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Music Crime Youtube

California Police Officer Plays Taylor Swift Song To Try To Block Video From YouTube (bbc.com) 172

Posted by BeauHD from the copyrighted-audio dept.
Thelasko shares a report from the BBC: A US police officer played a Taylor Swift song on his phone in a bid to prevent activists who were filming him uploading the video to YouTube. The video platform regularly removes videos that break music copyright rules. However, the officer's efforts were in vain as the clip of the encounter in Oakland, California promptly went viral. Alameda County police told the BBC it was not "approved behavior."

The video was filmed by members of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP), which says it is a coalition that seeks to "eradicate police terror in communities of color." Some of them were protesting outside the courthouse at the pre-trial hearing of a San Leandro officer charged with the manslaughter of a black man. In the video, the officer says: "You can record all you want, I just know it can't be posted to YouTube." When asked if playing music in this way is procedure, the officer responds: "It's not specifically outlined." Later in the video, he confirms: "I'm playing music so that you can't post on YouTube." The sheriff's department said: "We have seen the video and referred it to our internal affairs bureau. This is not approved behavior. It will not happen again." Earlier this year, Motherboard reported on cases of other California-based officers starting to play Beatles songs while being filmed so that the clips would be removed for copyright issues when uploaded to social media sites.
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California Police Officer Plays Taylor Swift Song To Try To Block Video From YouTube More

California Police Officer Plays Taylor Swift Song To Try To Block Video From YouTube

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  • Can they use that in court to block an live stream (Score:4, Informative)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:29PM (#61546092)

    Can they use that in court
    to block an live stream?
    to stop it from going to the jury room?
    to stop it from going to the defense?

    • Re:Can they use that in court to block an live str (Score:5, Funny)

      by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:35PM (#61546100) Homepage

      No. This is only an anti-publicity tactic, designed to make it harder to get attention.

      • Re:Can they use that in court to block an live str (Score:5, Funny)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday July 03, 2021 @03:25AM (#61546598)

        Mrs. Streisand's lawyer just informed us she's suing for infringement.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        No. This is only an anti-publicity tactic, designed to make it harder to get attention.

        For a time... Perhaps this will motivate the development of a technology to remove or disguise music from a video without muting the whole audio. I guess the other thing is: posting a video whose purpose is not to entertain but to capture live a newsworthy event ought to be declared as fair use if it happened to contain some music that was not within control of the reporter or their company. JMHO The police inv

    • They don't need to (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      The cops constantly use excessive force, especially against minorities. The cases generally go nowhere. The only time they take off is when one of them goes viral. When so many have seen the video without a highly paid lawyer telling them why their own eyes are lying that they can't pack a jury.

      That's what this is about. We all know it's going on, but it's pretty easy to ignore most of the time so long as no one rubs our faces in it. When one of these gets a few million views on YouTube that's our faces

      • The cops constantly use excessive force, especially against minorities. The cases generally go nowhere. The only time they take off is when one of them goes viral. When so many have seen the video without a highly paid lawyer telling them why their own eyes are lying that they can't pack a jury. .

        Do you get all your news from Woke Twitter or something? None of what you say is even remotely true.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )
      I wonder if those cops had a license to publicly broadcast the song to an audience.

  • Taylor Swift can sue. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:36PM (#61546104) Homepage

    She has evidence that this man is intentionally attempting to use her music for his own purposes that are not covered by the licenses he is using.

    Yeah, it might be a tough court case. And the profit for her would be minimal. But the publicity both for her and against the slime bag could be worth it.

    • Re:Taylor Swift can sue. (Score:4, Informative)

      by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:42PM (#61546114)

      Public performance without a license.

      • Re:Taylor Swift can sue. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @09:00PM (#61546146) Homepage

        More than that, they are being recorded to intentionally broadcast a public performance, so a civil penalty is appropriate. The officer intended that the public performance be broadcast onto the internet. It was an intentional act and thus a penalty should be applied, especially as the officer was on duty and the officers police department is liable.

