Philly Police Harass, Threaten To Shoot Man Legally Carrying Gun; Then Charge Him With Disorderly Conduct For Recording Them

from the lovely dept

As police are insisting that having the public record them is a dangerous situation that shouldn't be allowed, we get a striking example of just how important that right is at times. Julian Sanchez points us to a story of a guy in Philadelphia, who had a license to carry a firearm in a city where it's legal to openly carry a firearm -- but who ran into a police officer who apparently did not understand his city's own laws:

On a mild February afternoon, Fiorino, 25, decided to walk to an AutoZone on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philly with the .40-caliber Glock he legally owns holstered in plain view on his left hip. His stroll ended when someone called out from behind: "Yo, Junior, what are you doing?"

Fiorino wheeled and saw Sgt. Michael Dougherty aiming a handgun at him.

What happened next would be hard to believe, except that Fiorino audio-recorded all of it: a tense, profanity-laced, 40-minute encounter with cops who told him that what he was doing - openly carrying a gun on the city's streets - was against the law.

"Do you know you can't openly carry here in Philadelphia?" Dougherty asked, according to the YouTube clip.

"Yes, you can, if you have a license to carry firearms," Fiorino said. "It's Directive 137. It's your own internal directive."

You can hear all of this via the YouTube clip, embedded here: It gets worse and worse. Dougherty threatens to shoot Fiorino for trying to show him his license:

Fiorino offered to show Dougherty his driver's and firearms licenses. The cop told him to get on his knees.

"Excuse me?" Fiorino said.

"Get down on your knees. Just obey what I'm saying," Dougherty said.

"Sir," Fiorino replied, "I'm more than happy to stand here -"

"If you make a move, I'm going to f------ shoot you," Dougherty snapped. "I'm telling you right now, you make a move, and you're going down!"

"Is this necessary?" Fiorino said.

Other cops show up and they continue to curse at him and scream at him, while he calmly responds to their claims. They discover that he has a recording device in his pocket, and they go even more ballistic, telling him he broke the law with that as well. Eventually, they finally realize that he wasn't breaking the law with the gun and let him go... But once he posted the audio on YouTube, suddenly the District Attorney took renewed interest in the case, and charged him with "reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct," claiming that he refused to cooperate with police. If you listen to the tapes, it's hard to see how anyone could make that claim with a straight face. It seems pretty clear, from the beginning, that it's the police who were recklessly endangering someone and who were disorderly in how they dealt with Fiorino.

No matter what your opinion is on guns or open carry rules, it's hard to see how this guy deserves the treatment he received from police who clearly did not understand the law in their own city -- and it's even more ridiculous to see him facing a (trumped up) charge, after he uploaded the audio. It seems like a pretty clear case of vindictive prosecution, even as part of the issue is that the very thing that pissed off law enforcement is precisely what proves this guy was perfectly reasonable throughout the encounter.

Filed Under: disorderly conduct, guns, harassment, open carry, philadelphia, police, recording

New Bill In Connecticut Would Make It Illegal For Police To Stop You From Recording Them

from the good-to-see dept

We've seen numerous stories in the last year of police abusing anti-wiretap laws to go after people who record police activities in public. Thankfully, there are some people who realize this is wrong. A Connecticut state senator, Martin Looney, has apparently introduced legislation that not only says that it's the right of citizens to record on-duty police officers, but (more importantly) gives citizens a civil action against police officers if they violate that right. As Radley Balko points out at that link:

That second part is important. A right doesn’t mean much if there are no consequences for government officials who ignore it. Witness this case in Florida, where an officer erroneously tries to say federal law prohibits citizen recordings of cops. Even in states where courts have thrown out criminal charges, a cop who doesn’t want to be recorded can still harass, threaten, and even arrest you. You may not be charged. But he won’t be punished, either.

It would definitely be nice if a similar rule was taken up at the federal level.

Filed Under: police, recording

Is Downloading And Converting A YouTube Video To An MP3 Infringement?

from the interesting-legal-questions dept

There are a variety of different tools out there that let you "record" a YouTube video and turn it into an MP3, just as there are a variety of tools out there for converting Pandora streams to MP3s or converting internet radio to MP3s. Technically it's no different than "recording" something you hear off the radio, which is generally considered legal under the Audio Home Recording Act (which had plenty of bad things in it, but also included protections for people recording at home for personal use).

We may get a test of whether or not that applies to the online world, with the news that former Gnutella P2P client MP3Rocket has changed strategies and ditched its P2P offering to switch to an app that simply records YouTube videos and turns them into MP3s. The company seems to be relying on the Supreme Court's Betamax ruling, by claiming that since all it's really doing is "time shifting" the ability to listen to music streamed via YouTube, it's no different than the ruling that said it was okay to record television shows via video cassettes.

