[HN Gopher] Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing c...
___________________________________________________________________
Multiple Beverly Hills PD officers now weaponizing copyright
against streaming
Author : booleanbetrayal
Score : 242 points
Date : 2021-02-12 15:52 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| medium_burrito wrote:
| Hopefully they were playing the "Beverly Hills Cop" theme song!
|
| EDIT: It would be the most defensible thing ever- "It's our theme
| song, we can play it whenever we want to"
| sjg007 wrote:
| Axel F ... that or the crazy frog version.
| dahart wrote:
| I'm suddenly interested in making a neural network that can mute
| a known reference audio from a stream while leaving the
| surrounding audio in tact. Doesn't something like this already
| exist? It seems like Instagram and YouTube could pretty easily
| leave audio-edited videos online while addressing the copyright
| violation, without resorting to takedowns or account bans.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| Why doesn't YouTube do this to their videos, instead of muting
| all audio, or removing the video entirely? It'd be a far
| preferable user experience.
| Aeronwen wrote:
| They don't get anything out of it except complaints when it
| doesn't work right.
| sorenjan wrote:
| Sounds like the Cocktail party problem.
|
| https://www.comsol.com/blogs/have-you-heard-about-the-cockta...
| dahart wrote:
| It's definitely similar, though should be a lot easier when
| one of the things you're trying to distinguish and remove has
| a known high quality reference track you can use, right?
| Shivetya wrote:
| Nah, I am more interested in charging the police officers with
| DMCA violations and penalties on top of disturbing the peace
| and purposeful interference with someone exercising their First
| Amendment rights.
|
| Seriously, we don't need to fix the DMCA. This isn't the
| problem here. The problem is staring us in the face. Police are
| empowered by their unions which have a stranglehold on local if
| not national politics; even that 350 billion in the covid bills
| to shore up state finances is a little disguised bailout of
| public employee pension systems.
|
| the simple fact is, public sector employee unions are a threat
| to the financial and physical security of all Americans. their
| actions permit their members to provide bad to no service in
| both schools and police if not general public services over
| all. Remember, qualified immunity is not just a police issue,
| it covers all public employees.
| dahart wrote:
| Isn't undermining someone's ability to use copyrighted
| material with the intent of causing a video takedown in the
| first place going to be a lot easier to achieve, and have the
| same outcome that you want?
|
| It isn't realistic to think the officers could be prosecuted
| for DMCA violations, nor is it even that clear cut - they
| aren't posting the videos that are being taking down. It
| takes two parties here to result in the copyright violation.
|
| This is definitely not a good look for law enforcement to
| fight against public videos this way, even if it's a clever
| hack. It is _potentially_ violating the law, and it runs
| against the very reasons they have body cams. But enforcement
| won't be easy and requires proving intent, which makes it
| even harder. So much simpler to just take away this
| particular avenue for avoiding public records.
| analognoise wrote:
| You don't need a neural network for this - after song
| identification, you might be able to stream the right song at
| the right location, then simply play the song "inverted" -
| you'll increase background noise but the song won't be
| identifiable.
|
| It's a very simple DSP operation after song identification. It
| sounds like a lot of fun actually.
|
| The front end location identification might not have an extant
| solution, but post identification it should be doable with
| standard tricks.
|
| This is the cyberpunk future we were waiting for. Who wants to
| do some DSP?!
|
| If anyone wants to work together on this, we absolutely should.
| This is a fun problem with a very, very cyberpunk vibe. Plus
| it's real DSP work!
| diggan wrote:
| Isn't this how balanced audio cables work effectively? Have
| two signals, one hot and one cold, invert them against each
| other and noise would be cancelled out. Replace noise with
| the song that got identified, and you can cancel it out.
| me_me_me wrote:
| That's what I was thinking too. It doesnt even have to be
| perfect. All it needs to do is mask/distort music to make the
| algo matching content id not identify it.
|
| Hmmm.... would playing another song at the same time not have
| similar effect?
|
| This might be fun weekend project :)
| anaerobicover wrote:
| This won't magically make other audio sources that were
| present when the recording was made easier to hear, though.
| Once the recording is made, they're not independent any more.
| They'll still be masked, maybe even more.
| analognoise wrote:
| No, but it will preserve them online for later
| filtering/post processing.
| anaerobicover wrote:
| Maybe, depending on the details of your scheme, I guess?
| If you subtract data, that data is gone, and there's no
| separate stream of data in the recording for the cops'
| voices vs. the phone.
| analognoise wrote:
| We just "play" the song - so it's a spotify call. Ideally
| anything not aligned with the song meant to induce
| takedown and the inverted playing of it will still be
| maintained.
|
| To clarify, we don't want to subtract the data from the
| feed, we can just nullify it near the microphone.
|
| I think it would be harder to filter on an instagram feed
| directly, not sure how their api looks or if it's
| possible?
| anaerobicover wrote:
| I see, you're saying play the inverse at the recording
| time. So I misunderstood, I thought you were meaning
| doing it to the recording.
|
| This is also complicated, because you need to factor in
| the relative locations of the original source, your
| source, and the pickup to make sure the phase is correct.
| bmicraft wrote:
| I don't think this is realistically achievable when you have
| all kinds of distortion and echoes. You'd also need a way to
| identify the exact position on the song and correct that if
| it was wrong because it was in the refrain.
| analognoise wrote:
| I was thinking about this - a convolution filter with a
| long enough window would have a pretty good chance of
| identifying the right refrain location.
|
| You're right about echoes, but it doesn't need to be
| perfect - the echoes are already probably below the
| detection floor for the takedown filter.
|
| Also: If you identify and match up with a refrain, you'd
| still nullify that refrain. You'd just have to keep on your
| toes and move to the right location once you realized there
| was a mismatch. This is a classic cat/mouse "warring
| filters" problem!
| dahart wrote:
| Yeah it does seem technically within reach and potentially
| solvable. I was thinking of including song identification
| when I mentioned an NN as a potential solution. I'm also
| assuming that there a bunch of other serious complications
| like resampling and clock skew between the two streams, a
| changing frequency response over time, etc. You can imagine
| that if there are audio dropouts or song pauses in the video
| you're trying to fix, then naively subtracting the source
| song will result in accidentally playing the copyrighted song
| instead of removing it. And it might be trickier if people
| sing along to the song, etc. I think this situation is quite
| a bit tougher than the standard trick people use to remove
| ambient audio by recording with a 2nd mic further away and
| subtracting it.
| jlgaddis wrote:
| Hmm, would the playing of music by the police constitute a
| "public performance" (per copyright law)?
| hedora wrote:
| The facts in this case make it clear the officer intends for it
| to be a public performance. The officer should be fired, and
| the copyright holder should pursue maximum financial damages.
|
| Neither of those things will happen. The system is too corrupt
| for that.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| What non-fictional financial damages did the copyright holder
| suffer in this case?
|
| Is he going to come after me when i listen to music with an
| ipen window, or have friends over?
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Copyright laws have statutory damages.
|
| Having friends over isn't public performance. Having a
| window open incidentally isn't public performance.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| If they're listening to their phone exactly like any other
| person walking down the street might do, then no.
|
| If they were deliberately playing it over a PA system to a
| crowd, then yes.
|
| You may not like this behavior, but we really don't want to set
| a precedent that listening to music at normal volumes in public
| spaces is a punishable copyright violation.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yes, but I can't imagine many big recording companies wanting
| to start a fight with police unions.
| jhart99 wrote:
| I don't see how ASCAP/BMI wouldn't get on their cases about
| using music without a license.
| tclancy wrote:
| "RAAAAHHHHHXANNE, you don't want to run that red light!"
| lsiebert wrote:
| Recording cops while music is playing should be a fair use under
| US copyright law, right?
|
| So it's mostly about the take-down system and it's abusiveness.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| As far as I can tell, none of these videos have actually been
| taken down. It's just speculation at this point.
| antisthenes wrote:
| This is a general reminder to everyone when engaging in thought
| and conversation about policy and laws.
|
| Always consider the possible second and third-order effects of
| your proposal. There will _always_ be people who use (or at least
| attempt to use) the new policy to their own maximum benefit,
| possibly not in the intended way at all.
|
| Consider that behavior does not necessarily make them bad or
| evil, merely agents acting in their own self-interest. Consider
| then, also, not simply making a list of "if then else" exceptions
| and bans for these behaviors, but rethinking the entire policy in
| the first place.
|
| I strongly believe we could all be in a better place civically if
| we adhere to these simple guidelines before we slap down policies
| left and right and get trapped in vicious feedback loops where we
| can't repeal certain laws because they are "grandfathered in".
| jahnu wrote:
| I wonder if a band pass filter would suffice to defeat this
| attack?
