I'll hold my breath while the individual police officers are pursued for these egregious copyright violations with as much vigour as those receiving take-down notices.
https://www.bmi.com/faq/entry/what_is_a_public_performance_o...
Similar to this[1].
YouTube gets many takedown requests to remove videos that copyright owners claim are infringing under copyright law. Sometimes these requests target videos that seem like clear examples of fair use. Courts have decided that copyright owners must consider fair use before they send a copyright takedown notice. Because of this, we often ask copyright owners to confirm they’ve done this analysis.
[1]: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9783148?hl=en#zipp...
It would certainly not be good if we set a legal precedent that it's illegal to listen to music at any volume that a nearby person could hear or record.
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; or
(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.I don't think many folks are going to YouTube to listen to music from a filmed phone.
"reducing the ability of the record company from gaining revenues"
Misapplying the law because a private company does something is not a logical argument.
>"We do not recklessly expect the police to give a summons to a Con Ed worker having a beer with his lunch". [0]
Yet today, if you have a beer in the park at lunch you will get ticketed, or at least a warning. The lesson? Do not rely on discretion and restraint to make up for an overly expansive letter-of-the-law.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_New_York#cite_...
(I don't agree with you that the original purpose was restricted to protecting revenue. The original purpose of copyright law is to codify the moral rights associated with creative works. Moral rights are fundamentally a property right connecting the work to the person. When we hear that an artist tries to prevent their works being distorted by being associated with a certain political campaign, this is an appeal to this kind of right, not revenue.)
Hah, it'll be like the joke of bringing a predator to get rid of some insects in your home, and a predator to get rid of the first predator, and ending up with an apex predator...
no, unlicensed public performance is itself a breach of copyright.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/music-public-performance-r...
It's completely unambiguous.
cops weren't playing music to themselves though, they were playing it at a protest, audible to all the public participants.
> It's completely unambiguous.
what's your angle here? like yes, this is completely unambiguous, you can't do what the cops are doing, that is public performance of music. why are you digging for a reason to justify what is clearly an illegal action?
Playing music to yourself is 100% legal.
Making videos of content of said music, and posting to YouTube, is not.
"I'll hold my breath while the individual police officers are pursued for these egregious copyright violations"
So given that it's the person filming that is breaking the law, and not the cop, I'll assume you'd point the same disdain for those individuals egregious breaking the law?
At the same time, deliberately playing music while conducting an activity that entails conversational interchange is clearly a ploy to prevent that which I understand to be (perhaps incorrectly) a lawful activity in the US.
https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-police-officers-a...
Otherwise, every employee in bars and restaurants could "play music to themselves", without paying anything and without infringing copyrights ?
The arguments being made here are infantile, and embarrassing.
Because people 'hate cops' (shameful), they use magical thinking to twist even common sense upside down.
The person making a video public is the person making something public, not the cop.
> A public performance is one that occurs either in a public place or any place where people gather (other than a small circle of a family or its social acquaintances).
https://www.ascap.com/help/ascap-licensing
> Generally speaking, public performances are very broadly interpreted under the law and are defined as performing “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.” This has been interpreted to mean that most performances at so-called private clubs and fraternal organizations are “public” under the copyright law.
https://www.bbb.org/council/for-businesses/toolkits/bbb-broc...
It's a place open to the public, so it is a public performance.
No, that's not a rational inference.
Care to take a moment and search the case law for this?
Given that millions of people play music in public every day, can you find even a single instance of case law that supports the absurd claims in this thread?
No?
Nobody ever charged for listening to music themselves?
This comment really helps to highlight how badly HN melts down in the face of facts they don't like.
By your argument, playing music at the beach or at the office, even to yourself is a against the law.
It's a false argument based on a magical reading of the code.
It is 100% legal for someone to play music for themselves, full stop.
This is not one of those issues that IP lawyers just don't pursue because it's not worth it, rather, they don't pursue it because they cannot.
Just because you are 'in public' does not mean you are giving a public performance. Otherwise every radio everywhere would be banned, or come with a warning label.
If you are playing music in your store, for customers, you may be breaking IP law.
If you play it for a large number of employees, maybe.
If you play it as part of a performance intended for the public and have a public audience, then probably.
And of course, if you film someone listening to music - real or rehearsed (like a cop) - and put it up on YouTube you're probably breaking copyright. Maybe.
Yes, playing music at the office is against the law.[0] It's just difficult and extremely impractical to enforce. UK law is similar, and as others have attested on this post, rightsholders are much more aggressive in enforcing them there - if it's not absurd that that would constitute a public performance in the UK, why is it absurd that it wouldn't constitute a public performance in the US, when the law is written the same way?
> It is 100% legal for someone to play music for themselves, full stop.
If you're playing music on a speaker in a public place (and the law defines what a public place is), then you're not playing music for yourself, it's a public performance.
> Otherwise every radio everywhere would be banned, or come with a warning label.
There are specific exceptions in the law that cover playing the radio in an establishment (17 U.S. Code § 110(5)(B)). Yes, the limitations on public performance would apply that broadly if there were not a specific provision in the law carving out an exception for these, and even then they're required to follow certain provisions.
> And of course, if you film someone listening to music - real or rehearsed (like a cop) - and put it up on YouTube you're probably breaking copyright. Maybe.
There is no copyright infringement here, this is covered by fair use. If this went to court, a judge would determine the video was published for the purposes of commentary/criticism of government officials, among other fair use factors. Otherwise government officials could come to an arrangement with rightsholders and always play licensed music at all times and deny these licenses to critics in order to prevent any critical videos from ever being published, which is obviously just circumventing the First Amendment.
Even if Instagram had taken it down, it wouldn't mean it wouldn't be fair use as platforms are notoriously conservative with respect to these matters, but the fact is that Instagram hasn't even taken this video down for copyright infringement. So your theory about this being copyright infringement is moot.
[0]: https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/20030509_Playing_Music_in_Wor...