The real problem here is that there is no consequence for incorrect takedowns. If content is taken down and then it turns out to be fair use, no one suffers a penalty.
The DMCA and similar laws provide protection to the platform if they act quickly on takedown notices, but the law needs to be updated to provide penalties for the reporter for inappropriate takedowns.
This would allow Google/Facebook/et al to change their tools from automatic takedown to reporting the violation to the copyright holder, and then it is up to the copyright holder to file a claim. If perhaps the copyright holder makes too many erroneous claims, they lose their copyright altogether.
Let the platforms be neutral, put the liability on the copyright violators and copyright holders equally, so both have a reason to act fairly.
1. All DMCA notices must contain an analysis of fair use and explain why the content does not meet fair use.
2. Anyone who has received an improper notice (including an analysis of fair use that would not survive summary judgement) can countersue (or sue, if the copyright owner declines to bring suit after a counter-notice) for at least $1000 in statutory damages.
3. Any non-DMCA system that can take down user-generated material for alleged copyright violations must give users the same rights as the DMCA: the (new) mandatory analysis of fair use and the right to counter-notice (and host the content until it is determined in court). These rights cannot be waived by contract.
This is the worst part of this whole copyright mess, defenders of youtube constantly preach the "They have to do this", "they are forced to do this" etc. defense.
However the way Youtube handles dmca and copyright claims means that if you are a smaller musician, a big corporation can just steal your music and profit off it. Good luck if you don't live in the US and don't have the money to take back what is yours. From that point you can basically just hope that you make the news so that a human at Google looks into the mess they created for once.
Just leaving a reminder of how infuriation Youtube copyright handling can become even for larger channels: Back in 2018 TheFatRat got his music claimed by some randoms and Youtube just gave it to them on a silver platter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw . TheFatRat was a popular youtuber even back then, and even for him the process was hard. Now imagine how that situation would have played out for the average musician.
When people talk about "protecting the musicians" they typically only mean the richest musicians, the top few % and the largest record labels. No one cares about regular musicians.
The same logic also means that dmca claims can be easily weaponized by any entity as long as they choose their targets strategically (or own enough money to tank the situation in which a target fights back, but even then that can create more damage for the target).
What you've described is largely how the DMCA already works.
1. Copyright holder files a claim.
2. Platform takes down content, and notifies the poster of the content.
3. If poster thinks the claim is incorrect, poster notifies the platform.
4. Platform restores the content, and notifies the copyright owner.
5. If the copyright owner wants the content taken down again, they have to sue the poster.
If the copyright owner must swear that they believe their claim is true. If they intentionally make a false claim it is perjury.
All that's really missing is it sounds like you would penalize the copyright owner for being wrong about fair use regardless of whether they were wrong because they honestly thought it was not fair use or they were wrong because they knew it was fair use but lied about it.
Fair use is subjective and tricky enough that it is not at all uncommon for both side to go into a case expecting for the court to go their way.
Some major platforms don't follow the above, because they have decided to handle copyright using their own procedures instead of following the DMCA procedures.
This is not about the laws.
YouTube has their own copyright processes that are more stringent than DMCA. They allow companies to automate take down and take over requests with no repercussions. Everyone who shares a video to their platform has agreed to this process.
That's one of the problems, and I agree with your idea. It would be vastly better to put the burden of claiming the copyright on the holder, as they are the party who benefits from that action.
However unchecked use of police force and lack of effective oversight are also serious problems. These are a large part of what has led to the situation today, where it is necessary to film routine police encounters.
And why would police actively try to sabotage a video recording of themself?
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide" cuts both ways.
> The real problem here is that there is no consequence for incorrect takedowns. If content is taken down and then it turns out to be fair use, no one suffers a penalty.
There are exceptions to this. See Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2015).
"Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2015), is a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, affirming the ruling in 2008 of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, holding that copyright holders must consider fair use in good faith before issuing a takedown notice for content posted on the Internet."
"In ... Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., decided by the Ninth Circuit on September 14, 2015, a mother's 29-second home video of her two toddlers dancing to Prince's 1984 song "Let's Go Crazy" has made important new law with respect to "takedown notices" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), holding that copyright holders must consider fair use before sending a takedown notification. This decision increases the potential liability for copyright holders seeking to enforce their rights through the DMCA and should serve as a warning to ensure fair use is considered before sending a takedown notice."