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| To escalate this further, couldn't the police (semi officially,
| or police officers cooperating in private) just create musical
| pieces themselves to then have even more control over weaponizing
| them?
| CompuHacker wrote:
| You could add a little texture to LRAD tones to make them
| copyright-able pieces. (... LRAD Orchestra? Copyright Beam?
| Litigation Laser? Chilling Effect Spray?)
| phs318u wrote:
| Another approach here is for the streaming services to tweak
| their takedown algorithms - if they detect a police officer in
| the video don't automatically take down the video. Lobbying for
| this is probably themost likely to yield results. Police
| opposition to such a move would expose their real intent at which
| point shifting the focus back to the police actions becomes
| viable.
| almost_usual wrote:
| These police are missing a prime opportunity to play Don't Stand
| So Close To Me.
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| In all these videos, I see entitled live streamers who think it's
| the duty of the police to answer every silly question they ask.
| Borderline harassment. Playing copyrighted music doesn't prevent
| you from recording but it does get the annoying streamers to
| bugger off so mission accomplished.
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| you sound like a massive bootlicker
| medium_burrito wrote:
| You could always offer stalking as a service a la William
| Gibson's "Followr". Police are sick of streamers, hire someone
| via app to stream the streamer!
| xxpor wrote:
| Then write them a ticket. Don't be passive aggressive.
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| Would you rather the police be aggressive? I'm sure you
| wouldn't appreciate it if someone showed up at your place of
| work and harassed you for no good reason other than Internet
| clout.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| It's disingenuous to say we, as the public, have no
| interest in what the police do while discharging their
| duties. It is a public office, after all.
|
| And I think the activities of the police should be
| scrutinized heavily because they have an incredible amount
| of power and are accorded a very wide latitude. The police
| are the only people who can legally shoot you and not be
| tried. They can arrest you and throw you in jail. They can
| charge you with crimes, invade your house, and smear your
| reputation with the public. A police officer with a
| vendetta can absolutely ruin your life if not outright take
| it from you.
|
| So yes, I think it should be okay for people to video the
| police going about their business.
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| A cop playing a Beatles song in the background does not
| prevent you from recording. These live streamers are not
| recording the police to hold them accountable. They
| antagonize officers who can't do anything about it, then
| upload that interaction online for monetization.
| jawns wrote:
| > They antagonize officers who can't do anything about it
|
| The officers can't do anything about it because _it 's
| not illegal_ to film police officers in public while
| carrying out their official duties. It's a
| constitutionally protected activity.
|
| Is it at times obnoxious? Sure. (Although in many cases,
| these videos capture police officers behaving badly,
| rather than live-streamers behaving badly.)
|
| A lot of First Amendment protected activity is irritating
| to at least some people. Cursing at police is, in
| general, a First Amendment protected activity, and I
| don't suspect a lot of officers appreciate that, either.
| But the entire point of the First Amendment is to protect
| activity that other people might not like.
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| Precisely my point. The officers are required to sit
| there and take verbal abuse. I can't begrudge them for
| taking out their phone and playing a song. It doesn't
| hinder your ability to record the police and it gets
| annoying people to leave.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| If that's the case, the cop can arrest them for
| harassment and use the video as evidence.
| tzs wrote:
| I wonder if the copyright owners could do something to stop the
| officers? What the officers are doing is probably a public
| performance and those generally requires permission of the
| copyright owner.
|
| There are some exceptions, such as for playing a radio or TV
| broadcast at businesses that are under certain sizes specified in
| square feet. I think the officers were probably playing recording
| from their phones or using a streaming service, which I don't
| think the exception cover. And even if those exceptions do apply,
| the officers are doing this outside--how many square feet is
| outside?
|
| There was also a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that state governments
| were not liable for copyright violations because they have
| sovereign immunity. That sovereign immunity can be taken away by
| Congress, and I believe there has been some talk of doing so, but
| for now they are immune.
|
| According to this law firm [1] that does not apply to local
| governments. They might still be liable for copyright
| infringement.
|
| [1] https://www.hodgsonruss.com/newsroom-publications-11717.html
| spoonjim wrote:
| Except no record executives are going to sue the Beverly Hills
| PD because they all live in Beverly Hills and those cops can
| and will make their lives a living hell.
| burkaman wrote:
| It is almost impossible to prosecute police for straightforward
| violent crimes, I don't think anybody is going to get them on
| copyright infringement.
| mobilemidget wrote:
| Don't underestimate Hollywood and alike :)
|
| But I can imagine that playing certain music for a large
| crowd requires a specific license? Something like a radio
| station?
| nitwit005 wrote:
| The issue is a failure to pay for something. The cops are
| deliberately causing the music to be broadcast without paying
| for the right to do so.
|
| I don't see an argument that cops shouldn't have to pay for
| things working in court.
| justaguy88 wrote:
| It might be easier with copyright, since it wont rely on the
| local prosecutor to do anything, the artist can sue
| retrac wrote:
| The copyright holder could sue, which is rarely the artist.
| In this case it would be Sony.
| tzs wrote:
| Paul McCartney got the Beatles catalog back from Sony in
| mid-2017 [1].
|
| [1] https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/paul-mccartney-
| beatles-rig...
| nipponese wrote:
| Can the state actually prosecute copyright infringement? I
| thought the suit needs to be brought forward by a private
| plaintiff .
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It is almost impossible to prosecute police for
| straightforward violent crimes,
|
| That's because criminal prosecution is limited to people who
| have a professional dependency on cooperation by LEOs.
|
| Civil prosecution does not, and while individual officers may
| have qualified immunity, state/local government agencies,
| including police departments, have no legal privilege to
| disregard copyright.
| hellohello1 wrote:
| Very true! I bet the RRIA is going to get right on filing a
| suit against that officer.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| The officer didn't do anything wrong and just because
| police are sometimes unreasonable or unethical, it
| doesn't mean this officer was either. The officer has a
| right to do whatever he wants with his phone as well. He
| could be recording with it, or he can play music with it,
| without recourse. It's his right to life, liberty and the
| pursuit of happiness that protects him, not the
| constitution or being an officer.
|
| If someone wants to film him, and then use the power of
| the Internet to amplify that video to be viewed by many,
| as is their current right, then they will simply have to
| do additional work to ensure they are not transmitting
| the officer's "tunes" to others. Take the time to edit
| the video provides a means to still publish. Not as easy
| as clicking submit, but still available as an option,
| without making a sensationalist claim that music is being
| "weaponized" by anyone.
|
| People using straw man arguments to "weaponize" language
| and then place it online where it becomes divisive.
| That's more of a story than some dude using his phone in
| a clever way to protect from being video mobbed.
|
| I am aware your comment may be sarcasm, so there's that.
| rodone wrote:
| This is the dumbest possible take.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| If he's on duty he does not have that right.
|
| A 16 year old working at McDonald's does not have the
| right to ignore the boss and play a gameboy (I was 16 in
| the 90's).
