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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

#201
post #181
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cities and counties don’t have sovereign immunity. Sovereign immunity is a holdover from Britain, where you couldn’t sue the ruler or any of their assets. Because states started out viewing themselves as independent countries, sovereign immunity was extended to them by courts. Smaller governments have never had sovereign immunity.

Totally incorrect. The courts didn't and can't grant the States sovereignty. They were sovereign states before entering the union and they relinquished some of their sovereign powers by signing the constitution, but certainly not all of them, or indeed any at all that aren't explicitly enumerated in the constitution.

> Totally incorrect. The courts didn't and can't grant the States sovereignty. They were sovereign states before entering the union and they relinquished some of their sovereign powers by signing the constitution

The original 13 colonies, Vermont and Texas were all independent sovereign states before joining the United States as states. However, the other 35 states were federal territories to which Congress granted statehood. Whatever sovereignty they have was given to them by the United States Congress, acting under the United States Constitution, it did not in any way pre-exist the Constitution.

(Hawaii was an independent sovereign state before being annexed into a US territory after a US-backed coup; to the extent that the present state of Hawaii has "sovereignty", it is unclear what relationship that had to the sovereignty of the independent Kingdom of Hawaii.)

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a de-escalation tactic for dealing with stalkers. If you watch the video (which is available in the previous article and all over social media, contrary to the narrative) it’s clear that the person is trying to get a rise out of the police officers by following them around and badgering them for content on his social media channels. He even went so far as to waterm…

It would be a very dangerous precedent to deem this stalking.

From the videos (which have not been removed, despite what the headline suggests) it appears the person is following police officers around on the street, trying to provoke reactions while he films, and posting the videos with police names to his Instagram accounts where he sells anti-police merch.

I don’t condone the police behavior, but it’s clear that the person recording is not a hero or even blameless. He’s running a business that profits from anti-police sentiment and promoting it with these videos.

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

#203
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…

Let's not throw a bandaid on a flesh wound. What we need is strong, fast acting civilian oversight over the police to punish any that get up to shenanigans like this.

Punish police from playing music? Seriously, a flesh wound? Let's call this a catastrophic decapitation that demands immediate jail time without possibility for parole like human trafficking and serial-arson.

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

#204

They're not weaponizing copyright, they're weaponizing Instagram's copyright-infringement-avoidance filter. HN really should look into their headline editing policy, because it really does change the context of the conversation in this instance.

The videos are still up on the person’s Instagram account, from which he sells anti-cop merchandise.

As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a copyright removal. It appears the police were tired of being followed by this guy trying to provoke them to promote his Instagram and associated merch.

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a very dangerous precedent to deem this stalking.

From the videos (which have not been removed, despite what the headline suggests) it appears the person is following police officers around on the street, trying to provoke reactions while he films, and posting the videos with police names to his Instagram accounts where he sells anti-police merch. I don’t condone the police behavior, but it’s clear that the person recording is not a hero or even blameless. He’s runn…

All of what you have described is entirely legal.

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

#206
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…

They should just write a law that includes diegetic music in not for profit non-fiction public servant videos in fair use. Then if your video gets flagged you can indicate it is fair use.

No change in the law is necessary; it's already fair use.

Compare https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.220892/... :

> Monsarrat raises a copyright infringement claim against Newman involving the republication of a comment he originally posted in the Davis Square LiveJournal community in 2010

> Newman contends that Monsarrat has failed to state an actionable claim because the allegations in the FAC establish his entitlement to a fair use defense.

> The Copyright Act codifies four non-exclusive factors relevant to the fair use inquiry:

> (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

> (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

> (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

> (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

> drawing all reasonable inferences in Monsarrat’s favor, the court agrees that the FAC establishes Newman’s entitlement to a fair use defense as a matter of law.

> As to the first factor, it is clear from the face of the FAC [...], that Newman did not publish the copyrighted post for the same purposes for which Monsarrat initially created it.

