[HN Gopher] Cops are playing music while citizens are filming to...
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Cops are playing music while citizens are filming to trigger
copyright filters
Author : edward
Score : 182 points
Date : 2021-02-09 20:58 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| GoodJokes wrote:
| Defund the police.
| xwdv wrote:
| Can't you just delete the audio
| Tenoke wrote:
| So for the next step we need an easy to use ML service for
| removing protected (or all) music but not speech from videos.
| soheil wrote:
| How hard is it to mute the mic when streaming?
| detaro wrote:
| What's being said is often kind of important too.
| kgwxd wrote:
| What they're saying matters too much
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Especially with masks. You can't even guess what's being said
| by lip reading obvious mouth movements.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Sgt. Billy Fair is silent, and only starts speaking after we're
| a good way through Sublime's "Santeria."_
|
| Isn't this Fair use? :)
| detaro wrote:
| automated "copyright enforcement" mechanisms don't make that
| distinction, and appeals against them have the same success
| rate you can expect against any other big-tech automated
| moderation - not good.
| JadoJodo wrote:
| I am 100% for accountability in policing, but I find it telling
| the number of these kinds of videos that don't show the full
| context and are instead 30s clips of the middle/worst part of the
| interaction.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| This is just a suggestion and I am not a lawyer and this is
| probably in the gray area and a bad idea, but one could upload
| the videos their own site (server) then embed links to the files
| on your social media platforms. Each platform could censor your
| post, but the video would remain. If you are truly violating
| copyrights, then you could of course lose your domain or face
| legal repercussions, but if this is a case of a bot being overly
| aggressive, then it might avoid the problem. The only reason I
| could see hosting a video on platforms like Youtube would be if
| you wanted to monetize it or expected a significantly large
| number of simultaneous viewers. Even then, you can
| downsize/optimize it for mobile viewers and then link to a full
| size version for media outlets to use.
| adolph wrote:
| Wouldn't the copyright holder just DCMA the hosting provider
| for the entire domain?
| LinuxBender wrote:
| That was one points I called out. If this is really a
| copyright holder sending notifications, then yes you could
| lose your domain. I suspect that is not what is happening
| though. I suspect these are bots that detect what music is in
| a video and automatically pull it down. Well, the bots can't
| do that if the file is not under their control.
| chris_wot wrote:
| Well in that case I think the cops should be sued for copyright
| infringement.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Surely it's the cop performing an unlicensed public performance
| of a copyrighted work who should be being DCMA'd here .... this
| video is just evidence of the crime
| montebicyclelo wrote:
| I guess at some point platforms will stop removing media that
| contains copyrighted audio, and instead just remove the
| copyrighted audio from the media. (?)
| Udik wrote:
| The uploaders- or tech-savvy early downloaders- might be able
| to do the same. So as a way to prevent videos from being
| uploaded to social media seems completely lame. As this video
| proves, it's just a ticket for becoming quickly a _very_ famous
| asshole.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Youtube already does or did this. I remember multiple videos
| that had no audio and a notification that the audio has been
| removed owing to a copyright complaint.
| montebicyclelo wrote:
| Ah, I meant extracting the copyrighted audio signal from the
| remaining audio signal, and leaving the remaining signal.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| I'm not sure how feasible that would be if someone is
| talking over a song playing...
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| If human beings can tell the difference between speech
| and background audio while both are playing
| simultaneously, it has to be possible somehow for a
| machine to do it.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| This is certainly something that humans do, but they do
| have a significant error rate.
| Udik wrote:
| Given that copyrighted audio is- more or less by
| definition- available as a separate track without
| interference, it shouldn't be _too_ difficult to subtract
| it from the video 's track.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It's theoretically straightforward if you have the actual
| copyrighted audio; you can just invert it and add it to
| the audio stream.
|
| But I believe YouTube stores some kind of digest related
| to the audio they identify, not the audio itself.
|
| Then again, that audio _is_ available for many pieces
| that happen to be present in other videos on YouTube,
| which ContentID would automatically identify.
| jedberg wrote:
| Twitch does this. They mute the audio but still allow the
| video. In this case it wouldn't help because the non-music
| audio is still important.
| jMyles wrote:
| Is this at all surprising?
|
| The same thing will happen in places that are trying to restrict
| filming of children without their parents consent. Cops will find
| a kid, make sure they're in frame, and use that as their pretext.
|
| All anti-filming laws are subject to abuse by police. Police and
| cameras (or more broadly, executive power and documentary vision)
| have a very special relationship in society, and if the latter
| isn't given absolute latitude, the former will take the offered
| inch and subsume the right entirely.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Article says they are playing Santeria by Sublime.
|
| Perhaps they should be playing April 29th 1992 by the same band,
| or does their cognitive dissonance actually have a limit?