        You can play it and each time, they are liable and not you. They released that copyright under colour of law, with government approval, unless the government criminally penalises that performance. So a real legal can of worms.

        The behaviour of children, seriously.

        • Re:Taylor Swift can sue. (Score:4, Informative)

          by The New Guy 2.0 ( 3497907 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @09:08PM (#61546158)

          The officer's intent was to try to get YouTube's auto-pull for use of copyrighted music to kick in. Basically, police hate being recorded because it can only lead to misconduct charges. YouTube has never been good at overriding their auto-pulls... remember the day that CBS put in a claim on everything?

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            Basically, police hate being recorded because it can only lead to misconduct charges.

            Being recorded can only help an honest cop. Who's going to falsely allege police brutality if they're being recorded and even the odds of a suspect mouthing off to a cop would go down I'd imagine if people knew they were being filmed.

      • I suppose they can have a group of like-minded cops write, record, and copyright their own music for this specific use case.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        Million dollar lawsuit?

      • Ouch, that can be very expensive.

    • he just happened to use Taylor Swift. But if she makes trouble they'll just change to a small band that can't afford a lawsuit.

      And if you think the police care about publicity you're gonna get arrested by them for whatever it is you're smoking. The major media outlets are already running stories about all the scary, scary crime and how the increase in crime is at _record_ levels ( and leaving out the bit about how the increase is entirely due to COVID restrictions lifting putting more people in contact

      • Small bands don't work with YouTube's auto-recon algorithm. You think YouTube would bother feeding its AI some noname garage band that couldn't sue them?

      • Increased crime isn't due to COVID restrictions lifting as much as the lingering effect of the restrictions themselves. Older teens out of school and "beefing" with other teens on social media. Higher unemployment/financial issues in many places.
    • I hope she does because it will just highlight how stupidly litigious she is. There is a reason he picked her music.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      She has evidence that this man is intentionally attempting to use her music for his own purposes that are not covered by the licenses he is using.

      Yeah, it might be a tough court case. And the profit for her would be minimal. But the publicity both for her and against the slime bag could be worth it.

      You're assuming that she holds the rights to her music... That would be in the hands of the rights holders, I.E. the record company that owns practically everything about Taylor Swift. They are the ones who can sue, but they wont as they want the police onside to ignore their practically illegal activities like ripping off the artists, writers and performers or speculative invoicing.

  • Just need the rights for Fuck the Police, Cop Killer and 911 is a joke to be donated to these activists. Ice T would be totally down with this.

  • Would that not constitute a public performance? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sethmeisterg ( 603174 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:47PM (#61546128)
    Surely the cop can be sued by Swift and her label for playing her stuff publicly?

    • Most cops hide badge numbers / name plaques... they'd need to ID the cop to use him.

      • He was on duty, the department is liable for his actions.

        • Uum, a question: If no badge is visible, he is not a cop, aka not on duty, by definition, and therefore just another random thug, no?

          AFAIK that's the law around here. Isn't it in the US too?
          I know because I got a bunch of cops in trouble for basically coming in and bullying inncoent people at a big official uni party. They refused to identify. So we took pictures and sued them. Not as cops, but as private persons. It helped a bit, that we could prove that one of the cops (the worst one) csrried drugs in his

      • The cop in question readily identified himself to the protestors, including flashing his name tag. He also responded that he and all the cops around him had their cameras on. In no way was he being unprofessional or overreacting to the protestors who were obviously excited and confrontational (but not violent).

        The officer knows the game that's being played. Protestors get aggressive, accusatory, and try to provoke a reaction/overreaction from the police.

        The music was a new thing. Unsanctioned by the pol

        • Re: Would that not constitute a public performance (Score:4, Interesting)

          by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Saturday July 03, 2021 @08:00AM (#61546862)

          The African American citizen in question readily identified himself to the police, including showing his driver's licence. He also responded that he and all his friends & community around him had their cameras on. In no way was he being provocative or overreacting to the police who were obviously excited and confrontational (but not violent). The African American citizen knows the game that's being played. Police get aggressive, accusatory, and try to provoke a reaction/overreaction from the citizen.

