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Comment by Fnoord | Hacker News Reader

Police wont't generally use something like this as it would interfere with bodycam which includes a microphone.

"Police officers in Beverly Hills have been playing music while being filmed, seemingly in an effort to trigger Instagram’s copyright filters."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxb94/is-this-beverly-hills...

Apparently numerous jurisdictions.

Alamdeda County, California:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210911/21360647545/offic...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28546242

What I find ironic, is the police are doing a copyright infringement (unauthorized public performance of these songs) in order to infringe on citizens' rights. Why are record companies not more pissed about this?

Because they don't lose money over it the way they do over other types of unauthorized public performances.

I think I'd phrase that a bit differently.

Extracting cash by threatening mom and pop restaurants for playing the radio is old hat, nobody cares.

Threatening cops over it is going to attract attention.

Does it suggest that system of IP is genuinely designed and deployed to protect art? Or capricious exercise of state power?

I will double down with, no, the system of IP is not intended to protect art. The whole concept of IP is antithetical to the intent of copyright.

“Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution grants Congress the enumerated power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."”

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intellectual_property_clause

It's not performance as there's the lack of intent to have others hear it and few will. You can play music for yourself in public even if others overhear.

Doesn't playing a song with the explicit intention of having it be recorded count as having intent to perform?

It's really curious in this case though, the intent is for the music to trigger automated software that prevents performance. Hard to classify that as 'intent to perform' especially with USA's Fair Use.

My understanding is in UK causing a recording to be made (whether viewed or not) would be infringing. We have Fair Dealing but it's extremely restrictive compared to Fair Use.

Just my personal, private opinion.

Because it doesn’t have any impact on sales, and the executives of those companies don’t want to pick a fight with the local police (who could practically, if not legally, retaliate though various means)

In many countries this is unauthorised broadcasting.

The cops are not trying to post their footage to the socials. They want you to not be able to do it. If they need their footage, it's to prove you were being an asshat and deserved whatever happened to you. If you need their footage, it'll mysteriously not be available for some technical or clerical error.

Its to provide a PoV from the police officer, yes. Because the PoV of the other side (whatever it might be) may omit details, or could've been tampered with. You're right that it is in the interest of the police (in general, not necessarily the police officer), but if details like sound are not available that only hurts their case.

> if details like sound are not available that only hurts their case.

Unless the cop is saying things they shouldn't be saying. I think you are missing the point of the comment you are replying to. They are saying that cops only use that footage when it benefits them (that's assuming the footage exists and they didn't "forget to turn on their camera") and when it doesn't benefit them then they won't release it or the footage might get "lost". Also the police have been known to edit or post misleading footage to their own gain.

'Their own gain', the police work for the public interest. If that isn't the case, something is wrong with your police force.

I get such point is popular with people who are cynical to authorities, and I get that in the context of racism in USA.

Here in The Netherlands they are always recording, and when the cop pushes it on, it saves the last minute before the cop pushed the button as well, for context.

The police are not allowed to tamper with evidence in a court of law. Nowhere in the world is this allowed.

> 'Their own gain', the police work for the public interest. If that isn't the case, something is wrong with your police force.

I agree. Something is very wrong with our police force. Also, it might not be allowed anywhere in the world but it absolutely happens in most of not all places (police getting away with tampering with evidence).

If we cannot keep people who are supposed to protect us accountable (even via a trusted third party like internal affairs [1]) we as society have a problem. And we do have a problem: a problem of trust, at the very least.

I'd like to think they do get caught, and I'd also like to think most cops in society can be trusted. There's dirty (and I use that word liberally) cops everywhere in the world, yes, also in The Netherlands, but the rotten apples are in a minority.

Mind you, my original quote was: "Police wont't generally use something like this as it would interfere with bodycam which includes a microphone." I said generally; I was already aware -in a world-wide context- some dirty cops might do such, or that I could think of exceptional situations where such might be warranted.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_(law_enforcem...

the fundamental problem is that the majority of good cops dont rat out the minority of bad cops, either out of a sense of brotherhood or because theyll will face retaliation if they do. The "rotten apples" saying, of course, is that a few rotten apples spoiles the whole bunch. Good cops don't just suddenly snap one day and commit corrupt acts out of nowhere, the people they work with know what they are like and what they do.

Why depend on their footage? We need to record them ourselves. Counter their surveillance with our own sousveillance.

It's almost like you missed the point. The cops are playing music because someone else is recording them. That is the counter surveillance.

Copyrighted music won't prevent video of cops breaking the law from being used in court, so don't let that tactic dissuade you from recording the police.

Right, but it does help them keep videos from being spread as easily if they get taken down. It sure does seem like the only reason cops ever get punished is public pressure, which relies on people seeing the video.

Why can’t instagram distinguish between a public performance vs a cop playing music. Should be pretty easy to do.

Doubt it. Copyright violation detected is fully automated for the most part, and very good at detection regardless of background noise.

You would need a human viewing footage and listening for every single post to determine this.

The challenge is determining between music playing in the background of a real-life arrest, vs the same for a fictional arrest where they would want to claim copyright usage fees.

That's a hard job for most people, nevermind an automated system where the copyright holder doesn't care about false positives.

That is exactly why they would use something like this.

> it would interfere with bodycam which includes a microphone.

That's the point. Many cops do not like the fact that the bodycam also records them to a degree. At least the ones getting caught planting drugs in stopped cars or mistreating people because they forgot about the cam.

That is unless they use waterproof body cam.

That would likely be seen as a feature

How sweet!

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