|
| Banning music outside cop cars, or over the loud speaker,
| or on mobile devices while on duty does seem like
| something they definitely could do and would be within
| the law.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Police and corporations have a special relationship. The
| corporations sell things and concentrate wealth, the police
| prevent other people from breaking the rules and
| redistributing it. This is one reason why the right talks
| up respecting the police and the sanctity of private
| property.
|
| Suffice it to say, corporations are happy when the police
| find ways to let them exercise additional power that
| doesn't directly threaten their interests. What do they
| care if there's a fun song going on in the background if it
| lets police rough people up at their behest?
| tzs wrote:
| Do police and Paul McCartney have a special relationship?
| He owns the copyright to one of the songs the police
| played.
|
| (For those who remember that Michael Jackson bought the
| Beatles catalog a few years ago and are wondering how
| McCartney has the rights, Jackson later sold it to Sony.
| When the songs became old enough, McCartney attempted to
| use the recapture provision of the Copyright Act of 1976
| [1], 17 USC 203 [2]. Sony fought this, but in mid-2017
| they settled and the rights went back to McCartney).
|
| [1] https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/recapturing-
| copyrights-a-...
|
| [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203
| gspr wrote:
| > There was also a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that state
| governments were not liable for copyright violations because
| they have sovereign immunity.
|
| What, what? Does this mean that state governments can freely
| pirate software for example?
| tzs wrote:
| For now it appears so [1][2].
|
| [1] https://itsartlaw.org/2020/05/11/case-review-allen-v-
| cooper-...
|
| [2]
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-877_dc8f.pdf
| toast0 wrote:
| What about if you're a company doing that Nevada company
| town thing? Hmmm
| elil17 wrote:
| Cities and counties don't have sovereign immunity.
| Sovereign immunity is a holdover from Britain, where you
| couldn't sue the ruler or any of their assets. Because
| states started out viewing themselves as independent
| countries, sovereign immunity was extended to them by
| courts. Smaller governments have never had sovereign
| immunity.
| User23 wrote:
| Totally incorrect. The courts didn't and can't grant the
| States sovereignty. They were sovereign states before
| entering the union and they relinquished some of their
| sovereign powers by signing the constitution, but
| certainly not all of them, or indeed any at all that
| aren't explicitly enumerated in the constitution.
| elil17 wrote:
| What I mean to say is that sovereign immunity is part of
| common law (and thus was extended to the states not by
| statute but by judges)
| skissane wrote:
| > Totally incorrect. The courts didn't and can't grant
| the States sovereignty. They were sovereign states before
| entering the union and they relinquished some of their
| sovereign powers by signing the constitution
|
| The original 13 colonies, Vermont and Texas were all
| independent sovereign states before joining the United
| States as states. However, the other 35 states were
| federal territories to which Congress granted statehood.
| Whatever sovereignty they have was given to them by the
| United States Congress, acting under the United States
| Constitution, it did not in any way pre-exist the
| Constitution.
|
| (Hawaii was an independent sovereign state before being
| annexed into a US territory after a US-backed coup; to
| the extent that the present state of Hawaii has
| "sovereignty", it is unclear what relationship that had
| to the sovereignty of the independent Kingdom of Hawaii.)
| User23 wrote:
| I wondered if we'd see this quibble. The constitution
| explicitly says that the newly created states are "on an
| equal footing with the original States in all respects
| whatever" which obviously means they must have the same
| sovereignty. Yes, nearly all of the subsequent states
| after the first thirteen came into existence as sovereign
| states and joined the union simultaneously as part of a
| single process, but those remain distinct events.
| skissane wrote:
| Are they really sovereign though?
|
| Consider Brexit. When the UK wanted to leave, the EU said
| "we are sad to see you go, please reconsider, but if you
| really want out, we can't stop you". There was some
| negotiation over the terms of leaving, but there was
| never any doubt that the UK had the right to do so. And
| it was always made clear that if agreement could not be
| reached on the terms of leaving, the UK would leave
| anyway, under "default" or "no deal" terms that would be
| rather unsatisfactory to both sides.
|
| By contrast, the mainstream position is that US states
| are not allowed to leave - at least not without the
| consent of the federal level (Congress), and many say it
| would even require a constitutional amendment (which
| would mean the consent of most of the other states would
| be required as well). So there is a very clear sense in
| which EU member states are sovereign (they are free to
| leave) but the US states are not (they have to ask
| permission to leave, which may well be denied.)
|
| The Civil War really settled this when a group of states
| tried to leave and their attempt was forcibly suppressed.
| Now, what complicates the issue is their reason for
| leaving was to protect the utterly odious and
| reprehensible institution of race-based slavery. But,
| there is no necessary connection between the issues of
| slavery and secession, it is just a historical accident
| the two got linked.
|
| Some people who opposed secession, and supported the
| Union side in the War, did so primarily because of their
| opposition to slavery. And if you imagine some
| alternative history in which a group of states (whether
| the same group or a different one) seceded over some
| other more defensible issue, many of those people might
| have not opposed secession, or at least not so strongly.
| But, on the other hand, other people who supported the
| Union side, their primary concern was anti-secessionism
| rather than slavery, and they would have opposed
| secession over some other more defensible issue just as
| strongly. A secession over some other issue might still
| have led to a civil war, which could easily have had the
| same anti-secessionist outcome.
|
| Finally, whatever "sovereignty" the US states have is
| really at the mercy of the Supreme Court. The Supreme
| Court is free to interpret the notion of "sovereignty" as
| broadly or as narrowly as it wishes, and a future Supreme
| Court could even turn it into a dead letter, a purely
| theoretical notion - and since they appoint the Supreme
| Court, the President and Senate have the ability in the
| long-run to influence the Supreme Court's positions. In
| recent times, the Supreme Court has been majority
| conservative-leaning, and conservatives are probably
| somewhat more sympathetic to the notion of "state
| sovereignty" than liberals/progressives are - but, I
| think the current conservative majority is mostly just a
| historical accident, the conservative side got lucky, it
| has had a liberal/progressive majority in the past and
| could well be again at some point in the future.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Sure but with more and more software becoming cloud based,
| pirating wouldn't help them much with their most commonly
| used software such as Microsoft Office. Might become an issue
| for specialty software that has a high price tag due to being
| useful for only a handful of users.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I hate to be a cynic, but governments can do as they damn-
| well please.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It also has interesting implications for programs like
| government-run healthcare where you have zero power if you
| agree with a decision. At least _in theory_ you can sue a
| private insurer for breach of contract if they don 't cover
| what they promised.
| dehrmann wrote:
| This is from my American Constitutional History memory from
| 10+ years ago, so it could be very wrong, but I remember
| something about if they government sues you, they waive
| sovereign immunity for a counter suit. If that's the case,
| just withhold taxes owed in that state and see what happens.
| munk-a wrote:
| Please consult an accountant, lawyer and your local clergy
| before trying. Withholding taxes can result in some nasty
| penalties.
| ngngngng wrote:
| Let's not throw a bandaid on a flesh wound.
|
| What we need is strong, fast acting civilian oversight over the
| police to punish any that get up to shenanigans like this.
| austincheney wrote:
| Punish police from playing music? Seriously, a flesh wound?
| Let's call this a catastrophic decapitation that demands
| immediate jail time without possibility for parole like human
| trafficking and serial-arson.
| ngngngng wrote:
| The "flesh wound" in question is complete lack of
| accountability and oversight of police officers, not this
| one instance of them playing music.
| austincheney wrote:
| The subject literally is about two police officers in
| Beverly Hills who played music. There is no mention of
| brutality, any violation, or any history of violations.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I would rather have police playing music and have our lawmakers
| cleanup the cesspooll that is current copyright law.
|
| There is no reason a poloce department could not actually
| purchise right to some random tune, and play it publically and
| ligitimately, and that would still get your videos banned.
| Veserv wrote:
| Invoking copyright law is unnecessary. It is far simpler and
| more narrow to claim that they are engaging in the willful
| destruction or concealment of evidence which is a violation of
| California Penal Code 135 PC [1][2].
|
| How so?
