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Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

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Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#21

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #7
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to me that the discussion appears focused on copyright issues, rather than what seems like a potential First Amendment violation by the police.

Yea, talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. This story is about the police department, not copyright. Police have been trying for years to prevent people from recording them, and now they are attacking the publishing step rather than the recording step. The intent is clear. They aren't just jamming out to a song in the middle of an encounter--they are intentionally trying to disrupt citizens recording them.

[deleted]

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#22

Post by sevenf0ur »

In all these videos, I see entitled live streamers who think it's the duty of the police to answer every silly question they ask. Borderline harassment. Playing copyrighted music doesn't prevent you from recording but it does get the annoying streamers to bugger off so mission accomplished.

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#23

Post by tzs »

I wonder if the copyright owners could do something to stop the officers? What the officers are doing is probably a public performance and those generally requires permission of the copyright owner.

There are some exceptions, such as for playing a radio or TV broadcast at businesses that are under certain sizes specified in square feet. I think the officers were probably playing recording from their phones or using a streaming service, which I don't think the exception cover. And even if those exceptions do apply, the officers are doing this outside--how many square feet is outside?

There was also a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that state governments were not liable for copyright violations because they have sovereign immunity. That sovereign immunity can be taken away by Congress, and I believe there has been some talk of doing so, but for now they are immune.

According to this law firm [1] that does not apply to local governments. They might still be liable for copyright infringement.

[1] https://www.hodgsonruss.com/newsroom-publications-11717.html

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#24

Post by PragmaticPulp »

tzs wrote: post #23

I wonder if the copyright owners could do something to stop the officers? What the officers are doing is probably a public performance and those generally requires permission of the copyright owner. There are some exceptions, such as for playing a radio or TV broadcast at businesses that are under certain sizes specified in square feet. I think the officers were probably playing recording from their phones or using a…

I know everyone is looking for a loophole to prosecute these officers

But let’s not rush to make listening to music on the job illegal. That wasn’t the intent of copyright laws that prohibit public performance.

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#25

Post by minitoar »

tzs wrote: post #23

I wonder if the copyright owners could do something to stop the officers? What the officers are doing is probably a public performance and those generally requires permission of the copyright owner. There are some exceptions, such as for playing a radio or TV broadcast at businesses that are under certain sizes specified in square feet. I think the officers were probably playing recording from their phones or using a…

I really don’t think this is the right approach. Plenty of motorcycles have speakers built in, and they’re blasting Creedence all the time. They should be allowed to.

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#26

Post by xxpor »

sevenf0ur wrote: post #22

In all these videos, I see entitled live streamers who think it's the duty of the police to answer every silly question they ask. Borderline harassment. Playing copyrighted music doesn't prevent you from recording but it does get the annoying streamers to bugger off so mission accomplished.

Then write them a ticket. Don't be passive aggressive.

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#27

Post by CompuHacker »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #19

To escalate this further, couldn't the police (semi officially, or police officers cooperating in private) just create musical pieces themselves to then have even more control over weaponizing them?

You could add a little texture to LRAD tones to make them copyright-able pieces. (... LRAD Orchestra? Copyright Beam? Litigation Laser? Chilling Effect Spray?)

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#28

Post by analognoise »

dahart wrote: post #18

I’m suddenly interested in making a neural network that can mute a known reference audio from a stream while leaving the surrounding audio in tact. Doesn’t something like this already exist? It seems like Instagram and YouTube could pretty easily leave audio-edited videos online while addressing the copyright violation, without resorting to takedowns or account bans.

You don't need a neural network for this - after song identification, you might be able to stream the right song at the right location, then simply play the song "inverted" - you'll increase background noise but the song won't be identifiable.

It's a very simple DSP operation after song identification. It sounds like a lot of fun actually.

The front end location identification might not have an extant solution, but post identification it should be doable with standard tricks.

This is the cyberpunk future we were waiting for. Who wants to do some DSP?!

If anyone wants to work together on this, we absolutely should. This is a fun problem with a very, very cyberpunk vibe. Plus it's real DSP work!

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#29

Post by SilasX »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #24
tzs wrote: post #23

I wonder if the copyright owners could do something to stop the officers? What the officers are doing is probably a public performance and those generally requires permission of the copyright owner. There are some exceptions, such as for playing a radio or TV broadcast at businesses that are under certain sizes specified in square feet. I think the officers were probably playing recording from their phones or using a…

I know everyone is looking for a loophole to prosecute these officers But let’s not rush to make listening to music on the job illegal. That wasn’t the intent of copyright laws that prohibit public performance.

Agreed, but I think it's at least a defensible case if you activate the music specifically and only when you know you're being recorded for a mass audience.

Re: Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright against streaming

#30

Post by PragmaticPulp »

I think Betteridge’s law of headlines is relevant here; If these videos were being removed by social media, we’d be hearing about the removals. Instead, we have journalists asking “Are cops playing music to use copyright law to have the videos removed?” We then watch the non-removed videos.

I’m not thrilled about this, but I’m not entirely convinced that police officers are trying to get videos taken down by playing tinny, low-volume songs in the background of someone else’s videos.

Does anyone have an example of a video that was taken down because police were playing music in the background?

I’ve been seeing these videos over and over in the past 24 hours on various streaming platforms. It seems that if they were being taken down, we’d be hearing stories about the takedowns, not stories about them listening to music.

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