| bpcpdx wrote:
| He's a Beverly Hills cop so he should play Axel F instead.
| sschueller wrote:
| Why is it not possible for individuals to just pay a fee like a
| radio station to not get copyright striked?
|
| There are so many solutions for industry like listening devices
| for venues that figure out what was played so that licensing can
| be processed.
|
| I see this yet as another failure of the RIAA to get a leg up and
| provide a win-win solution. Instead these idiots are stuck in
| their old thinking until it's too late and someone else will once
| again "steal" a huge part of their profit. Apple is one that took
| such a chunk from them because they sat around.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Some media in some jurisdictions have compulsory licensing, but
| music recordings in the USA do not. Licenses are discretionary.
| I.e. must be negotiated from the owner.
|
| Part of that negotiation is about leverage and bundling (you
| can buy our hits but not without also buying all the crap) and
| gives a whole industry of middlemen jobs. A-la-cart licensing
| would be a disaster for some of the goons in RIAA.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Why is it not possible for individuals to just pay a fee like
| a radio station to not get copyright striked?
|
| Worked for some people trying to get that kind of thing going
| with the record companies but they were beyond ambivalent about
| it. (As well they might be given that money rolls in without
| much effort on their part.)
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I would assume radio stations have contracts that allow them
| to, quite literally, pay to play.
| thephyber wrote:
| It still shouldn't be needed. This situation is a great example
| of Fair Use Doctrine.
| idownvoted wrote:
| Wow. Two things:
|
| 1) That, of all police departments in the world, this is done by
| _Beverly Hills Cops_ is a sign, that we 're living in a
| simulation
|
| 2) How broken must a society be, if all of the outrage is
| directed towards police officers playing filter-triggering music
| and not towards the environment in wich this becomes a thing in
| the first place.
|
| Assuming that Beverly Hills is not the economically worst-off
| part of the US, I wonder if this is again another example of
| class-war in disguise (i.e. upper class kids pretending to be
| civil rights leaders by forcing working class officers to be
| their youtube material).
| apozem wrote:
| What are you talking about? They're providing accountability
| for the actions of armed agents of the state, people with a
| literal license to kill. They're not forcing officers to do
| unboxing videos.
| zeruch wrote:
| Sounds like a great use case for an upsurge in bittorrent traffic
| again...
| jedberg wrote:
| The real problem here is that there is no consequence for
| incorrect takedowns. If content is taken down and then it turns
| out to be fair use, no one suffers a penalty.
|
| The DMCA and similar laws provide protection to the platform if
| they act quickly on takedown notices, but the law needs to be
| updated to provide penalties for the reporter for inappropriate
| takedowns.
|
| This would allow Google/Facebook/et al to change their tools from
| automatic takedown to reporting the violation to the copyright
| holder, and then it is up to the copyright holder to file a
| claim. If perhaps the copyright holder makes too many erroneous
| claims, they lose their copyright altogether.
|
| Let the platforms be neutral, put the liability on the copyright
| violators and copyright holders equally, so both have a reason to
| act fairly.
| theelous3 wrote:
| > they lose their copyright altogether
|
| Big no to this, as that can and would be abused by scavengers,
| but the rest is sane and broadly agreed to be the way.
|
| What tou want instead is fines by revenue / income.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Big no to this, as that can and would be abused by
| scavengers
|
| How would scavengers abuse this?
| underwater wrote:
| This is not about the laws. YouTube has their own copyright
| processes that are more stringent than DMCA. They allow
| companies to automate take down and take over requests with no
| repercussions. Everyone who shares a video to their platform
| has agreed to this process.
| jedberg wrote:
| I'm aware of that, but the reason YouTube has that process is
| because they don't want to get sued. If the law gave YouTube
| immunity by simply reporting copyright claims instead of
| taking them down, they would switch their process. Especially
| if YouTube had a penalty for getting it wrong.
| Jasper_ wrote:
| > I'm aware of that, but the reason YouTube has that
| process is because they don't want to get sued. If the law
| gave YouTube immunity by simply reporting copyright claims
| instead of taking them down, they would switch their
| process.
|
| The DMCA already has a system that is much fairer to the
| average creator in the form of safe harbor provisions.
| YouTube doesn't like the DMCA process because it's
| expensive to handle and process individual claims, compared
| to letting their big partners just sling bogus claims
| across the entire site.
|
| They'd prefer to be on the side of rightsholders over
| creators, simply because it's cheaper.
| nitrogen wrote:
| They might have nonstandard contracts with big media
| producers that prevent YT from removing ContentID and/or
| require YT to grant special takedown powers, so any legal
| change would have to address those types of contracts (if
| they exist) as well.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| YouTube has a process _outside of the DMCA_ to let rights
| holders take down videos without risk of a false DMCA suit.