|
| 1. There is a video recording. This is specifically mentioned
| as a protected category.
|
| 2. The video recording of officer conduct prior to and during
| an arrest constitutes material evidence. Recordings of officer
| conduct have been entered into evidence previously, so this
| fulfills the requirement that it be evidence.
|
| 3. Officer conduct prior to and during an arrest constitutes an
| inquiry or investigation. This article indicates that actions
| prior to an arrest constitute pre-arrest investigation [3] and
| thus fulfills that requirement.
|
| 4. Copyrighted music in the video recording reduces the
| discoverability of the evidence possibly to the degree of non-
| discoverability when it previously would have been
| discoverable. This appears to be at least concealment.
|
| 5. The accusation that the officers are deliberately playing
| copyrighted music resulting in the reduced discoverability.
| This fulfills the willfulness requirement.
|
| 1-4 establish that the specific outcomes observed constitute
| the hiding of evidence. It should be uncontroversial that the
| evidence has become less discoverable. 5 is then the only
| material question, which is whether it was done with the intent
| to cause the concealment of evidence.
|
| Based on the above logic, I think it is fairly safe to say
| that, if they are doing as claimed, then they are violating
| California Penal Code 135 PC. The only part in the above logic
| that seems weak is point 3 as I am not sure if it is actually
| an inquiry or investigation. If point 3 is invalid, then I
| think the best thing to do would be to amend it to include
| officer conduct during pre-arrest investigation with respect to
| the eventually arrested party. This is a far better option than
| invoking copyright law as it would be narrowly defined to only
| target the specific willful action that seems unethical which
| is intentionally playing copyrighted music to prevent the
| posting of video recordings.
|
| [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySecti
| o....
|
| [2] https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/penal-
| code/135/#:~:text....
|
| [3] https://law.lclark.edu/live/news/5498-what-are-some-
| common-s....
| User23 wrote:
| > I wonder if the copyright owners could do something to stop
| the officers?
|
| The copyright owners probably live in Beverly Hills and are
| quite alright with their police keeping the riff-raff out.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I know everyone is looking for a loophole to prosecute these
| officers
|
| But let's not rush to make listening to music on the job
| illegal. That wasn't the intent of copyright laws that prohibit
| public performance.
| RIMR wrote:
| I think it's more important to focus on is the rationality of
| enforcing copyright law against music captured in the
| background of a video. Fair use should be much more broad.
|
| So long as the video isn't produced for profit, the producer
| isn't unfairly benefitting off the presence of the music in
| the video, and the quality of the audio doesn't compete with
| that of a commercial recording, I don't see the issue.
| 1MoreThing wrote:
| These rules were created specifically because so many
| people were profiting off the ad revenue of music in
| videos. There's not a simple way to determine if the audio
| just happens to be in the background or if the content
| producer is benefiting from the inclusion of music they
| don't have rights to.
| gowld wrote:
| It's trivial: demonetize the video, or extract the
| standard license fee from the ad revenue. YouTube already
| knows how to do this.
| dahart wrote:
| > let's not rush to make listening to music on the job
| illegal.
|
| I'm wondering if it already is illegal for police officers
| who wear body cams, even when their routine video is not
| public record. They are recordings intended for other people,
| and they also can become public record when use of force is
| involved, as I understand it.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| As far as I can tell, these recordings are from an
| uninvolved 3rd party who has several social media accounts
| dedicated to recording the police, from which he sells
| merchandise.
|
| This isn't a case of victims being drowned out of rightful
| conversations during arrests. This is a 3rd party trying to
| insert themselves into police duties and provoke a response
| while recording.
|
| His Instagram accounts for these videos promote his anti-
| cop merchandise. It appears the videos haven't actually
| been taken down. I'm sure he's loving the attention,
| though.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Yeah, because I know that when I am trying to speak clearly
| to another human being in an emotionally heightened
| situation, I always do it while listening to my favorite
| jams.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The person doing the recording operates multiple Instagram
| accounts where he tries to provoke reactions from cops who
| are trying to do their job. He sells anti-police
| merchandise through these accounts.
|
| It's not correct to suggest that this was a routine
| interaction with police.
|
| Despite the headline, the videos are still up on his social
| media accounts.
| phjesusthatguy3 wrote:
| oh stop
| SilasX wrote:
| Agreed, but I think it's at least a defensible case if you
| activate the music _specifically_ and _only_ when you know
| you 're being recorded for a mass audience.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| So the officers just claim they always listen to music?
|
| Or that they were simply trying to send a message that they
| were done with the conversation with someone who is
| following them around on the job? Which seems to be the
| case here, honestly.
|
| Or that they didn't know that a random person with a phone
| had a massive YouTube following combined with intent to
| post this video online?
|
| I know everyone wants to stick it to these cops, but let's
| be realistic. Normally HN is very against weaponizing
| copyright law, but the second it feels useful for their
| purposes we're flooded with comments from people who want
| to misuse copyright law as a weapon.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Maybe they should turn it down a bit while on the job?
| There is no reason the music should to be heard outside
| their car.
| mc32 wrote:
| Hmmm, I'd like to see this applied to many a teenager
| eager to have me listen to their choice of music for free
| from afar.
| monocasa wrote:
| I hold police to a higher professional standard than I do
| lackadaisical teenagers.
| mc32 wrote:
| Both are playing music loudly and projecting it openly.
| Either it's allowed for all or allowed for none. I'm good
| with either decision as long as it's consistent.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I think that's fair. So all you have to do is make it
| fair for everyone. We should allow the teenager to arrest
| the policeman.
| mc32 wrote:
| You can if the offender, police or not, is on the
| commission of a crime. You do not however have the wiggle
| room of reasonable suspicion. If you wish to arrest based
| on reasonable suspicion, all you need to is attend the
| academy pass whatever they need you to pass and voila, a
| newly minted officer who can make arrests based
| reasonable suspicion.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Right, and if all the officer wants to do is play music,
| he just has to take off his gun, uniform, and badge.
| Seems like it's fair to me. He could even dress like the
| teenager if he likes.
| monocasa wrote:
| You practically cannot make a citizen's arrest against a
| police officer in the states.
|
| Also, you need more than having passed the academy to
| become an officer of the law that can make standard, non-
| citizen's arrests.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My employer expects me to keep my music quiet (preferably
| confined to my ears only) when I am at the office. At
| home I can play it loud enough that the neighbors can
| hear it, and that's okay. I'm fine with professional
| officers being held to different standards when they are
| on duty.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| As a potential neighbor: no, it's not ok. If I can hear
| your music, you are intruding in my space. I need at
| least one place on the planet where I can get some actual
| quiet without earplugs.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I hear my neighbors all the time. They start up their
| cars, play basketball in the street, play music in their
| garage workshop, etc. There are myriad sounds that happen
| all day long when you live around other people. If you
| require silence then you choose not to live in a
| community.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Just because some noises are unavoidable doesn't make it
| less inconsiderate to knowingly inflict them on people.
| Music in particular has relatively long duration, is by
| nature harder to ignore than many of the incidental
| noises you mentioned, and is easily contained in
| headphones.
|
| Your last sentence is a common fallacy: just because I
| pick a certain set of annoyances on a scale of trade-offs
| (in this case, the scale of living in an apartment to
| living in the wilderness) doesn't mean I am required to
| unquestioningly soak up all those annoyances. If that's
| your logic, you could never speak up about any problem
| you could in principle escape from, even if that escape
| would result in bigger problems. This "leave if you don't
| like it" approach to criticism, where leaving is very
| expensive and especially where the solution is very
| cheap, is also not ok (as it more obviously would not be
| ok in a political context).
|
| I'm not asking for a lot. Just use headphones.
| mc32 wrote:
| What about a job site? Can they play loudly if the
| company or the foreman or forewoman allows it? Is it
| unprofessional if they play it loudly?
| monocasa wrote:
| A jobsite has different and looser standards of
| professional conduct than what the police should be
| generally held to, yes.
