cool.
The youtube moderation is not a piece of code that is run through your computer, and if you can find some technicality, or "well actuuuaaallly" argument, then it means that someone is going to go get their video removed.
Instead, the law is interpreted by normal, human beings.
And any actual normal human being, is not going to remove a video that is attempting to keep the police accountable because they played a couple seconds of a song, in a public street, on their phone.
The technicalities, and debates, and loopholes that you think that you found in the youtube algorithm simply do not matter.
----
Obviously the above does not describe reality. The police seem to get to take advantage of the system to hide their misdeed, but as you (probably correctly) point out, citizens are NOT able to take advantage of the system to expose police misdeeds. This is why people are angry, and this is why you were downvoted.
No one is saying this. You are leaving out a lot of crucial details that have been brought up.
The copyright holder is harmed in the eyes of the law by the violation of their exclusive rights. You said in other comments they have to show it affected the market for the original work. But that's just 1 element of fair use. And fair use just means the harm to the copyright holder was justified.
Regardless, do you know anything about copyright law and how it actually works in court? I do. Anyone who does knows how absurd this is.
"The copyright holder is harmed in the eyes of the law by the violation of their exclusive rights."
They are not harmed financially unless it cuts into their sales because people are substituting this for listening to a purchased or otherwise monetized version.
https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html
"Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: Here, courts review whether, and to what extent, the unlicensed use harms the existing or future market for the copyright owner’s original work. In assessing this factor, courts consider whether the use is hurting the current market for the original work (for example, by displacing sales of the original) and/or whether the use could cause substantial harm if it were to become widespread."
Seriously, you should ask an attorney who works in the field. The copyright owner is really not a party to this case, they'd have a huge uphill battle trying to even get a court to take such a case, and if they did, they'd lose. And why would they bother? They don't have a dog in this race, as they say.
What you quoted just establishes market effect is an element of fair use again. It doesn't establish market effect overrides the other elements. The source also says "In addition to the above, other factors may also be considered by a court in weighing a fair use question, depending upon the circumstances. Courts evaluate fair use claims on a case-by-case basis, and the outcome of any given case depends on a fact-specific inquiry."
I've consulted attorneys about fair use before. And I've read cases where courts ruled for the plaintiffs despite negligible market effect if any.
There could be relevant case law I don't know of course. But you would have cited it if you knew it already.
I doubt the copyright holder will sue. But that's a different question. And it isn't hard to imagine an artist not wanting their songs associated with police misconduct. Actually it isn't hard to imagine them being concerned about people not wanting to listen to their songs if it became widespread.
Someone working on the job, like a taxi, driving a truck, or even in the office, listening to music is not going to be in violation - unless the music were played as part of entertainment for customers/patrons.
The cop will unlikely be found to be in violation.
The person filming in uploading, that production would probably be in violation under the 'Transmission Clause'.
Taxi drivers do have to pay license fees in some countries.
> or even in the office
According to the RIAA, you need to license music in order to play it in the office.
Even to the extent workplace semi-public (for coworkers, not primarily for public customers) entertainment use might be fair use [0], use by a state officer for the purpose of leveraging known provider policies to inhibit First Amendment protected public monitoring and distribution of recordings of police activity would seem unlikely to be viewed by a court as fair use (whose statutory definition was crafted to follow the parameters of a judicially-articulated restriction on copyright that itself was viewed aa necessary to conform copyright to the First Amendment.)
[0] a quite controversial position itself.
It's simply not a copyright case. If there is a law on the books that says that cops can't use sneaky methods of avoiding accountability, then that's a court case. The public is harmed, not the owner of the content.
Better yet, the cop should just be fired for doing something that is clearly against the public's interest, making the department look bad.
But this is not a copyright case.
Call it whatever you want, I am talking about any form of major copyright consequence on that person, because they played a couple seconds of a song, in the street.
Its just not going to happen. No judge will ever cause any significant consequence on someone doing that, solely as a result of a copyright issue.
"The repair firm, Kwik-Fit, has a pretty weak response, saying that it's banned personal radios for ten years. Instead, it should be fighting back on the idea that this is a public performance in any way. Otherwise, you get into all sorts of trouble. If you have the windows open in your home and are listening to your legally owned music (or your TV!) and your neighbor can hear it, is that a public performance? What if you live in an apartment building with thin walls? What about when you're driving with the radio on and the windows open? What if you're in your cubicle and the folks in the cubicles around you can hear the music? At which point do we realize how silly this becomes? It's difficult to see how, with a straight face, anyone in the music industry can claim that any of these situations represents harm done to them."
Their hypotheticals don't fit this case. And some of them are settled questions in the US. Courts consider intent all the time. Fair use factors include purpose and character. 17 USC 110 has an exception for receiving broadcasts. Columbia Pictures v. Professional Real Estate said hotel rooms are private. Apartments are at least as private. And driving means not staying in the same place for long usually.
