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Comment by minitoar | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

So the issue is that police will regularly and maliciously lie and nobody will ever hold them responsible for doing so.

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.

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.

No one wants to hear your shitty music, get headphones.

or your engine for that matter, get a bicycle!

  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”

In many states that is illegal

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.

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