| h_anna_h wrote:
| I am honestly wondering, is this case "fair use"?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| The real problem is that the cops face no recourse for
| blatantly defying a law they're suppose to follow - these are
| people that are, after all, suppose to enforce the law.
| darig wrote:
| The real problem is you didn't serve them the recourse you
| blatantly know they deserve - because you are, after all, a
| coward.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| What law are they defying by playing music? Motives aside, in
| principle, if people should be allowed to film why should
| they not be allowed to play music?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| In 12 states, you are NOT allowed to film cops. This
| implies that in the other 38 states, the public has decided
| you are allowed. Law is subjective by spirit, and playing
| music so that anyone filming you cannot legally share the
| film seems like a violation of the spirit of the law.
| dogsgobork wrote:
| There are 12 states where you can't secretly record the
| police, or at least audio record the police, due to
| wiretap consent laws.
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/you-have-first-
| amendme...
| underwater wrote:
| They're conducting a public performance of copyright music
| without appropriate licenses.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Are you arguing that playing music out loud is illegal?
| jmj42 wrote:
| Public performance of a copyrighted work. Unless the
| officer has a license to play the music for public
| consumption, it is illegal for him/her to do so.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Are you arguing that playing music is illegal?
| adolph wrote:
| Is it a criminal or civil offense?
|
| If the officer is playing the music incidentally as they
| go about their day, would that be fair use?
|
| I wonder if a de-music service would be feasible so that
| the copyrighted audio within a video would be detected
| and suppressed without suppressing the video and other
| noises.
| gpm wrote:
| Willful infringement of copyright is criminal. Incidental
| infringement is not (also incidental recording of music
| would probably not be civil infringement either in my
| honest and not at all a lawyer opinion).
| [deleted]
| thrwn_frthr_awy wrote:
| It isn't "people", it is the police trying to obfuscate and
| avoid punishment for misconduct.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| _why should they not be allowed to play music?_
|
| Because it gives the impression that the cops have
| something to hide when they are triggering the Facebook
| copyright filter, seemingly on purpose. Caesar's wife must
| be above reproach.
| chongli wrote:
| Even more fundamental is the adversarial relationship that
| the culture of policing has developed with the public. The
| _warrior mindset_ is at the root of so many of these
| problems. We need to disband all of the police forces and
| start again with a new culture based around a guardian
| mindset and community service.
|
| It's a similar problem (albeit much less extreme) to what's
| happening right now in Myanmar with the military. It's so
| difficult to defuse because the military and the civilians
| there have such an adversarial relationship due to the long
| years of dictatorship.
| taneq wrote:
| There are at least two real problems here.
| tqi wrote:
| Everyone here seems to be focused on the copyright laws, and not
| the behavior of this officer, which to me feels misplaced blame.
| bradly wrote:
| Slightly related, but the only way I was able to get a site taken
| down for a fraudulent listing of my rental property was to file a
| Trademark/Copyright claim on the photos and description. The fact
| that had my property with them listed as the owner and their own
| phone number was not enough.
| eftychis wrote:
| That is really interesting and surprising.
| seiferteric wrote:
| Given the original source song, I would think it should be
| possible to make some software to strip the song from a video
| while leaving behind the other sounds no? Maybe using some sort
| of correlation function or something?
| [deleted]
| barbs wrote:
| The tweet is mostly just a link to this article:
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxb94/is-this-beverly-hills...
| alex_young wrote:
| This really should be the article link.
| miguelmota wrote:
| Does the cop playing the music qualify as a public performance if
| the citizens are the audience?
| pdkl95 wrote:
| Simply playing a song "in the background" without any critique,
| educational purpose, or other _transformative fair use_ is
| almost certainly an performance of the original work. If the
| cop doesn 't have an appropriate license, they could be liable
| for statutory damages up to $150,000[1] _per work_.
|
| Unfortunately, enforcing this will probably only happen if
| someone with standing files a lawsuit. I doubt many music
| labels that hold the relevant copyrights are interested in
| suing the cops.
|
| [1] damages normally start much lower, but the performance of
| the copyright protected work is _patently willful_
| akeck wrote:
| ASCAP, etc. will eventually want their bill paid for the
| public performances. That was my experience volunteering at
| small church coffee houses.
| DrJokepu wrote:
| There are also sovereign immunity issues, see Allen v.
| Cooper.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Wouldn't you have to be a party to the infringing work for
| that to be true? Presumably you can sue the copyright holder
| of the film and not the "actors" as it were?
|
| For example, if a romcom rips off some music I created can I
| sue Ben Affleck because he appeared in it? I doubt it. I
| especially doubt it if he didn't want to be in the film.