| mc32 wrote:
| I don't think the cruiser is subject to your elevated
| standards.
|
| This is a classic case of double standards. We want one
| set of standards god people we agree with and another set
| of standards for people we disagree with.
|
| To avoid this, we institute a standard across the board
| for everyone, like them or dislike them.
| monocasa wrote:
| Your entire premise was on what could be heard outside
| the cruiser.
|
| And yes, it's fundamentally OK to hold police to a higher
| standard than the general public, including literal
| children. I'm not sure why this is in question.
| slowhand09 wrote:
| How about criminals? Higher standards for them? Maybe
| that music they play while filming the knockout game, or
| stuff for Worldstar?
| monocasa wrote:
| I'm not even sure what you're going off about.
|
| But yes, I hold the police to higher standards of
| professional conduct than I do common criminals.
| slowhand09 wrote:
| I guess I'm triggered by people who feel the need to get
| in officers faces and video them when they are trying to
| do their jobs. I'm sure my privilege is showing, but cops
| don't hassle me because I don't do stupid stuff. I don't
| deal or use drugs, beat my significant other, steal cars,
| etc. My last interaction with a cop was getting pulled
| for not having a front tag on my car. "No prob officer,
| I'll take care of it." I don't make a thing of it when
| somebody "disses" me. I don't "not show for court" or
| anything else that causes me to be flagged for
| outstanding warrants.
|
| I'm not saying there aren't some abusive, nasty cops out
| there. But the "nice" cops aren't so effective when
| dealing with nasty people.
|
| Number 1 way to prevent violence during arrests, or avoid
| arrest is (Ding Ding!) BE RESPECTFUL.
| monocasa wrote:
| I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're white
| and present as middle class or above?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| And are you as well?
| monocasa wrote:
| I drive a beater, which is enough to commonly be pulled
| over with police starting off with a disrespectful
| demeanor from them. I've gotten "are you employed, son?"
| as the beginning interaction even before "do you know why
| I pulled you over?" multiple times. You can watch them
| re-calibrate in real time when they get the answer "yes,
| I'm a software engineer".
|
| So initially I don't present as middle class, but once
| they get a hint of the fact that I am, you can watch them
| change their behavior nearly instantly. Other times, they
| don't ask questions like that and have then for instance
| lied about my drivers license being revoked, taken it,
| and then pretended like that never happened later,
| requiring my dash cam footage to even get them to admit
| they pulled me over.
|
| My friends of color aren't typically even given the
| chance to re-calibrate their class position to the police
| by being asked questions like that.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| I think the video evidence people wish to collect is
| exactly the evidence that you are wrong - that people get
| arrested (or perhaps brutalized, or killed) despite being
| wholly respectful.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > So the officers just claim they always listen to music?
|
| > Or that they were simply trying to send a message that
| they were done with the conversation with someone who is
| following them around on the job? Which seems to be the
| case here, honestly.
|
| > Or that they didn't know that a random person with a
| phone had a massive YouTube following combined with
| intent to post this video online?
|
| They can _claim_ those things, sure. But liability
| (especially civil liability, which is need only be
| established by preponderance of the evidence, not beyond
| a reasonable doubt like criminal liability) doesn 't go
| away just because you can present a narrative which is
| possibly true which would provide an innocent
| explanation.
|
| Moreover, if a department pays the cost of litigating a
| couple cases where officers actions in this regard are
| challenged, they'll have a strong incentive to adopt
| policies which prevent the dispute from occurring.
| sjg007 wrote:
| It's probably against policy to listen to music while on
| the beat and definitely when interacting with the public.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| On the contrary, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a
| de-escalation tactic for dealing with stalkers.
|
| If you watch the video (which is available in the
| previous article and all over social media, contrary to
| the narrative) it's clear that the person is trying to
| get a rise out of the police officers by following them
| around and badgering them for content on his social media
| channels. He even went so far as to watermark the video
| with his social media handles. It's clear that the
| officers are tired of dealing with him and being followed
| around while trying to do their jobs.
| monkmartinez wrote:
| I totally agree with you. There are lots of people that
| do this to EMS as well. Fortunately, I have HIPPA to get
| these people away from scenes. Unfortunately, there are a
| ton of people that have nothing better to do than
| film/jibe/harangue police and fire/EMS in the course of
| their duties. We know a lot of them on a first name basis
| including bday, medical history and how many times we
| have given them narcan... as we often find them with
| needles in their arms overdosed.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Fortunately, I have HIPPA to get these people away from
| scenes.
|
| HIPAA, and you don't. (I'm sure the claim works on
| people, though.)
|
| https://www.ems1.com/ems-products/cameras-
| video/articles/pho...
|
| > Your basic HIPAA obligation when it comes to the press
| is very simple. Don't divulge any patient medical
| information to a journalist. Don't discuss patient
| specifics within hearing or recording distance, at least
| not in great detail. Don't write notes where they can be
| read. If you have a clipboard with medical information,
| turn it over so it can't be seen in a photograph.
|
| > Your HIPAA obligation does not, however, require you to
| stop me or others from taking images at the scene.
|
| Can you keep them at a somewhat reasonable distance? Yes.
| Out of the scene entirely? Generally no, barring a hazmat
| incident or something where _you 'd_ need to be getting
| out too.
| monkmartinez wrote:
| Journalists and provocateur's have nothing in common.
| Journalists, in my experience, are very easy to work
| with. They understand and appreciate the stress of the
| situations first responders deal with 24/7 and are keen
| to keep their jobs generally. That is, filming and then
| posting someone bleeding out to Instagram is a quick way
| to get sued. Journalists, in my experience have a common
| sense of decency that provocateur's lack. There is a
| massive gap between professionals working a scene and
| bystanders provoking first responders to get likes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That you like some of the people exercising their First
| Amendment rights more than others is irrelevant.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It would be a very dangerous precedent to deem this
| stalking.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| From the videos (which have not been removed, despite
| what the headline suggests) it appears the person is
| following police officers around on the street, trying to
| provoke reactions while he films, and posting the videos
| with police names to his Instagram accounts where he
| sells anti-police merch.
|
| I don't condone the police behavior, but it's clear that
| the person recording is not a hero or even blameless.
| He's running a business that profits from anti-police
| sentiment and promoting it with these videos.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| All of what you have described is entirely legal.
| monkmartinez wrote:
| So what you are saying is, the police officer should
| start following that provocateur around on his day off
| with a camera? Film the guy who is filming the police
| officers! I like it!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| No, that's a complete misunderstanding of the law on
| this.
|
| If you antagonize and film a police officer _while they
| are off-duty_ , that is inappropriate; potentially
| stalking and harassment. Same in the other direction. The
| courts have thus far determined there are specific rights
| to filming police _while engaged in their duties_ ; not
| just for press, but for citizens in general.
|
| Filming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glik_v._Cunniffe
|
| Antagonizing: https://www.wired.com/2013/01/flipping-off-
| cop-case/
| sprayk wrote:
| How would it be dangerous?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I wouldn't have thought it'd require explanation.
|
| "I am filming you, a public official, doing something bad
| in your official capacity."
|
| "You are now under arrest for stalking."
| tonyg wrote:
| > Normally HN is very against weaponizing copyright law
|
| I mean, a good chunk of the people here are GPL fans, and
| if that's not a weaponization of copyright law, I don't
| know what is.
| gowld wrote:
| The police are being obnoxious but they are exploiting the
| streaming platforms and the rightsholders. That's where the
| problem is.
|
| It doesn't making any sense to ask the rightsholders to
| pressure the police to stop using a tactic that only works
| _because the rightholders want it to work_.
| woah wrote:
| Are you serious? You're telling me you think police officers
| should go around blasting tunes on a boom box? Seems like a
| serious lack of professionalism. What a straw man
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| No, I did not say that at all.
