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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

#111
post #48
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't want videos of cops being posted on the internet? Contact your local representative and have them sponsor a law. 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?

It wouldn't. It's impossible. People want unconstitutional things all the time though, and sometimes they even make them into laws. Then they go to the SCOTUS and lose. But you can do it.

> People want unconstitutional things all the time though, and sometimes they even make them into laws. Then they go to the SCOTUS and lose.

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.

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

#112
post #105
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that public performance and doesn't that require the police dept to pay royalties? 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 per…

I thought a state entity referred to the State government. Police departments are run by the local city or county government.

> I thought a state entity referred to the State government. Police departments are run by the local city or county government.

For this purpose, city- and county governments and their various departments are regarded as subdivisions of the state.

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

#113
post #85

Is there some kind of centralized review system for police departments in the US? I try to be cognizant of confirmation bias, but the amount of news I read about this particular force makes me think it's particularly bad even among US forces. 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 Rapto…

Nope, and it’s why police regularly get away with abuses of power that would have (rightfully) landed me in prison if I tried it while deployed in Afghanistan.

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

#114
post #101
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard of the first amendment?

The OP said the cop was harassing them… the only harassment appeared to be coming from the crowd.

I just watched the video in the article. Seems like everyone is calm. But the man with the gun on his hip seems to be demanding the crowd change their behavior due to some issue with a banner. Whether you call that harassment or not I suppose is a matter of perspective.

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

#115
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No. It is being filmed without his consent. He is just playing it for those immediately around him. That doesn't count as a public performance.

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...

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

#117
post #80

Very upsetting the mindset of a police officer (sergeant!) who will harass someone while listening to a pre trial hearing for an officer who murdered a man having a mental breakdown, and then upon being recorded will attempt to interfere with that recording. Police officers are given extraordinary powers by society and yet they can act like spoiled brats (or worse). Not cool!

> Police officers are given extraordinary powers by society and yet they can act like spoiled brats (or worse). 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.

Well, it was a way to be charitable in my rhetoric. Giving the hypothetical police officer the benefit of the doubt that they might be worthy of the powers they are being given. Which, might not actually be powers humans can handle without abuse.

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

#118

Very upsetting the mindset of a police officer (sergeant!) who will harass someone while listening to a pre trial hearing for an officer who murdered a man having a mental breakdown, and then upon being recorded will attempt to interfere with that recording. Police officers are given extraordinary powers by society and yet they can act like spoiled brats (or worse). Not cool!

Why aren't you upset about YouTube allowing automated removal of videos with zero reconciliation to fair use statutes?

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.

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

#119

Keep psychologically abusing police (getting in their face and antagonizing them) instead of holding legislators and officials accountable and see if society gets better or worse.

> instead of holding legislators and officials accountable

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.

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

#120

Perhaps a work around would be to post without audio and add text captions, fully accepting that if the people in the video are wearing masks, the captions could turn into bad lipreading memes.

Yeah this seems like an easy way around it. Post the video with subtitles and no audio, and a link to the original video hosted on a PeerTube instance or something.
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