It wasn't a few seconds. The recording shows the officer played over 2 minutes of the song. It ends with the song still playing.
Kwik-Fit settled out of court apparently.[2]
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071005/094552.shtml
[2] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/be-kwik-its-time-fo...
That being said, I would say they're probably right, because it doesn't seem that different from a store or restaurant playing music.
That said, he should be fired for reasons that have nothing to do with copyright. It is an obnoxious attempt to avoid accountability.
IANAL, but I think this would be a tenuous claim. If I see you with a camera and do something while you are pointing the camera at me -- with the express stated intent of having you film me doing it, no less -- I don't think I would get to (credibly) claim "hey, not my responsibility, I just happened to be doing that thing and you happened to catch me doing it on camera."
The normal way you play music is for your own enjoyment. It's incidental if other people overhear. He said that wasn't what he did.
He's not making a public production or broadcasting either - the person doing the filming is doing that.
I would expect most judges to take a very dim view of that argument.
Youtube's algorithms, however, will do what they're written to do...
It would be 'dim' for a claimant to suggest that the cop is participating in some kind of attempt to break copyright.
Rather, more obviously, the person doing the filming in public, without anyone's permission or awareness, just as any other filmmaker/documentarian, is unambiguously a party to some kind of production that ultimately may or may not violate copyright law.
Moreover, the interpretation of the statute, as indicated by a very long trail of case law history indicates that the boundaries for 'pubic performance' are fairly wide, at least wider than the most narrow interpretation of 'for oneself and close family' etc..
The only thing it is doing is creating a false positive in YouTube's copyright protection algorithm.
But yeah, YouTube's policies and mechanisms don't care about the fine points of law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#3._Amount_and_substan...
Basically, the record company would have to make the case that because this cop played the song, they are losing sales because I guess people are listening to this instead. And not on YouTube, in person, because the person posting it on YouTube would be the one responsible for that. These arguments are utterly absurd.
The cop has no clue whether or not the person is actually filming or not, no clue what the person intends to do with the video or audio, and most importantly - has no involvement or control in either the recording, editing, licensing or distribution of the material.
There's no way in high heaven that someone's going to be construed to be in violation of the 'distribution' artifact of copyright law if they have no participation or really even awareness of the distribution itself.
This thread is full of absurd arguments.
What you're doing is taking a phrase which has a contextual meaning within copyright law, looking at the individual words of the phrase based on their common usage, and then saying that your new understanding based on the individual words is how copyright law actually works.
If I drop my phone, and then walk into a McDonalds, am I guilty of "breaking and entering"? That's what you're doing here with "public performance"
But that's not (just) what the officer was doing - he was playing music as background to his business operation, which RIAA have definitely sued establishments over[0]. If you're playing music as a soundtrack for your business (in this case, the business of law enforcement), you need a license. Even in a non-business context, if they had a chance to sue you for playing music in public, they would. There just haven't been any prominent/worthwhile cases for them to do so. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean that isn't what the law allows.
[0]: https://www.frantzward.com/news-blog/june-2017/let-the-music...
> A “public performance” of music is defined in U.S. copyright law to include any music played outside a normal circle of friends and family that occurs in any public place.
This is a quote from a RIAA member explaining their interpretation of public performance.
::Edit::
I’m being rate limited due to getting flagged and downvoted so I’ll reply here:
The EFF link keeps calling it a 1st amendment right, but doesn’t actually explain how it’s falls under the first amendment.
The ACLU does much the same thing, tho, they do say it pertains to “information gathering” which still feels like a stretch.
They both also appear to be very clear that it’s about recording police, vs private citizens. Which again, is confusing bec the first amendment doesn’t mention public vs private. I’m not saying it’s not protected, I’m just saying it’s not clear to me how it pertains in anyway to the first amendment.
Regardless of whether it’s protected though, it’s still not retaliation or even illegal to for someone to try to protect their family from an internet mob
The public's right to record the police is well established under the First Amendment[1][2]. The Verge doesn't substantiate it because, well, it's conventional wisdom.
[1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/you-have-first-amendme...
[2]: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/right-record-police-do...
The EFF link itself links to:
https://www.eff.org/document/eff-amicus-brief-martin-v-rolli...
Among many others, which contain a rabbit-trail of case law to explore.
The ACLU article links directly to:
https://www.aclum.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/20...
Which is a court ruling that appears to be directly relevant to the questions you're asking, and contains a similar rabbit trail of other case law (one "Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011)", in particular, is repeatedly cited).
This is what one encounters pretty much any time one asks "why is/isn't [thing] constitutional under [amendment]"? Lots of reading.
The short answer is just, "courts have ruled it so".
"""Federal courts and the Justice Department have recognized the right of individuals to record the police. Although the Supreme Court has not squarely ruled on the issue, there is a long line of First Amendment case law from the high court that supports the right to record the police. And federal appellate courts in the First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits have directly upheld this right"""
They go into more detail in one of the amicus briefs that they link to in the text that I was quoting [0].