          There, I changed it to what is the most frequent scenario by far. Does it sound familiar? Now African American communities & civil rights activist organisations have an unprecedented opportunity to turn the tables on the police & I for one think it could be an effective strategy in helping to reduce police misconduct & unnecessary assaults & killings. If some police work against their public mandate to maintain public safety, then someone needs to call them out on it, make sure it gets the public attention it deserves, & maybe a get little institutional justice too.

        • Attempting to censor the protesters was definitely an overreaction. Jokes on him! Video's all over Youtube ... the algo doesn't actually censor music that's incidentally playing in the background.
    • Is someone listening to a radio in public considered a public performance?
    • Taylor Swift would never do something like sue a cop because she is a consummate professional.

      By which I mean that she never takes a political stance on anything at all. As a businesswoman she understands that alienating even 1% of her listener base means a multi-million reduction to her bottom line.

      And believe it or not, the law and order crowd represents way more than 1%.

      Her job is to sell her music, she realises how fragile the edifice that she's built her success on is, and she won't jeopardise t

      • The tricky bit being that after police play her music enough times to hide police brutality and criminal behavior and she does nothing to stop it, then much more than 1% of her audience will take it that she is implicitly approving of her music being used that way.

  • Just like we knew... (Score:3)

    by Patent Lover ( 779809 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:48PM (#61546130)
    Cops are really smart and way ahead of us in the use of tech.
  • At least insofar as this cop thinks he is smarter than .. somebody I suppose.

    I hope he is not representative of his department. His brand of smart won't be an asset to anyone, police or civilian.

  • Sounds like fair use to me, on the part of the video recorder. The officer however, is playing a copyrighted song he has no right to play in public. I bet his licence specifically forbids playing in public. It's common on CDs and streaming services.
    You're only allowed to play the songs in private and for personal use only.

    Would be hilarious if Taylor Swifts record company sued the cop.

  • Doing nothing wrong... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by paulidale ( 6575732 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @10:43PM (#61546294)
    If the police man wasn't intending to do anything wrong, this behaviour wouldn't be necessary. The argument used to justify ubiquitous surveillance, also justifies not doing this.

  • For private use only (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rworne ( 538610 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @10:55PM (#61546322) Homepage

    How is the cop playing audible music any different than the a-hole driving down the street blasting music from his car? Or the loud backyard party? Yes, the intentions are different, but the usage is the same.

    Also, doesn't YouTube in instances like this just mute the audio rather than pull the entire video?

    • It's up to the submitter when Youtube's algorithm flags it you have the option to plead to the "owner" and risk a strike if they don't permit it, have all the audio removed, or substitute all the audio with copyright free from Youtube's library (or remove the entire listing).

      So if the officer is acting aggressively that is apparent visually so the audio isn't needed, no biggy. If the audio is significant to the representation, then becomes an issue for the uploader.

      • Just re-record the spoken lines, explain why this has to be dubbed and offer to release the original to any court that wants to have it.

    • How is the cop playing audible music any different than the a-hole driving down the street blasting music from his car?

      He is doing it for the purpose of perverting the course of justice.

      He should be sent down for 7 years for this.

      • That is a bit extreme, I think.

        If the cop grabbed the phone and smashed it or deleted the video, you'd be right.

        He did nothing to destroy evidence or pervert the course of justice, he just attempted to prevent a bunch of people who were protesting (or in his likely opinion, harassing him) from splashing his image all over YouTube. He freely identified himself in the video, so the purpose of the music wasn't to hide his identity.

        The Streisand effect took care of the rest.

        If they ever embed copyright controls

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cederic ( 9623 )

          This is why I can't get upset about this.

          The police officer is seeking a balance between their right to video a public employee engaged in their privileged work in public, and the privacy of that employee.