Of course, RIAA supporters and the like will quickly counter by pointing to the various lawsuits over whether or not XM's recording device was legal. Most of those lawsuits ended in settlements, so I don't think there's as strong a precedent that says that turning digital streams is infringement. However, you'd have to imagine that there's going to be one hell of a lawsuit either way.

The reality is that this is yet another case of the law not being able to keep up with technology. There simply is no intellectually honest rationale that says recording songs off the radio is legal, but recording songs off your computer is illegal. It's a weak attempt by an industry that doesn't want to deal with changing technology to put in place laws that prevent what the technology allows. Those never work.

It certainly would be nice to see the Supreme Court note that something like this really is no different than the Betamax ruling, but given the Supreme Court's various bad copyright rulings over the last few years, I have little faith that it will do so. Instead, it would likely just use a case like this to chip further away at the Betamax ruling, just as the Grokster decision did.

Filed Under: betamax, downloading, mp3s, recording, time shifting, youtube
Companies: mp3rocket, youtube

Woman Arrested For Recording Attempt To Report Police Officer Who Sexually Assaulted Her

from the feeling-safer? dept

We've had a few stories about how police have been abusing wiretap laws to arrest people who video or audiotape the police, and here's a whopper of a case. Apparently a woman named Tiawanda Moore has been arrested and faces 15 years in prison in a case that goes to trial shortly. Her "crime"? Apparently, after being sexually assaulted by a Chicago police officer, she went to the Chicago Police Department's internal affairs group to report the officer. After being pressured not to file a report, she pulled out her mobile phone and started recording what was going on. The officers in the room saw this... and arrested her for eavesdropping. Oh yeah, while her trial starts shortly, the officer she reported is still "being investigated."

Filed Under: chicago, eavesdropping, illinois, police, recording, wiretapping

San Diego Airport Says Recording TSA Gropings Is An Arrestible Offense?

from the not-cool dept

We already covered the guy who was arrested after stripping down for the TSA, highlighting how one of the charges was his failure to complete the security procedure (after stripping down, he pointed out there was no need for a pat down...). However, there was a second charge that was even more troubling that actually deserves a separate post, which is that he was also charged with "illegally recording the San Diego Airport Authority." I was trying to figure out the exact rule (listed as 7.14a), and some of the folks over at Flyertalk have posted the full 7.14 rule (or you can see the full San Diego Airport Authority rules (pdf) if you'd like):

(a) No person shall take still, motion or sound motion pictures or voice recordings on the facilities and airports under the jurisdiction of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority (the "Authority") without written permission from the Authority's Executive Director or his or her designee.

(b) Filming of X-ray equipment located on the facilities and airports under the jurisdiction of the Authority is strictly prohibited. Any person(s) caught filming such X-ray equipment may have their film confiscated.

I'm having trouble seeing how this rule can possibly be legal -- especially with all the stories today of TSA agents abusing (or simply not understanding) the new rules. Recording the interactions with the TSA seems like an essential step in making sure that personal liberties are respected. Making that illegal raises all sorts of questions. And while this is specific to San Diego Airport, it makes me wonder if there are similar restrictions elsewhere.

Just a few months ago, we pointed out how law enforcement and the courts were abusing wiretap laws to find people guilty of wiretapping for recording law enforcement in public places. Thankfully, some courts have pushed back on such cases, and it seems like this is a situation where declaring an outright ban on videotaping within the airport is a restriction that doesn't make any sense at all.

Filed Under: airports, recording, san diego, security, tsa
Companies: tsa

Should Illegally Recorded Video Be Admissible In Xbox Modding Case?

from the rules-of-evidence dept

Pickle Monger points us to the latest bit of info to come out of the upcoming trial of a guy accused of violating the DMCA by modding Xboxes. Apparently, the defense is arguing that videos taken by an investigator for the ESA should not be used, because they violated California privacy laws (though, not necessarily wiretapping laws, since there was apparently no audio). The government is apparently saying it doesn't matter -- and even if the video was recorded illegally, it's still admissible.

Filed Under: evidence, recording

Court Says It's Okay To Secretly Record Conversation If Done For Legitimate Reasons

from the i-may-or-may-not-be-recording-this dept

While there have been a lot of concerns lately about efforts to misuse "wiretapping" laws that forbid any recordings of people without their knowledge, it appears at least a few courts are recognizing how silly that is. Yet another court has now said that secretly recording a conversation -- in this case with an iPhone -- is okay, assuming there was no crime committed with the recording, and the recording was for a legitimate purpose. As the court noted:

"The defendant must have the intent to use the illicit recording to commit a tort of crime beyond the act of recording itself."

