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0 pointsakersten4y ago0 comments

> He is just playing it for those immediately around him. That doesn't count as a public performance

That literally is the definition of "public performance." He is in public, playing for an audience that is not his private close family and friends.

> By your logic, if someone is playing music in a park or beach, I could start filming them and they'd have to turn it off. Obviously that is ridiculous.

You can't perform publicly without the copyright holder's permission regardless of whether someone is filming you. You have to turn it off anyway, recording or not. I agree that this is a ridiculous part of copyright law and should not exist. I'm leveraging the system we have here to fight oppression.

The fact that he plays it knowing that it is being filmed for broadcast is what adds the "willful" piece to the already "infringement" piece of the public performance.

I'm not making a normative argument here - copyright law in the US is asinine and needs major reform. I'm just combing through this like a determined prosecutor/RIAA goon would, looking for the right charge.

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oh_sigh4y ago

No, you're not looking at it like a prosecutor/RIAA goon would, because they have not sued anyone ever for merely playing music on their phone while standing in public.

What you're doing is taking a phrase which has a contextual meaning within copyright law, looking at the individual words of the phrase based on their common usage, and then saying that your new understanding based on the individual words is how copyright law actually works.

If I drop my phone, and then walk into a McDonalds, am I guilty of "breaking and entering"? That's what you're doing here with "public performance"

akerstenOP4y ago

> because they have not sued anyone ever for merely playing music on their phone while standing in public.

But that's not (just) what the officer was doing - he was playing music as background to his business operation, which RIAA have definitely sued establishments over[0]. If you're playing music as a soundtrack for your business (in this case, the business of law enforcement), you need a license. Even in a non-business context, if they had a chance to sue you for playing music in public, they would. There just haven't been any prominent/worthwhile cases for them to do so. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean that isn't what the law allows.

[0]: https://www.frantzward.com/news-blog/june-2017/let-the-music...

googlryas4y ago

So by your expert understanding of the law, no person is ever allowed to listen to music while working if someone else happens to be near them. Gotcha.

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jcranmer4y ago

https://www.bmi.com/faq/entry/what_is_a_public_performance_o...

> A “public performance” of music is defined in U.S. copyright law to include any music played outside a normal circle of friends and family that occurs in any public place.

This is a quote from a RIAA member explaining their interpretation of public performance.

robbrown4514y ago

Show me a single case where an award has been granted for this sort of thing. This is not a restaurant/bar playing it for the entertainment of their guests.

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