|
| The videos in question are still online. They haven't been
| removed. It's clear that the person filming is following
| police around, trying to provoke a reaction for his
| Instagram accounts where he sells anti-cop merchandise.
| minitoar wrote:
| I really don't think this is the right approach. Plenty of
| motorcycles have speakers built in, and they're blasting
| Creedence all the time. They should be allowed to.
| BEEdwards wrote:
| No one wants to hear your shitty music, get headphones.
| carlob wrote:
| or your engine for that matter, get a bicycle!
| pbourke wrote:
| Early in the evenin' just about supper time Over by
| the courthouse they're starting to unwind Four kids
| on the corner trying to bring you up "Headphones,
| please" you shout at them "and kindly shut the fuck up"
| minitoar wrote:
| That sir is illegal. I have to blast Creedence or I can't
| hear it over the wind noise. I think there are laws about
| how you shouldn't be able to hear music above a certain
| volume at a certain distance from a vehicle, but I haven't
| heard of it being applied to motorcycles.
| josephpmay wrote:
| In many states that is illegal
| tzs wrote:
| The law is quite capable of distinguishing between someone
| listening to music for their own enjoyment that happens to be
| overheard by others, and someone intentionally directing
| music at strangers for purposes of furthering their own
| business interests.
|
| What the officers are doing seems more akin to a business use
| to me, since they are doing it to affect how they can perform
| their job, so I'm curious if they need to license the songs.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The problem is that the law is not all that capable of
| distinguishing this. It requires making a determination of
| intent, which is always blurry. Moreover, police officers
| will almost certainly claim that they were listening to
| music for personal reasons rather than trying to intimidate
| constitutionally protected filming -- and the courts will
| give them enormous amounts of deference because of their
| position.
| RIMR wrote:
| So the issue is that police will regularly and
| maliciously lie and nobody will ever hold them
| responsible for doing so.
| toomim wrote:
| The issue is that you are pretending you can read police
| officers' minds and know their intent. And then you claim
| it's the worst possible intent.
| [deleted]
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| A finder of fact under the law is totally capable of
| distinguishing this, though you're right that police get
| lots of deference from both judge and jury. That said, in
| this case I just don't think the "I was just listening
| for personal reasons" defense is at all plausible.
| blendergeek wrote:
| I believe that the state has sovereign immunity and can commit
| copyright infringement without any repercussions. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.copyright.gov/policy/state-sovereign-immunity/
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| They should just write a law that includes diegetic music in
| not for profit non-fiction public servant videos in fair use.
| Then if your video gets flagged you can indicate it is fair
| use.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| No change in the law is necessary; it's already fair use.
|
| Compare https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.
| 220892/... :
|
| > Monsarrat raises a copyright infringement claim against
| Newman involving the republication of a comment he originally
| posted in the Davis Square LiveJournal community in 2010
|
| > Newman contends that Monsarrat has failed to state an
| actionable claim because the allegations in the FAC establish
| his entitlement to a fair use defense.
|
| > The Copyright Act codifies four non-exclusive factors
| relevant to the fair use inquiry:
|
| > (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
| such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
| educational purposes;
|
| > (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
|
| > (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
| relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
|
| > (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or
| value of the copyrighted work.
|
| > drawing all reasonable inferences in Monsarrat's favor, the
| court agrees that the FAC establishes Newman's entitlement to
| a fair use defense as a matter of law.
|
| > As to the first factor, it is clear from the face of the
| FAC [...], that Newman did not publish the copyrighted post
| for the same purposes for which Monsarrat initially created
| it.
|
| > Monsarrat submitted the original post to highlight
| LiveJournal's harassment policy and demand deletion of other
| posts on the community website which he viewed as violative.
| The Dreamwidth reproduction, on the other hand, was created
| solely for historical and preservationist purposes. See _Bill
| Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley Ltd._ , [...] (finding
| that the use of concert posters in a book on the history of
| the Grateful Dead served a different purpose than the
| original purpose of "artistic expression and promotion"
| because defendant used the concert posters "as historical
| artifacts to document and represent the actual occurrence of
| Grateful Dead concert events"); _Stern v. Does_ , [...]
| (finding that defendants' forwarding by email of a
| copyrighted post "conveyed the fact of the post rather than
| its underlying message" and "thus had a substantially
| different purpose than the post itself")
|
| > Turning to the second factor, the "nature of the
| copyrighted work," the balance again tips in Newman's favor.
| The post largely repeats the LiveJournal harassment policy, a
| factual matter
|
| > The third factor, "the amount and substantiality of the
| portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole,"
| "focus[es] upon whether the extent of... copying is
| consistent with or more than necessary to further the purpose
| and character of the use."
|
| > see also _Haberman_ , [...] ("[I]t has long been recognized
| that a commentator may fairly reproduce as much of the
| original, copyrighted work as is necessary to his proper
| purpose.").
|
| > This factor is neutral. Newman copied Monsarrat's post in
| full, but a full reproduction is consistent with historical
| and preservationist purposes.
|
| > Finally, the fourth factor, "the effect of the use upon the
| potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" - "the
| single most important element of fair use," Harper & Row,
| [...] - weighs against Monsarrat. There is no plausible
| market for the copyrighted post and thus no likelihood that
| Newman's reproduction could have any harmful market
| consequences.
|
| Applying that to the case of a police officer playing
| copyrighted music into a livestream of police officer
| behavior, it is obvious that the first factor
| ("transformative use") favors the streamer, who is both
| documenting and commenting on the behavior of the police; the
| second factor favors the copyright owner ("music sold
| commercially"); the third factor may range from neutrality to
| favoring the streamer, depending on how much music _the
| police officer_ chooses to play -- in the example here, the
| streamer is favored -- and the fourth factor favors the
| copyright owner.
|
| However, there is a compelling case that, no matter how much
| music the officer plays, that is the appropriate amount for
| the streamer to record -- first, the purpose of documenting
| what the police are doing is not served by censoring what
| they do, but additionally, the more egregious the copying,
| the more noteworthy the officer's behavior is.
|
| Furthermore, while it is possible that a video of police
| behavior in which everyone is respectfully silent while
| _Santeria_ plays might substitute for other means of
| consuming the song, it is extremely unlikely, which
| trivializes the impact of the fourth factor. Here (
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZeUL4fRyk ) is a YouTube
| video consisting of the song played over a background of the
| album art. And here (
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEYN5w4T_aM ) is another
| YouTube video, from "TheofficialSublime", of the official
| music video of the song. It is not plausible that consumers
| seeking to consume the song for enjoyment would prefer the
| cop video to either of those, or even that they might be more
| likely to find the cop video.
| mjh2539 wrote:
| The police officer didn't make and distribute the recording. No
| dice.
| snarfy wrote:
| Cool, I'll just stream the video but replace the audio with NWA's
| fuck the police.
| [deleted]
| jb775 wrote:
| Why are these people even filming cops in the first place?
| yellowapple wrote:
| Because it's generally a good idea to hold people accountable
| for their actions, especially when those people have a long and
| well-documented history of abusing the general public at every
| opportunity.
|
| Transparency is a dependency of trust. If we can't see what
| police are doing, then under what pretext can we even remotely
| trust them to serve our interests?
| jMyles wrote:
| ...is that... relevant?
|
| Documenting every executive action taken by government - and
| ensuring that documentation is available in an open way - is at
| the heart of a decent society.
| phjesusthatguy3 wrote:
| On the one hand: neat hack!
|
| On the other hand: let's go kill some cops
|
| EDIT let me put it this way: when cops in _my_ jurisdiction start
| murdering people I consider mine, I will gladly join my local
| dumb-ass militia to overthrow the government. As things are,
| members of my local dumb-ass militias are on trial for plotting
| the murder of the governor of my state for having the temerity to
| tell people they should attempt to stop infecting their fellow
| citizens with a virus that could kill them.
| ill13 wrote:
| Invert the waveform of the copy-written music, then sync the
| music to the video, mix both audio streams causing the copy-
| written music to be effectively removed.
