Police officer plays Taylor Swift song to keep a video off YouTube • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by scotuswroteus » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

robbrown451 wrote: post #99

jollybean wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The person filming it is not violating copyright in any way that would hold up in court. They are not cutting into the market for Blank Space. People aren't going to watch the video so they don't have to pay Taylor Swift. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#4._Effect_upon_work's... ("courts consider whether the use in question acts as a direct market substitute for the original work.") The only thing it is doi…

Lol, I'm pretty sure a Court would have difficult time finding that the "purpose" of the cop's use here is one that the fair use doctrine was codified to protect

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

#242

Post by dctoedt » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

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…

> what factors would be relevant to weighing whether or not the video infringes on the copyright?

"As a general matter, copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner." https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html

See also a useful FAQ-style article, especially Myth #4: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law...

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> I guess it’s difficult for me to wrap my head around how there could be infringement without the (intentional?) misappropriation of the work.

Intent isn't a factor in determining whether infringement exists (as opposed to whether a fair-use defense is available). "The U.S. Copyright Act is a strict liability statute. In other words, following a “rule” that you believe to be true but which turns out to be a myth will not excuse you from liability for infringement. Under certain circumstances, it is possible to plead “innocent infringement,” but even that only serves to reduce the amount of damages you may owe and does not excuse your infringement." (From the ABA "Myths" article cited above.)

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

#243

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

DevKoala wrote: post #155

heavyset_go wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a license to play or perform music and other types of copyrighted media in public.

Is this true? I play music on the street sometimes. Am I violating the law? Seriously concerned. Not that I want to defend the cop (o haven’t watched the video), but I feel that if we start enforcing these restrictions we are going to get ourselves into a rabbit hole of no fun.

Talk to a lawyer about it. I have a musician in the family who performs at venues and also likes to busk, and they pay some subscription fee for access to a library of music they're allowed to legally perform.

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

#244

Post by cforrester » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #59

brewdad wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: You may hate the cops, but do you really think that mobs will be more accountable than the police? Considering cops currently face accountability that approaches 0, yes.

I just don't how see burning down precinct buildings leads to anything better. A controversial opinion, it seems.

It's not the burning that directly leads to something better. It's more like a natural consequence caused by failing to adequately address people's need for something better; people who feel powerless in their quest for justice will treasure morsels of that justice whereever they can get it, such as direct attacks on the public institutions suppressing them.

The good that can come from it is motivation: it's more clear than ever that gradual reform is not occurring, and something has to change at a fundamental level. Enabling people to get justice civilly will sharply reduce the number of people resorting to incivility.

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

#245

Post by sixothree » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

peeters wrote: 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…

This country was founded on checks and balances. And currently the people who have the most control over whether we are allowed to live and how we do that have zero checks whatsoever. This needs to change.

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

#246

Post by kemonocode » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

jopsen wrote: post #217

LinuxBender wrote: post #24

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.

Or just use mask/obfuscate the audio, and face while your at it. In some ways, the whole debate could be more civil if officers faces and voices were blurred. After all, it's not really the individual officer who is at fault: it's the system that trained the officer, and the department policies that require officers to apply unreasonable force. There are also many other contributing factors to policing issues in the…

> In some ways, the whole debate could be more civil if officers faces and voices were blurred.

Police have no expectation of privacy when performing their official duties, at least in the US, so that should be a non-issue. If they don't want to bring consequences unto themselves for what they're doing, then perhaps they should stop doing such things or think really hard about their chosen career path.

> After all, it's not really the individual officer who is at fault: it's the system that trained the officer, and the department policies that require officers to apply unreasonable force.

At some point you can't just blame "the system" and there needs to be individual accountability. Mayhaps if they like the lack of it and with less bodily risk, they could pursue politics instead.

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

#247

Post by nashashmi » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

cellularmitosis wrote: post #225

nashashmi wrote: post #195

Calm down people. A while back the headline was music weaponized to prevent broadcast. It’s not a weapon. The officer is using music to prevent videos from being put online. I really don’t see the problem in this.

The problem is less about the specific act of stifling the virality of police recordings and more about what this says about the mindset of this cop and police culture in general.

The mindset is not isolated to police culture. It is also present in construction inspection and pretty much anywhere the job is enforcement of policies.

You do the little you can to enforce rules in the most effective way possible with the least opinions being raised at the methods you used to get there. “How do I do my job and create the least amount of fuss?”

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

#248

Post by bugfix » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #157

The actual video is available on YouTube if you want to watch for yourself, Taylor Swift music included: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmZmo81Cdcc Apparently the strategy doesn't work.

You can upload it to YouTube, but you can't monetize it.

I've seen some videos of people following officers around with a camera and harassing them trying to get some sort of response, so they can post the video on their Instagram/YouTube and make money from ads.

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

#249

Post by throaway3141593 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

parineum wrote: post #52

lucideer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but this typically comes down to the definition of broadcast and one could certainly argue that the officer's intent is to broadcast if they're playing it specifically because they know they're being recorded for public broadcast.

The officers is explicitly attempting to not broadcast it, is he not?

The officer is playing the music knowing that an attempt will be made to distribute the video, while hoping but not knowing for sure that the video will be blocked from distribution. The video could appear on one of many other sites that do a poorer job of screening media or that don't even attempt to do so.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

rpdillon wrote: post #236

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...

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