> Let the platforms be neutral, put the liability on the copyright violators and copyright holders equally, so both have a reason to act fairly.
One simple solution is that every time a bad takedown notice is successfully challenged, the copyright holder has a 1 in 10,000 chance of losing their copyright.
So, DMCA takedown is successfully challenged. Now we roll two 100-sided dice. If they come up snake eyes, the IP is now in public domain forever. That would make copyright holders only challenge content that they are confident is in clear violation. Disney's not going to give some copyright troll the contract to shotgun DMCA notices across YouTube, if it means a serious risk of losing the rights to Frozen.
IANAL, but there are penalties for filing a false DMCA notice already. Almost never happens, but it exists.
> This would allow Google/Facebook/et al to change their tools from automatic takedown to reporting the violation to the copyright holder,
Is there anything stopping them from doing that now? I was under the impression that the current system was something google chose, not something forced on them by law. Like they have to respond to take down notices, but the content-id thing was something they chose themselves.
No, the real problem is the cops know what they are doing is an attempt to circumvent the spirit if not the letter of the law and they need to be punished.
Copyright laws and DMCA take downs are an issue, yes, but not here. If police recordings are being taken down because the cops are playing music then make it known far and wide which cops are doing it and get their local district attorney involved.
Hell we likely are going to get a few Qualified Immunity rulings on this protecting both the cops and other officials but the only issue we should concentrate on is bad cops doing whatever they please and purposefully making society worse
Really? Copyright law is the real problem and not the extrajudicial murder of citizens by police? Must be nice to be insulated from worrying about that.
So, the police in these instances are breaching copyright, specifically "performance rights", which prohibit the public playing of music outside of a circle of family and friends, unless they have received permission from the copyright holders.
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.
Just another of the myriad examples of how the DMCA is abused with no repercussions to the abusers at all.
Remember when Youtube removed a video of someone in their garden with the rationale that the sounds of birds chirping infringed on some company's copyright [1]? And then they upheld the removal even following manual review, so the tired refrain that it was just an automated bot was not even applicable.
I am amazed I am going to say this, but the issue is not with the DMCA but with Google/YouTube allowing a bypass of DMCA.
If you read carefully, you will see they refer in the cited case to the Content Id system. In that case Google allows the claimants to verify that it is indeed their content and takes their word for it with no repercussions.
If the company above had made a false DMCA claim they would be in rough water, as DMCA provides the tooling for damages etc and "countersueing."
Essentially Google found a way to produce something worse than DMCA in all aspects besides automation and angering their product (that is the users and content creators).
I am 100% for accountability in policing, but I find it telling the number of these kinds of videos that don't show the full context and are instead 30s clips of the middle/worst part of the interaction.
What is the point of this comment if you don't back it with receipts? The videos are available, you could make the effort to find out but chose to post this instead.
The 30 second clip is to provoke outrage and I guess clicks; the full recording is evidence in a court of law. DMCA will not apply then.
I think it's perfectly acceptable to collect your own evidence when it comes to interactions with the police or anything that may end up in a court of law.
Which is why it's kinda weird that where I live, you can't use security camera footage from inside your own house if you haven't clearly warned about security cameras being present. Even burglars get privacy protection, apparently.
I feel like if you know the song being played (which could also be automatically identified with an algorithm like shazam's) it would be pretty easy to generate an inverse waveform to remove it from a video's audio. It wouldn't be perfect, obviously, but it should screw up the song enough to not set off the copyright filter while leaving the conversation intelligible.
On a more general note, respect for the law requires respectable laws. Short sighted laws meant to benefit some special interests implemented without clear and effective safeguards are a would-be tyrant's wet dream. How fortunate we are that these officers blew their load trying to shut down some random guy's interview rather than saving this hack for a special occasion like suppressing a major protest or worse. Imagine the danger of someone more ambitious manipulating the system in analogous ways but on a much larger scale. Who knows what sorts of law-hacks the next wannabe despot is already sitting on? Constant vigilance is the only defense.
Simply playing a song "in the background" without any critique, educational purpose, or other transformative fair use is almost certainly an performance of the original work. If the cop doesn't have an appropriate license, they could be liable for statutory damages up to $150,000[1] per work.
Unfortunately, enforcing this will probably only happen if someone with standing files a lawsuit. I doubt many music labels that hold the relevant copyrights are interested in suing the cops.
