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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

#231

Post by heavyset_go »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #202
heavyset_go wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Other is full recording of what happened from the officer's point of view.

Ironically, the security cameras on people's private property that cops are choosing to put tape over before possibly committing crimes are closer to "full recordings" than what body cameras offer.

Body cameras are sold with features that cops and their bosses like, like features that exist for the purpose of keeping the public from accusing cops of violating their rights or worse.

That means that many body cameras are designed to only record short 30 to 60 second segments of video after a cop feels that "something bad" might happen to them. Many of the cameras also come with convenient on and off switches, too, and some come with features that allow cops to delete videos.

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

#232

Post by heavyset_go »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #181
marsdepinski wrote: post #63

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

I don't want to argue the case on the video, but I am curious. If I have legally obtained copy of a song and I play it so that people I do not know hear it is it considered illegal. Some scenarios: A) like here, I just play on my phone. Idea is that it is for myself, say I left my earphones at home, but I just need my tunes. B) I have my open headphones on, so the music is clearly audible to anyone near by me C) I ha…

Intent matters in these cases.

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

#233

Post by Taek »

Simulacra wrote: post #212
ChuckMcM wrote: post #191

Interesting article for two reasons, how the practice originated and what it implies. The practice seems to be somewhat wide spread (in the distance between departments case). That might be because it came from a Facebook group or forum where Law Enforcement officers exchange tips. The second is the choice of artist (Swift) who has been in a pretty visible battle with ownership of her music. I suspect that if the off…

"explicitly attempting to deny you your 1st Amendment right " I disagree. It's YouTube that is denying your first amendment right. You have the right to record the officer, but you have no right nor control over what the officer can do. There is absolutely no law against playing a taylor swift song, as distasteful as it may be. He's not stopping the person filming. There is explicit, and there is reality, and this ju…

YouTube isn't trying to deny your first amendment right, it's incidentally enabling your first amendment right to be denied.

Which I do think is a bad thing, and YouTube should not have automated systems that can be exploited to violate people's rights, but the intention of YouTube is certainly not to violate rights, and the intention of the officer certainly is to violate rights.

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

#234

Post by cforrester »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #202
heavyset_go wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In most of the cases I've seen of police misconduct, a brief clip of the actual offending act is all that is necessary to establish that misconduct, making them valuable documentation for any court case. Edited footage between the beginning and end of the clip is easily detected.

Taking an egregious example of the murder of George Floyd, there is no context that could have preceded the footage of his murder that would have justified kneeling on a man's neck for over 9 minutes. It also would have been trivial to detect if someone had extended the video to make it appear that he knelt longer than he did.

What are some examples of situations where you imagine that footage taken by a regular citizen could be edited to make an officer's reasonable actions look like police brutality or other major forms of police misconduct?

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

#236

Post by rpdillon »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #191

Interesting article for two reasons, how the practice originated and what it implies. The practice seems to be somewhat wide spread (in the distance between departments case). That might be because it came from a Facebook group or forum where Law Enforcement officers exchange tips. The second is the choice of artist (Swift) who has been in a pretty visible battle with ownership of her music. I suspect that if the off…

I wonder if a cop playing a song in public constitutes a public performance. BMI[0] seems to think so:

> 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.

[0]: https://www.bmi.com/faq/entry/what_is_a_public_performance_o...

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

#237

Post by dctoedt »

elliekelly wrote: post #154
dctoedt wrote: 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 know the purpose of this is really to avoid the clip going viral but I’m curious whether there have been any cases addressing whether this situation could fall under fair use with respect to the person recording? Videos like this are usually newsworthy (and not made for commercial purposes) and the copyrighted material is incidental to the purpose of the recording. I suppose I’m wondering whether this is an actual…

> whether this situation could fall under fair use with respect to the person recording?

IMHO the person posting the YouTube video with the Taylor Swift song in background would have an excellent shot at a fair-use defense against any claim of infringement of the copyright in the song or the recording (which could be two different things). See, e.g., https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/

I also strongly suspect that the owner of the copyright(s) in question would think very hard before making an infringement claim in the first place, for fear of the adverse publicity.

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

#238

Post by netr0ute »

recursive wrote: post #161
bmsleight_ wrote: post #12

If it is a well known song - maybe the audio coudl be subtracted - noise cancellation style to remove the rogue song.

If it was recorded by a microphone in a space, then that won't work. Time and frequency inaccuracy in playback by speaker, sound reflections, and inaccuracies in recording by microphone all contribute to a signal. The original can be recognized, but simple subtraction will never remove it.

This is untrue, things like Fourier transforms can account for those variables.

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

#239

Post by scotuswroteus »

otterley wrote: post #16
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).

Then how is Disney suing school boards for showing the Lion King?

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

#240

Post by scotuswroteus »

jollybean wrote: post #22
otterley wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It would be poetic justice of a kind, because I'll bet that they find a cop playing music for himself, even while interacting with others is probably not breaking copyright, whereas the person filming and publishing the situation probably is, i.e. an attempt to 'press' the police would end up more than likely just affirming the situation with a specific judicial ruling. It'd be interesting to see how a judge ruled ho…

There is no such exception for publicly playing a copyrighted work "for oneself"
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