> Monsarrat submitted the original post to highlight LiveJournal’s harassment policy and demand deletion of other posts on the community website which he viewed as violative. The Dreamwidth reproduction, on the other hand, was created solely for historical and preservationist purposes. See Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley Ltd., [...] (finding that the use of concert posters in a book on the history of the Grateful Dead served a different purpose than the original purpose of "artistic expression and promotion" because defendant used the concert posters "as historical artifacts to document and represent the actual occurrence of Grateful Dead concert events"); Stern v. Does, [...] (finding that defendants’ forwarding by email of a copyrighted post “conveyed the fact of the post rather than its underlying message” and “thus had a substantially different purpose than the post itself”)

> Turning to the second factor, the “nature of the copyrighted work,” the balance again tips in Newman’s favor. The post largely repeats the LiveJournal harassment policy, a factual matter

> The third factor, "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole," "focus[es] upon whether the extent of... copying is consistent with or more than necessary to further the purpose and character of the use."

> see also Haberman, [...] ("[I]t has long been recognized that a commentator may fairly reproduce as much of the original, copyrighted work as is necessary to his proper purpose.").

> This factor is neutral. Newman copied Monsarrat’s post in full, but a full reproduction is consistent with historical and preservationist purposes.

> Finally, the fourth factor, "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" – "the single most important element of fair use," Harper & Row, [...] – weighs against Monsarrat. There is no plausible market for the copyrighted post and thus no likelihood that Newman’s reproduction could have any harmful market consequences.

Applying that to the case of a police officer playing copyrighted music into a livestream of police officer behavior, it is obvious that the first factor ("transformative use") favors the streamer, who is both documenting and commenting on the behavior of the police; the second factor favors the copyright owner ("music sold commercially"); the third factor may range from neutrality to favoring the streamer, depending on how much music the police officer chooses to play -- in the example here, the streamer is favored -- and the fourth factor favors the copyright owner.

However, there is a compelling case that, no matter how much music the officer plays, that is the appropriate amount for the streamer to record -- first, the purpose of documenting what the police are doing is not served by censoring what they do, but additionally, the more egregious the copying, the more noteworthy the officer's behavior is.

Furthermore, while it is possible that a video of police behavior in which everyone is respectfully silent while Santeria plays might substitute for other means of consuming the song, it is extremely unlikely, which trivializes the impact of the fourth factor. Here ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZeUL4fRyk ) is a YouTube video consisting of the song played over a background of the album art. And here ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEYN5w4T_aM ) is another YouTube video, from "TheofficialSublime", of the official music video of the song. It is not plausible that consumers seeking to consume the song for enjoyment would prefer the cop video to either of those, or even that they might be more likely to find the cop video.

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

#207
post #126
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the issue is that police will regularly and maliciously lie and nobody will ever hold them responsible for doing so.

The issue is that you are pretending you can read police officers' minds and know their intent. And then you claim it's the worst possible intent.

[deleted]

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nitpick: "flouting the law".

Always after the edit period. Internal mental hash table updated. I knew it was an fl- . Picked the wrong one. Point otherwise clearly communicated though right?

Yes, clearly communicated.

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

#209
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people should have the right to work peace. It should also be a basic human right not to be constantly monitored.

Like it or not, I believe that the "expectation of privacy" argument has been settled in courts. The answer is that if you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. People have dashcams, cameras pointing out the front of their homes and businesses, and people may be recording random TikTok videos with you in the background. Police definitely have zero "expectation of privacy" when out on the job and it's a fa…

> Like it or not, I believe that the "expectation of privacy" argument has been settled in courts. The answer is that if you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy.

That sounds awful. Everybody needs to go out even if it is to buy groceries. What that means is that you can be recorded and there is nothing you can do about it.

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

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not throw a bandaid on a flesh wound. What we need is strong, fast acting civilian oversight over the police to punish any that get up to shenanigans like this.

Punish police from playing music? Seriously, a flesh wound? Let's call this a catastrophic decapitation that demands immediate jail time without possibility for parole like human trafficking and serial-arson.

The "flesh wound" in question is complete lack of accountability and oversight of police officers, not this one instance of them playing music.
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