[1] damages normally start much lower, but the performance of the copyright protected work is patently willful
I think the idea is not to get hit with a "public performance" charge, but to have the video get automatically taken down on Youtube/Twitch/Instagram once it gets uploaded (due to the algorithm detecting copyright-infringing material).
And for that purpose, it doesn't matter whether it was a public performance or not. I can make a video of me sitting in a chair with a copyrighted song playing in the background, and it will get taken down. Hardly what I would call a "public performance".
IANAL so I can't claim the top answers are correct but it was an interesting discussion so take away what you will.
Edit: If the police played a song that they had the rights to it would mean that they themselves could issue the takedown requests, but it means the uploader could file a counter-notice and the rightsholder needs to a) Show Google they filed a lawsuit to defend their copyright within 10 days, and b) Prove that the infringement is not fair use
Slightly related, but the only way I was able to get a site taken down for a fraudulent listing of my rental property was to file a Trademark/Copyright claim on the photos and description. The fact that had my property with them listed as the owner and their own phone number was not enough.
If only we paid artists from a generous public support of the arts instead of making them scrimp and appeal to rich people or get pennies from individual streamers we could do away with copyright and such filters completely.
Musicians would be paid fairly and culture would flourish from not being confined by private entities that buy up the rights to how people express themselves.
Why is it not possible for individuals to just pay a fee like a radio station to not get copyright striked?
There are so many solutions for industry like listening devices for venues that figure out what was played so that licensing can be processed.
I see this yet as another failure of the RIAA to get a leg up and provide a win-win solution. Instead these idiots are stuck in their old thinking until it's too late and someone else will once again "steal" a huge part of their profit. Apple is one that took such a chunk from them because they sat around.
Because Covid, she and her team (yep, those exist!) are practicing remotely using various streaming software.
Last training session this saturday, suddenly the teacher stopped everything, and said they would need to change what music they are practicing, after lots of dancers with confused faces, she then said: "Well, Facebook just threatened banning my account permanently if I keep streaming this music, because copyright violation."
Ugh, this isn't funny in the least bit, and it's just an extension of this apathy towards our society and the other people in it. This is an extreme version of people lying about their pet's support animal status.
The police are supposed to defend the law. When you see a uniformed officer, on duty, behind the desk AND on camera, use what he KNOWS to be a cheap abuse of the intent of one law in order to break some other law, you should be really sad about where we've landed as a country.
Shouldn't this officer be helping the man behind the camera?
I guess at some point platforms will stop removing media that contains copyrighted audio, and instead just remove the copyrighted audio from the media. (?)
[+] [-] jedberg|5 years ago|reply
The DMCA and similar laws provide protection to the platform if they act quickly on takedown notices, but the law needs to be updated to provide penalties for the reporter for inappropriate takedowns.
This would allow Google/Facebook/et al to change their tools from automatic takedown to reporting the violation to the copyright holder, and then it is up to the copyright holder to file a claim. If perhaps the copyright holder makes too many erroneous claims, they lose their copyright altogether.
Let the platforms be neutral, put the liability on the copyright violators and copyright holders equally, so both have a reason to act fairly.
[+] [-] jcranmer|5 years ago|reply
1. All DMCA notices must contain an analysis of fair use and explain why the content does not meet fair use.
2. Anyone who has received an improper notice (including an analysis of fair use that would not survive summary judgement) can countersue (or sue, if the copyright owner declines to bring suit after a counter-notice) for at least $1000 in statutory damages.
3. Any non-DMCA system that can take down user-generated material for alleged copyright violations must give users the same rights as the DMCA: the (new) mandatory analysis of fair use and the right to counter-notice (and host the content until it is determined in court). These rights cannot be waived by contract.
[+] [-] 2pEXgD0fZ5cF|5 years ago|reply
However the way Youtube handles dmca and copyright claims means that if you are a smaller musician, a big corporation can just steal your music and profit off it. Good luck if you don't live in the US and don't have the money to take back what is yours. From that point you can basically just hope that you make the news so that a human at Google looks into the mess they created for once.
Just leaving a reminder of how infuriation Youtube copyright handling can become even for larger channels: Back in 2018 TheFatRat got his music claimed by some randoms and Youtube just gave it to them on a silver platter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw . TheFatRat was a popular youtuber even back then, and even for him the process was hard. Now imagine how that situation would have played out for the average musician.