| darepublic wrote:
| The word weaponizing is being weaponized imo
| kizer wrote:
| Pretty funny :D (Ready for the downvotes)
| naebother wrote:
| Pretty much sums up the American psyche.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| There's potential for a really weird incentive here to find the
| most insatiable DMCA filers and figure out what their most
| popular hits are and play those for the most effective
| weaponization of takedowns, or possibly play multiple songs over
| some period of time, encompassing the most diverse collection of
| DMCA filers for the largest saturation you can hit.
| blt wrote:
| Anyone suggesting that this tactic can be stopped with copyright
| law is hilariously missing the point. The cops will just find a
| pro-cop artist and record label to play.
|
| The problem here is much deeper.
| exporectomy wrote:
| The problem is YouTube celebrities being dicks for likes. The
| cops are clearly just annoyed at this guy who keeps trying to
| wind them up to video their reaction. He's not filming them
| potentially beating anyone up, they're just standing there
| while he complains about random drivers going past who they're
| not stopping. Just because the victim is a cop doesn't mean the
| bully isn't wrong. If he was honestly trying to record police
| abuse, he could do it better keeping his mouth shut and from a
| distance without constantly trying to draw them into a stupid
| argument.
| blt wrote:
| No. The question isn't "is a cop allowed be annoyed with a
| youtuber?" or "is this youtuber causing net harm to the
| public good?". The question is: "can a cop interfere with a
| youtuber's ability to record and publish their actions?".
| sawjet wrote:
| > No. The question isn't "is a cop allowed be annoyed with
| a youtuber?" or "is this youtuber causing net harm to the
| public good?". The question is: "can a cop interfere with a
| youtuber's ability to record and publish their actions?".
|
| This doesn't interfere with the youtubers ability to record
| and publish the cop's actions. It only prevents them from
| profiting from it.
| jMyles wrote:
| The idea that it's forbidden to publish what your eyes can see
| and ears can hear, in public, is completely insane.
|
| What is freedom of the press if not this?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Have any of these videos actually been taken down?
|
| I watched them on the guy's Instagram account, where he's
| using them to sell his anti-cop merch.
|
| I've been seeing this headline on multiple sites in the past
| few days, but all of them include the video, which apparently
| hasn't been taken down anywhere? Starting to think the person
| filming is doing so to promote his personal brand, and it's
| working.
| genericone wrote:
| Weaponization of another human being's emotions against them,
| a human who in their official capacity is not allowed to
| defend themself, for the sake of video views, for ad money,
| paid for by companies willing to exchange money for bulk
| attention or bulk meta-data. Man, humanity is fucked.
| booleanbetrayal wrote:
| This is an evolution of the story that first appeared on HN here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26082303
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's interesting to me that the discussion appears focused on
| copyright issues, rather than what seems like a potential First
| Amendment violation by the police.
| acd wrote:
| But people should have the right to work peace. It should
| also be a basic human right not to be constantly monitored.
| joncrane wrote:
| Like it or not, I believe that the "expectation of privacy"
| argument has been settled in courts. The answer is that if
| you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy.
| People have dashcams, cameras pointing out the front of
| their homes and businesses, and people may be recording
| random TikTok videos with you in the background.
|
| Police definitely have zero "expectation of privacy" when
| out on the job and it's a fairly well established legal
| fact. Additionally, this information was available at the
| time they decided to become police officers.
|
| IANAL.
| eznzt wrote:
| > Like it or not, I believe that the "expectation of
| privacy" argument has been settled in courts. The answer
| is that if you're in public, you have no expectation of
| privacy.
|
| That sounds awful. Everybody needs to go out even if it
| is to buy groceries. What that means is that you can be
| recorded and there is nothing you can do about it.
| vel0city wrote:
| The alternative is I'm not legally allowed to operate a
| camera outside unless I get a signed consent release form
| from everyone who may potentially be in the view of the
| camera. That doesn't really sound like a better world to
| me.
| nojokes wrote:
| Just mentioning that this is in US. Where I live the
| dashcams are strictly forbidden like also recording the
| street in front of your house - police would arrive and
| destroy your equipment.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I am of that _general_ opinion, but not for the small
| subset of folks the government invests with the power to
| shoot me.
| [deleted]
| heraclius wrote:
| One has the right to any other job. Compare soldiers:
| generally one probably ought to have the right to unionise,
| to sick leave, to certain health and safety standards and
| so on--there are substantial derogations for particular
| jobs though based on their nature, and the nature of
| exercising the coercive authority of the state is such that
| it seems reasonable to demand all sorts of monitoring (when
| on the job).
| vel0city wrote:
| When you put on the uniform and wear the badge, you're
| accepting some additional powers granted to you by
| society.You're also giving up some freedoms. I think people
| should generally be allowed to drink, but I don't think
| cops should be allowed to drink while on duty.
|
| It is important for a society to be able to monitor the
| enforcers of the government, i.e. the police. To me, it
| seems pretty reasonable for people to be able to record the
| actions of the police in public spaces, so long as its not
| impeding the ability for their officers to correctly do
| their job.
| mtnGoat wrote:
| The state constantly monitors the citizens, through actions
| of their own and contracts with third parties. Police
| deserve no privacy if they don't give it.
|
| My C/2.
| [deleted]
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| It's also strange that HN is so eager to weaponize copyright
| for their own agenda.
|
| It's strange that so many people are arguing for using
| copyright law against the cop, instead of realizing that it's
| absurd that we have to think about having videos taken down
| for background music.
|
| That said, I'm not even convinced that background music can
| get the videos taken down, since we've all been watching
| these videos on social media platforms for the past few days.
| rriepe wrote:
| What purpose would realizing the absurdity serve, again?
|
| It might be absurd that someone is shooting bullets at you
| but you should shoot back if that's the case.
| floor2 wrote:
| Your analogy is perfect... for showing why this is wrong.
|
| The "shooting back" solution just ends up with a bunch of
| people injured (likely including random bystanders). The
| better solution is to get the shooting to stop entirely.
|
| We don't need to find a new interpretation of copyright
| law to attack the cop, we need to remove the
| dysfunctional copyright system that started this. Or in
| your metaphor, I want no-one to get shot rather than
| wanting to shoot back.
| rriepe wrote:
| You're conflating outcomes and solutions. You've offered
| no solution.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's less "copyright law is good" than "copyright law is
| already being used against us so it might as well be turned
| around on them a bit".
| mindslight wrote:
| ... which is a terrible approach, because it validates
| the cudgel while not actually addressing the dynamic of
| unaccountable power.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Who is "them" though? The police officer in this video
| (which hasn't been taken down anywhere, as far as I can
| tell) isn't the record label.
| exporectomy wrote:
| What are they fighting for if they don't stand up for any
| principles and are willing to do the same bad things
| their enemies do? Even if they win, they've become a new
| baddy.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. This
| story is about the police department, not copyright. Police
| have been trying for years to prevent people from recording
| them, and now they are attacking the publishing step rather
| than the recording step. The intent is clear. They aren't
| just jamming out to a song in the middle of an encounter--
| they are intentionally trying to disrupt citizens recording
| them.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| salawat wrote:
| The thing that kills me is this just goes to prove beyomd a
| shadow of a doubt, that punishment for breaking law is more a
| function of who you are, and your usefulness to those with the
| power to levy suit.
|
| Here you have police officers flaunting the law, and yet, record
| labels have destroyed lives through punitive damages of regular
| citizens over unintentional sharing.
|
| It just completely undermines and lays bare the hypocrisy
| underlying it all. One more mail in my anti-IP soapbox I guess.
| jacques_chester wrote:
| A nitpick: "flouting the law".