| [deleted]
| filoleg wrote:
| I think the idea is not to get hit with a "public performance"
| charge, but to have the video get automatically taken down on
| Youtube/Twitch/Instagram once it gets uploaded (due to the
| algorithm detecting copyright-infringing material).
|
| And for that purpose, it doesn't matter whether it was a public
| performance or not. I can make a video of me sitting in a chair
| with a copyrighted song playing in the background, and it will
| get taken down. Hardly what I would call a "public
| performance".
| jedberg wrote:
| The point is people should turn around and try to nail the
| cops for illegal public performances.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| thanks - came here to say the same thing. does the police
| department pay the appropriate BMI license to be able to
| blast out those tunes in public?
| postalrat wrote:
| You can try. I'm sure the cops will just start playing
| songs by artists who approve of cops playing but don't
| approve of the songs appearing in the background of social
| media posts.
| meowface wrote:
| Diabolical, but I'd be lying if I didn't say this is a clever
| hack.
| lhorie wrote:
| So what happens if the person filming starts playing a
| different song? I don't imagine the filter would be smart
| enough to make out the two different songs playing at the same
| time?
| bitwize wrote:
| Law enforcement can break the law.
| [deleted]
| 1-6 wrote:
| Time for a technology company to come in to create a service
| that emits some form of A/V and trigger DRM enforcement
| procedures. Imagine when sporting events start to implement
| this to jam social media sharing.
| imtyler wrote:
| Apple patented a system to do this in 2016[1] but has yet to
| implement it afaik.
|
| [1]https://m.dpreview.com/news/0190365065/apple-patents-
| system-...
| Wistar wrote:
| But do the police have the proper BMI/ASCAP license for public
| performance?
| eftychis wrote:
| Will be interesting if they pick the wrong company and get
| sued for that in the process.
| 99_00 wrote:
| Citizens aren't prevented from filming. They are prevented from
| uploading video to social media. There is an important
| difference.
|
| In this case I suspect the person filming is well known to the
| police for filming and has a long history of interaction with
| them.
| jedberg wrote:
| An argument can be made that uploading to social media is part
| of the "recording" process.
|
| If they put their hand in front of the lens, are they
| preventing recording? If they take the phone and put it in a
| box but leave it on, are they preventing recording?
| liquidify wrote:
| You only point out a fact here.
|
| I don't think you are implying that it is ok for cops to be
| doing something that is specifically to prevent open sharing of
| their behavior via common 'platforms'.
|
| I also don't think your comment related to the implications at
| all... which is why your comment is provocative.
|
| I wanted to react negatively, accusing you of willful
| subversion, but all I can do is wonder if you did this
| intentionally knowing that you would get a reaction.
|
| Regardless, I'll explain why your statement is meaningless.
| Police are here to serve and protect. They serve at the
| public's discretion. If they do anything to reduce awareness of
| the public's ability to analyze their performance or behavior
| while on duty, they are no longer serving or protecting. They
| should be fired.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I don't think anyone is claiming that playing music is
| preventing people from filming?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| There have been proposals to have hardware refuse to record
| copyrighted works. Though of course if that was the context
| then "citizens aren't prevented from filming" wouldn't be
| true anyway.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Just another of the myriad examples of how the DMCA is abused
| with no repercussions to the abusers at all.
|
| Remember when Youtube removed a video of someone in their garden
| with the rationale that the sounds of birds chirping infringed on
| some company's copyright [1]? And then they upheld the removal
| even following manual review, so the tired refrain that it was
| just an automated bot was not even applicable.
|
| [1] https://waxy.org/2012/03/youtube_bypasses_the_dmca/
| eftychis wrote:
| I am amazed I am going to say this, but the issue is not with
| the DMCA but with Google/YouTube allowing a bypass of DMCA.
|
| If you read carefully, you will see they refer in the cited
| case to the Content Id system. In that case Google allows the
| claimants to verify that it is indeed their content and takes
| their word for it with no repercussions.
|
| If the company above had made a false DMCA claim they would be
| in rough water, as DMCA provides the tooling for damages etc
| and "countersueing."
|
| Essentially Google found a way to produce something worse than
| DMCA in all aspects besides automation and angering their
| product (that is the users and content creators).
| quotemstr wrote:
| Is human review under sufficiently strict and inflexible policy
| even distinguishable from machine review?
| ghastmaster wrote:
| I think a better approach to outright blocking the infringing, or
| presume to be infringing content, would be developing software
| that identifies the infringing audio and removes it using sound
| cancellation. This would require the claimant to submit a sample
| of the infringed content and an algorithm to add a layer of
| opposite polarity audio or alteration of the actual original
| layer.
|
| The same would be more difficult with video, but could be done
| eventually.:
|
| This approach would require a great amount of initial investment.
| It would have to be designed to deal with frequency shifted audio
| as well.
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