When people talk about "protecting the musicians" they typically only mean the richest musicians, the top few % and the largest record labels. No one cares about regular musicians.
The same logic also means that dmca claims can be easily weaponized by any entity as long as they choose their targets strategically (or own enough money to tank the situation in which a target fights back, but even then that can create more damage for the target).
[+] [-] johnchristopher|5 years ago|reply
While your points are valid I think the real problem is that the Police is trying not to be accountable and to escape its responsibilities.
[+] [-] tzs|5 years ago|reply
1. Copyright holder files a claim.
2. Platform takes down content, and notifies the poster of the content.
3. If poster thinks the claim is incorrect, poster notifies the platform.
4. Platform restores the content, and notifies the copyright owner.
5. If the copyright owner wants the content taken down again, they have to sue the poster.
If the copyright owner must swear that they believe their claim is true. If they intentionally make a false claim it is perjury.
All that's really missing is it sounds like you would penalize the copyright owner for being wrong about fair use regardless of whether they were wrong because they honestly thought it was not fair use or they were wrong because they knew it was fair use but lied about it.
Fair use is subjective and tricky enough that it is not at all uncommon for both side to go into a case expecting for the court to go their way.
Some major platforms don't follow the above, because they have decided to handle copyright using their own procedures instead of following the DMCA procedures.
[+] [-] underwater|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deeblering4|5 years ago|reply
However unchecked use of police force and lack of effective oversight are also serious problems. These are a large part of what has led to the situation today, where it is necessary to film routine police encounters.
And why would police actively try to sabotage a video recording of themself?
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide" cuts both ways.
[+] [-] tony101|5 years ago|reply
There are exceptions to this. See Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2015).
"Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2015), is a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, affirming the ruling in 2008 of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, holding that copyright holders must consider fair use in good faith before issuing a takedown notice for content posted on the Internet."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz_v._Universal_Music_Corp.
"In ... Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., decided by the Ninth Circuit on September 14, 2015, a mother's 29-second home video of her two toddlers dancing to Prince's 1984 song "Let's Go Crazy" has made important new law with respect to "takedown notices" under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), holding that copyright holders must consider fair use before sending a takedown notification. This decision increases the potential liability for copyright holders seeking to enforce their rights through the DMCA and should serve as a warning to ensure fair use is considered before sending a takedown notice."
https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2015/09/ninth-circuit-s...
[+] [-] dcolkitt|5 years ago|reply
One simple solution is that every time a bad takedown notice is successfully challenged, the copyright holder has a 1 in 10,000 chance of losing their copyright.
So, DMCA takedown is successfully challenged. Now we roll two 100-sided dice. If they come up snake eyes, the IP is now in public domain forever. That would make copyright holders only challenge content that they are confident is in clear violation. Disney's not going to give some copyright troll the contract to shotgun DMCA notices across YouTube, if it means a serious risk of losing the rights to Frozen.
[+] [-] bawolff|5 years ago|reply
> This would allow Google/Facebook/et al to change their tools from automatic takedown to reporting the violation to the copyright holder,
Is there anything stopping them from doing that now? I was under the impression that the current system was something google chose, not something forced on them by law. Like they have to respond to take down notices, but the content-id thing was something they chose themselves.
[+] [-] theelous3|5 years ago|reply
Big no to this, as that can and would be abused by scavengers, but the rest is sane and broadly agreed to be the way.
What tou want instead is fines by revenue / income.
[+] [-] h_anna_h|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] corobo|5 years ago|reply
I'd imagine you could make a mint baiting the RIAA if you were ok with being as sleazy as them
[+] [-] Shivetya|5 years ago|reply
Copyright laws and DMCA take downs are an issue, yes, but not here. If police recordings are being taken down because the cops are playing music then make it known far and wide which cops are doing it and get their local district attorney involved.
Hell we likely are going to get a few Qualified Immunity rulings on this protecting both the cops and other officials but the only issue we should concentrate on is bad cops doing whatever they please and purposefully making society worse
[+] [-] chrismcb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minikites|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phs318u|5 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] Ansil849|5 years ago|reply
Remember when Youtube removed a video of someone in their garden with the rationale that the sounds of birds chirping infringed on some company's copyright [1]? And then they upheld the removal even following manual review, so the tired refrain that it was just an automated bot was not even applicable.