          He's not stopping them videoing, he's not threatening them for videoing, he's merely attempting to make it more difficult for them to undertake actions that expose him to the risk of threats and harassment online.

          • BINGO!

            Nobody even seems to know why anyone was taking video of the cop in the first place. Was he beating people? Shooting people? Using his powers as an officer of the law to stalk his ex-girlfriend? Anything?

            • Who cares? Public employees "just doin' their jerbs, doot de doot" should have zero expectation of privacy. Pigs can surveil the public, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
      • Oh please, why does every f-ing douchebag needs to film everything others do? Also a lot of times with the uploaded videos is that they are out of context, just focusing/edited on that actual incident, not showing what happened before what led to the incident. Blame the community for having such a high crimerate which makes a lot of cops, who have to deal with the dark side of humanity 24/7, a lot more cautious/anxious and not getting enough training/counseling for situations like that, all because the comm

    • And the intention is what matters.

      A "public performance" is playing music with the express interest of performing it for someone else other than yourself. And that's what the cop does here. He pretty much even says so in his very own statement, that this is a public performance. The intention is to keep the video off YouTube, not to entertain someone (which would be arguably hard with this kind of music in my opinion, but this isn't about taste or lack thereof in music...) but that doesn't make it any less

      • 17 USC 101:

        To perform or display a work “publicly” means—

        (1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered;

        https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]

        I wonder if there's case law clarifying "substantial number"...

  • "This is not approved behavior. It will not happen again."

    So, next time they'll follow their approved procedure and just confiscate the camera?

  • Well, what about porn? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If the cop got his penis out and started masturbating, surely that would prevent a Youtube upload?

    (this isn't a serious post)

    • Also, indecent exposure is probably less of a crime in this fucked up justice system than the potential copyright problem he may be facing for this public performance of the song.

  • If the music being played is known then it can be cancelled out with an inverted copy of the same track. It's not going to be perfect by any means and doing it would involve timing issues and fiddling with volume / filtering but it could be done, at least to a degree that it doesn't trigger copyright filters.

    It's the sort of thing that some civil rights group could develop into a software tool and make freely available. Just the very existence of such a tool would make idiot cops think twice.

  • Upload them to one of the peertube affiliates. Courts don't care that it was on youtube, they just care the footage exists, you can link to there just as well as youtube.

    Or, hell, use Nextcloud, either self-hosted or from some provider and set up the phone to auto-upload to there.

    • Courts? Seriously? Anyone collecting evidence of police doing things wrong would be better off storing multiple copies in the cloud and/or on backups for entry into evidence later.

      The whole point of posting videos publicly is to provoke a response from the public.

  • As if one couldn't repost on YT with the audio stream removed. Duh.

  • Blocked? (Score:3)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Saturday July 03, 2021 @06:25AM (#61546778) Homepage
    YouTube doesn't block music if it had a copyright issue, it allows you to sign copyright to the artist and keep the video up.

  • I thought if you were playing music for the public to hear, you are in violation of laws RIAA forced through and can be sued.

    So, RIAA, when will you sue this officer ?

  • No class in today's policing

  • A public performance of a protected song shared with people not in the immediate family?

    Well, that policeman will spend 10 years in prison, being a dirty pirate. :-)

  • That thug is still employed by the very same police department that took no action, throwing out mere platitudes about âoenot approved behaviorâ and âoeinternal affairsâ. If they were serious about making sure âoeIt will not happen againâ, theyâ(TM)d have given the scum the treatment he deserves and terminated him⦠with cause, so no unemployment⦠and would see to it he never works in anything resembling public service again.

  • Fire them if they do this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Saturday July 03, 2021 @12:41PM (#61547460) Journal
    Cops that do shit like this should be fired for it and prevented from working in law enforcement ever again, because clearly and objectively they do not believe in the laws they are there to enforce. In fact they should be charged with obstruction of justice for doing it.

  • I would consider it torture if the police was playing Taylor Swift while interviewing me

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