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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

#201
post #132

Maybe the officer will have a great YC application answer for the time he hacked a system. 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…

Its not that the tactic is scummy. 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 sub…

I completely disagree. Police are people too and as much as you are allowed to film them I can't imagine another country where people are shoving their phones into the faces of the officers. Just take couple steps back and there is no problem.

I won't argue about the police actions in US. I've said my piece on the matter.

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

#202

I've been seeing videos on TikTok and such of cops using tape to cover up people's security cameras at their homes when approaching the front door. I don't care why the cop is there, that should be at least a firable offense on the first occurance .

The irony is that body cameras for police are sold to departments as devices that keep the "lying public" from accusing cops of doing things they didn't do. They have no problem shoving cameras in other people's faces, but if someone records cops, then it's the end of the world.

If you can't see the difference either you are naive or you are pushing agenda.

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.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is mostly technical. Depending on the phone, call audio isn't implemented as much in software as wired directly (in some variable degree) to the radio hardware. 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.

Bullshit. They break it with updates on phones where it worked just fine. They also removed access to root folders on a whim. This sucked for those of us with locked bootloaders, without root we now lost access to those folders and the contents therein.

> They also removed access to root folders on a whim.

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.

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't play it for himself.

He was playing it for himself, and those in his immediate surrounding, and there's almost no chance that's going to be considered some kind of violation. He's not making a public production or broadcasting either - the person doing the filming is doing that.

He said he didn't play it for himself. His immediate surrounding and those in it are exactly what would make it public performance.

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He is just playing it for those immediately around him. That doesn't count as a public performance 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 perfor…

No, you're not looking at it like a prosecutor/RIAA goon would, because they have not sued anyone ever for merely playing music on their phone while standing in public. 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 copyr…

https://www.bmi.com/faq/entry/what_is_a_public_performance_o...

> 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.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a clever hack, and like other zero days we need to implement a patch immediately. It is simply unacceptable that police can start playing music and prevent their (mis)conduct from being distributed on the most popular distribution channels.

What misconduct?

None in this case, but it's a tactic that can be employed in conjunction with misconduct.

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

#208
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when the officer flat-out says "yeah you can record, that's fine" (good on him!); 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.…

You are conflating the Court of Public Opinion with the Court of Law. 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"…

If the goal is to reduce the violence level to the point that only the police are committing violence, then that is not a good goal.

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.

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you think it violates copyright to play music in public spaces. 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 phonoreco…

Courts would never in a million years call this a copyright violation. If it was, anyone walking down the street playing music would be violating copyright. 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 c…

> If it was, anyone walking down the street playing music would be violating copyright.

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.

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

#210
post #20

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 office…

Yeah, I get that cops aren't very popular these days, but this is a very clever hack, and I like to think that the HN crowd is logical enough to appreciate it, regardless of the perpetrator.

It wasn't his idea. We've known about this for months.

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.

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