[1] https://waxy.org/2012/03/youtube_bypasses_the_dmca/
[+] [-] eftychis|5 years ago|reply
If you read carefully, you will see they refer in the cited case to the Content Id system. In that case Google allows the claimants to verify that it is indeed their content and takes their word for it with no repercussions.
If the company above had made a false DMCA claim they would be in rough water, as DMCA provides the tooling for damages etc and "countersueing."
Essentially Google found a way to produce something worse than DMCA in all aspects besides automation and angering their product (that is the users and content creators).
[+] [-] quotemstr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meowface|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehwebguy|5 years ago|reply
Perhaps they should be playing April 29th 1992 by the same band, or does their cognitive dissonance actually have a limit?
[+] [-] bpcpdx|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JadoJodo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tclancy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] katsura|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|5 years ago|reply
I think it's perfectly acceptable to collect your own evidence when it comes to interactions with the police or anything that may end up in a court of law.
Which is why it's kinda weird that where I live, you can't use security camera footage from inside your own house if you haven't clearly warned about security cameras being present. Even burglars get privacy protection, apparently.
[+] [-] account42|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tqi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devlopr|5 years ago|reply
A next step could be for the artist to sue the police department for unliceased music. Create a story and it might become a national story.
[+] [-] jjk166|5 years ago|reply
On a more general note, respect for the law requires respectable laws. Short sighted laws meant to benefit some special interests implemented without clear and effective safeguards are a would-be tyrant's wet dream. How fortunate we are that these officers blew their load trying to shut down some random guy's interview rather than saving this hack for a special occasion like suppressing a major protest or worse. Imagine the danger of someone more ambitious manipulating the system in analogous ways but on a much larger scale. Who knows what sorts of law-hacks the next wannabe despot is already sitting on? Constant vigilance is the only defense.
[+] [-] miguelmota|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdkl95|5 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, enforcing this will probably only happen if someone with standing files a lawsuit. I doubt many music labels that hold the relevant copyrights are interested in suing the cops.
[1] damages normally start much lower, but the performance of the copyright protected work is patently willful
[+] [-] filoleg|5 years ago|reply
And for that purpose, it doesn't matter whether it was a public performance or not. I can make a video of me sitting in a chair with a copyrighted song playing in the background, and it will get taken down. Hardly what I would call a "public performance".
[+] [-] airhead969|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bentcorner|5 years ago|reply
IANAL so I can't claim the top answers are correct but it was an interesting discussion so take away what you will.
Edit: If the police played a song that they had the rights to it would mean that they themselves could issue the takedown requests, but it means the uploader could file a counter-notice and the rightsholder needs to a) Show Google they filed a lawsuit to defend their copyright within 10 days, and b) Prove that the infringement is not fair use
[+] [-] bustin|5 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24372036
Should have seen who would be the main benefactors of this trick though...
[+] [-] Havoc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lobf|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradly|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehjoker|5 years ago|reply
Musicians would be paid fairly and culture would flourish from not being confined by private entities that buy up the rights to how people express themselves.
[+] [-] sschueller|5 years ago|reply
There are so many solutions for industry like listening devices for venues that figure out what was played so that licensing can be processed.
I see this yet as another failure of the RIAA to get a leg up and provide a win-win solution. Instead these idiots are stuck in their old thinking until it's too late and someone else will once again "steal" a huge part of their profit. Apple is one that took such a chunk from them because they sat around.
[+] [-] speeder|5 years ago|reply
Because Covid, she and her team (yep, those exist!) are practicing remotely using various streaming software.
Last training session this saturday, suddenly the teacher stopped everything, and said they would need to change what music they are practicing, after lots of dancers with confused faces, she then said: "Well, Facebook just threatened banning my account permanently if I keep streaming this music, because copyright violation."
[+] [-] vmception|5 years ago|reply
Repelling livestreamers with licensed music, like they are vampires and it works!
Cops are about to start wearing JBL Clip 3’s on their utility belt.
[+] [-] lobf|5 years ago|reply
The police are supposed to defend the law. When you see a uniformed officer, on duty, behind the desk AND on camera, use what he KNOWS to be a cheap abuse of the intent of one law in order to break some other law, you should be really sad about where we've landed as a country.
Shouldn't this officer be helping the man behind the camera?
[+] [-] barbs|5 years ago|reply
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxb94/is-this-beverly-hills...
[+] [-] montebicyclelo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedberg|5 years ago|reply