That makes sense. The act of recording alone, shouldn't be a criminal act, as it really depends on what is being done with the recording. And, in an age where not only is recording everything easier, but for some becoming standard, requiring permission to record all audio seems like an outdated concept.

Filed Under: recording, technology, wiretap

When Recording Everything We See Is Standard, What Happens To Copyright?

from the that'll-be-a-fun-legal-battle dept

We've discussed in the past how technology can advance much faster than the law can handle. For example, we've recently had a few posts about the motorcyclist who was arrested for violating Maryland state wiretapping laws, after his helmet cam captured an off-duty cop jump out of his car with a gun drawn to stop the cyclist. That certainly raised some questions about an age when people more regularly film things going on around them. But, it goes way beyond that as well. Over the years, we've written about various experiments in building tools to let people record absolutely everything you see. Some might find this excessive, but there are some interesting applications -- including helping people with their memory.

However, if such things become more common, laws are going to have to adjust -- and copyright law is no exception. David Levine points us to a story about a guy who lost his eye in a hunting accident, and has replaced it with a prosthetic eye that doubles as a video camera, which can also broadcast what he's seeing. Levine, in mentioning this, queries what happens when he goes to the movies? Or, what if he goes to a sporting event with an exclusive broadcast right? We recently wondered how long it would be until some enterprising team of folks all attends a sporting event with smartphones and broadcasts an "alternative" stream of the game.

Now, I'm sure defenders of the current copyright system will immediately dismiss these examples as being either one-off cases or situations where copyright law should apply and these people should definitely get in trouble or be stopped. But it's really going to become overwhelming. As these tools get better and more useful and actually provide additional utility, along the lines of aiding memory or being able to do data lookups, it's going to seem sillier and sillier for people to turn them off just to make some copyright holder happy. It could actually be a key point in making some reconsider the state of copyright law today.

Filed Under: bionic eye, copyright, recording

Copyright Conundrum: Was 'Public Domain' Music Silenced On YouTube?

from the it's-in-the-recording... dept

Mark Guertin writes in with an interesting situation that he's dealing with, which I think highlights some of the problems with copyright law today. Guertin put together a YouTube video of some swimming pugs as part of a promotion for a charity he's involved with. Knowing that music on videos is a potential copyright issue, he went to Wikipedia to find some public domain music, and chose Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries to accompany the swimming pugs.

Except... he got blocked. YouTube's content ID system told him that the song was owned by (who else?) Warner Music Group, and thus the soundtrack was muted. Guertin filed a counternotice, and the music was reinstated, but then muted a second time as apparently someone (Google/Warner?) didn't agree with the counternotice. Without knowing the details, my guess is that the situation has to do with the different types of copyright coverage. While the song Ride of the Valkyries is public domain, each individual recording of it is covered by copyright. It seems likely that whatever recording was used is still under copyright.

Guertin is reasonably upset about the situation, especially the whole concept of having the music blocked until WMG has a chance to weigh in on it, noting that "guilt before innocence" seems incredibly unfair.

But the bigger issue may be how this (once again) shows how out of sync copyright law is with what people think is reasonable or fair. If you found out a piece of music was in the public domain, it's natural to assume that a recording of that same piece of music is in the public domain. And to make things more confusing, that's absolutely true (in the US at least) of a photograph of a public domain painting. But making a new recording of a public domain song? Bam. A new monopoly created.

Unfortunately for Guertin, the track he used probably is not in the public domain, even if the music is (yes, that's confusing). That's why, these days, it's probably more reasonable to search out Creative Commons-licensed music than public domain music -- because you can't be as sure whether the PD part covers the recording as well as the music. To some of us, that seems like a problem with current copyright laws, while others appear to view it as a feature.

Filed Under: copyright, music, public domain, recording, ride of the valkyries, videos, youtube
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube

Beck Re-Recording Other Classic Albums And Giving Them Away For Free

from the licensing? dept

Hypebot points out another fun experiment by a popular musician. Beck is apparently gathering random friends, and each week (with little or no rehearsal) they're picking someone else's classic album and re-recording it in its entirety and then giving away a free song from the session. This is the sorta thing that makes tons of sense (Hypebot calls it "a GOOD IDEA") and is something that's fun to do, and can help energize Beck's fans, the fans of the other artists playing along and the fans of the original performers/songwriters, as well. But, of course, there's always a cloud that hangs over any fun music project. Already in the discussion on Hypebot there are questions about royalties and who has to pay whom for what rights. When recording cover songs there are compulsory rates, but even then the matter isn't entirely clear, apparently. And, of course, some people are complaining that this just shows that he's "unoriginal." Of course, that simply shows a near total misunderstanding of the history of music -- which has always been about sharing and recreating the works of others.

Filed Under: beck, free, licensing, music, recording, royalties