0: https://www.eff.org/document/eff-amicus-brief-martin-v-rolli...
The harmed party needs to be the owner of the copyright, because people listen to this instead of paying them.
Unauthorized public performance is a violation of the copyright holder's exclusive rights. Market effect is only 1 of several factors examined together for a fair use defense.
They have no reason to sue this guy that doesn't apply to millions of other cases that happen every day.
You can't successfully bring a tort case (which copyright infringement is) if you can't demonstrate harm.
Where did you go to law school, exactly?
Copyright infringement is not tort. Copyright infringement is a creature of federal law, not common law like tort is. And copyright owners can claim statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work in lieu of actual damages at their election. See 17 U.S. 504(c).
And fair use is a defense to a prima facie copyright infringement claim.
It's mind blowing to me that people on Hacker News don't see the absurdity of enforcing copyright law as you are suggesting. This article sums it up well:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071005/094552.shtml
"The repair firm, Kwik-Fit, has a pretty weak response, saying that it's banned personal radios for ten years. Instead, it should be fighting back on the idea that this is a public performance in any way. Otherwise, you get into all sorts of trouble. If you have the windows open in your home and are listening to your legally owned music (or your TV!) and your neighbor can hear it, is that a public performance? What if you live in an apartment building with thin walls? What about when you're driving with the radio on and the windows open? What if you're in your cubicle and the folks in the cubicles around you can hear the music? At which point do we realize how silly this becomes? It's difficult to see how, with a straight face, anyone in the music industry can claim that any of these situations represents harm done to them."
Is that really the world you want? Geez.
Otherwise using a radio would basically be illegal.
Playing music for people waiting in the lobby at the station, or restaurant patrons, DJ at a club or event -> public performance.
Playing music at your desk/office/car/workspace/radio for yourself and whoever you happen to be working with at the moment -> not a public performance.
If you want to make a more eccentric claim, you should try to find some examples of case law to support it.
So here is the relevant case law from the Supreme Court back to the 19th century [1]
None of it really comes close to establishing that someone playing a radio for themselves and those in front of them would be tantamount to public performance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Supreme_...
OTOH, when you purchase (technically, receive a license for) a song from, say, iTunes or Spotify, that license doesn't include a public performance right. That's the difference.
You're basically implying that 'everyone is breaking copyright all the time' which is a spectacular claim unsupported by the case law which I presented to you.
You'll have to provide some basic logic and hopefully evidence to support the claim that someone playing music for themselves and even a couple of other people they are engaged with is a 'public performance' because at it stands there's no reason to believe that.
The law says publicly means at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered.[1]
More radio use infringes than you think. But performing rights organizations can't force their way into work areas not open to the public. Infringement by individuals tends to be transient and anonymous. Suing individuals could provoke a backlash. And courts would be more sympathetic to individuals claiming fair use.
My claim is consistent with the statute. Yours isn't. It's up to you to find case law.
1) He didn't indicate that he was not playing it for himself.
2) He definitely didn't indicate that he was making a public performance, nor was he playing it for the benefit of others.
3) The point is moot: this cop may have said one thing or another - but otherwise cops cay play this music for themselves which is obviously within their rights.
Your claim is nowhere near the statute, and you have nothing remotely near this in case law.
This isn't about laws or copyrights, because the arguments are ridiculous and embarrassing for these people making them - it's hardly worth pointing out.
It's about bias and populist delusions of the people who for some reason 'hate cops'.
It's really embarrassing for HN to see all this mental energy steered into anti-intellectual arguments and bigoted posturing.
The bad faith argumentation is apparent in the thread, and it's worth pointing out because that is actually what this is all about.
1) It's a stretch to conclude a cop playing music on a radio is a 'public performance' - and yet the commentary here jumps immediately to that conclusion.
2) Someone making a production of some activity in public, and then uploading said production, may very well be in violation of copyright if that production contains copyrighted material.
But nobody at all seems interested in commenting on the potential culpability of the person making the recording.
This is typical of the few specific HN issues where the community is triggered, where they plainly lack the ability to be dispassionate, and lack self awareness. It's shameful really.
There are other 'controversial' issues, but they tend to be 'sided' in that, there's a lot of more extreme discussion going on either side.
HN is rabid about copyright and 'information libertarianism' and what they perceive to be arbitrary authoritarianism (even though policing is not that) - and this issue has both: police, and copyright, so it's an ugly mess of sided reasoning.
Millions of people play unlicensed music beyond the narrow interpretation of this statute every day, and there's 200 years of case law that I referred you to that doesn't come anywhere even close to indicating that any court is going to take a narrow view of that statute.
The case law highlights where that 'boundary' is and it's beyond a cop or anyone else playing music from their person, on the job or otherwise.