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Exactly. Flaunting the law would be, for instance, waving a
| copy of law in the face of the person they were arresting.
| salawat wrote:
| Always after the edit period. Internal mental hash table
| updated. I knew it was an fl-<something>. Picked the wrong
| one.
|
| Point otherwise clearly communicated though right?
| jacques_chester wrote:
| Yes, clearly communicated.
| phjesusthatguy3 wrote:
| They're not weaponizing copyright, they're weaponizing
| Instagram's copyright-infringement-avoidance filter. HN really
| should look into their headline editing policy, because it really
| does change the context of the conversation in this instance.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The videos are still up on the person's Instagram account, from
| which he sells anti-cop merchandise.
|
| As far as I can tell, there hasn't been a copyright removal. It
| appears the police were tired of being followed by this guy
| trying to provoke them to promote his Instagram and associated
| merch.
| phjesusthatguy3 wrote:
| pragmaticpulp> The videos are still up on the person's
| Instagram account, from which he sells anti-cop merchandise.
|
| I read what you typed, you brown-nosing piece of shit.
|
| It's perfectly okay for citizens to record the state
| depriving citizens of their right to life, liberty and the
| pursuit of happiness, you brown-nosing piece of shit.
|
| It's already been established that the state can lie to
| citizens. You brown-nosing piece of shit.
|
| The problem is when the state interferes with citizens
| exercising their rights, you brown-nosing piece of shit.
|
| Citizens can say whatever they want, whenever they want. Full
| stop. They have to face the consequences of their actions
| afterwards. You brown-nosing piece of shit.
|
| The problem, you brown-nosing piece of shit, is that the cops
| know there is no way for their actions to be held against
| them. So they abuse the rules the corporations have created
| to make sure citizens can't exercise their God-given rights.
| You brown-nosing piece of shit.
|
| I'm not even sorry about my language, you brown-nosing piece
| of shit. _You_ , and the people excusing the bad apples in
| the police barrel, are the problem. You brown-nosing piece of
| shit.
| josefresco wrote:
| Publicizing this probably does more harm than keeping it
| something unique to Beverly Hills PD (aka the Streisand effect).
| We'll now see officers across the United States employing this
| same tactic. Hopefully this will finally force some sort of
| sanity when it comes to automated copyright enforcement online.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| If anything, the fact that we've all been watching this
| supposedly forbidden video across social media sites shows that
| the technique doesn't actually work.
| josefresco wrote:
| They're just making it harder (not impossible) to share
| recorded videos of police actions on social media. This video
| being publicized by an experienced activist is not sufficient
| evidence in and of itself that the technique isn't working.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| There are many posts on HN about invasion of privacy and
| surveillance. Even if you're "not doing anything wrong" you
| should strongly oppose any data collection that could be used
| against you in the future.
|
| On the other hand we also seem to permit recording in other
| situations like law enforcement.
|
| Eager to hear how people distinguish these two scenarios. Is it
| that if you're a public figure or tax funded then your actions
| should be open to public scrutiny? I know companies operate in
| private but still need to make some data publicly available. Is
| there a balance? What is a good heuristic for how much data we
| should collect on cops, politicians, companies etc while still
| respecting privacy.
| Tepix wrote:
| Recording is permitted, the issue is live streaming.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Is it that if you're a public figure or tax funded then your
| actions should be open to public scrutiny?
|
| Yes, always. Governments are given extraordinary powers by the
| people. Transparency is necessary to ensure these powers aren't
| being abused. Otherwise it's easy for corruption to set in.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Not sure why I got downvoted for this? I'm just trying to
| learn.
| lsllc wrote:
| As for the original (gp) comment, you should check the HN
| guidelines:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
|
| This (parent) comment falls foul of:
|
| "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never
| does any good, and it makes boring reading."
| [deleted]
| lscotte wrote:
| This is great, actually! I'm happy to see the police finding
| creative approaches to the boneheads who think they have to
| stream everything. Streaming everything is not a good thing.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I think Betteridge's law of headlines is relevant here; If these
| videos were being removed by social media, we'd be hearing about
| the removals. Instead, we have journalists asking "Are cops
| playing music to use copyright law to have the videos removed?"
| We then watch the non-removed videos.
|
| I'm not thrilled about this, but I'm not entirely convinced that
| police officers are trying to get videos taken down by playing
| tinny, low-volume songs in the background of someone else's
| videos.
|
| Does anyone have an example of a video that was taken down
| because police were playing music in the background?
|
| I've been seeing these videos over and over in the past 24 hours
| on various streaming platforms. It seems that if they were being
| taken down, we'd be hearing stories about the takedowns, not
| stories about them listening to music.
| anaerobicover wrote:
| Don't exclude the middle: they could be trying to get them
| filtered, _and_ failing at doing so.
|
| I can easily see a coworker having a "brilliant" idea about
| copyright mumbo jumbo and a bunch of people buying into it.
| People try things that don't work all the time.
| tpmx wrote:
| Betteridge's law of headlines is probably not true:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9232419
|
| (The way you invoked this is kinda reaching.)
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I brought it up to highlight the contradiction, not because
| it's literally a law:
|
| They are reporting speculation.
|
| If this was happening, they'd be reporting on the takedowns
| rather than the speculation.
|
| Instead, the video is still up and available on social media.
| tpmx wrote:
| That's a better way to put it, IMO.
| jawns wrote:
| Can you propose some other legitimate purpose for their
| actions? I don't regularly see police officers playing music on
| their cell phones during the course of their official duties,
| nor do I see any reason why they should.
|
| Edit: To response to your edited comment, I don't think the
| problem with this conduct hinges on whether YouTube or other
| video-streaming services actually do flag them as copyright
| infringement and filter them. The problem is that the officers
| are attempting to trigger the sites' filtering algorithms.
| Whether or not they're successful, it's still a problem.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Seems like they're trying to send a signal that they're not
| interested in engaging in any more conversation. Feels like a
| de-escalation tactic.
|
| Whether you like them or not, these cops have people
| obsessively following them around, filming them, and trying
| to engage them for social media clout. I suspect if the
| filters had more of a legitimate purpose, we'd be hearing
| about it in these articles.
| jawns wrote:
| It feels like a de-escalation tactic? This is pretty
| classic passive-aggressive behavior. And aggressive
| behavior, whether in the form of overt aggression or
| passive-aggressive tactics, does not contribute to de-
| escalation.
|
| Recording police in public as they perform their official
| duties is a constitutionally protected activity, upheld by
| the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction
| covers California. The police are trying to deter and
| prevent people from exercising that right.
|
| The _mature_ way to send a signal that they 're not
| interested in engaging in conversation is to say, "I'm
| sorry, I'm not interested in engaging in any more
| conversation. I've got to attend to the duties of my job.
| It was nice talking with you."
|
| I do acknowledge that police officers often face special
| scrutiny from the press and from the public. But that is
| because they are public servants with the ability to
| impinge upon people's life and liberty. And the more the
| public records LEO interactions, the more bad apples they
| seem to uncover.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| In the video (which hadn't been taken down, contrary to
| the headlines) the officer does what you suggest: He
| calmly states that he can't continue to engage the person
| recording in the same conversation over and over again.
|
| This doesn't appear to be a simple case of the police
| ignoring someone's first question. The person recording
| the police appears to be following them around, recording
| them, badgering them with accusations and taunts, and
| posting the videos for social media clout.
| klyrs wrote:
| I can see another purpose for their actions. If they're
| playing music, then bodycam or external recordings will not
| capture what is being said by cops and those that they're
| interacting with. I didn't say it's a legitimate purpose,
| mind...
| kirillzubovsky wrote:
| I hope they are at least using the "Beverly hills cop" theme song
| for that.
| dboreham wrote:
| Axel Foley would be proud. Banana in the tailpipe...
| necheffa wrote:
| Could a fourier transform be used to try and remove enough of the
| copyrighted audio without making the voices of those in the video
| unintelligible?
| speedballmad wrote:
| The police are hoping that YouTube will flag it for copyright,
| not the music companies. Once it's uploaded, YouTube will flag it
| for copyright infringement right off the bat.
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