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Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube

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Re: Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube

#11

Post by otterley »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #9
scotuswroteus wrote: post #5

Isn't that video evidence that the police officer is violating the copyright?

I really have no clue. Playing music in public isn't considered copyright violation. Otherwise playing the radio would be unlawful. 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.

Wrong. One of the rights in the "copyright bundle" is public performance rights, which are reserved exclusively to the copyright holder and their licensees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performing_rights

Generally speaking, "public performance" means outside a small social group consisting of friends and/or family.

Re: Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube

#14

Post by oh_sigh »

posguy wrote: post #7
scotuswroteus wrote: post #5

Isn't that video evidence that the police officer is violating the copyright?

This would constitute a public performance of a song, I doubt he paid for a license.

You don't need a public performance license to personally consume music in public. Public performance licenses would be for things like playing a song in a restaurant you run, or in a retail store.

Re: Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube

#16

Post by otterley »

scotuswroteus wrote: post #5

Isn't that video evidence that the police officer is violating the copyright?

It would be hilarious (and also poetic justice) if Taylor Swift (or whomever the copyright holder is) sued the Alameda County Sheriff's department for copyright violation and demanded maximum statutory penalties.

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).

Re: Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube

#17

Post by tnel77 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #14
posguy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would constitute a public performance of a song, I doubt he paid for a license.

You don't need a public performance license to personally consume music in public. Public performance licenses would be for things like playing a song in a restaurant you run, or in a retail store.

Cops are bad, so you are wrong.

Re: Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube

#18

Post by akersten »

oh_sigh wrote: post #14
posguy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would constitute a public performance of a song, I doubt he paid for a license.

You don't need a public performance license to personally consume music in public. Public performance licenses would be for things like playing a song in a restaurant you run, or in a retail store.

He's not personally consuming - he's playing the music in public for the purposes of performance (the audience) and broadcast (he knows it is being recorded)! This is willful and flagrant infringement.

Re: Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube

#19

Post by DevKoala »

scotuswroteus wrote: post #5

Isn't that video evidence that the police officer is violating the copyright?

I don’t think so because the officer isn’t posting the video online. Unless you think it violates copyright to play music in public spaces.

Re: Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube

#20

Post by 015a »

To some degree I understand the cop's position. The internet is an insanely dangerous echo chamber. The vast, VAST majority of police interactions are not that. The vast majority of police interactions are well-meaning officers maintaining public order. This doesn't excuse the interactions which are unrighteous and deserve to be exposed, possibly including the interaction that these people were protesting.

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.

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