Police Play Copyrighted Music To Get Their Videos Removed From The Internet

A Police Sergeant reportedly played popular music on their phone as they realized they are being filmed, according to BoingBoing.net.

This odd move is considered part of an effort to get these types of videos flagged on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube, and removed by copyright-strike algorithms.

The example circulated on Instagram, which hasn’t flagged the video, in which a Sergeant of the Beverly Hills Police Department was playing the song Santeria on his smartphone. The description of the video says:

“I believe Sergeant Fair aka BILLY FAIR is using copyrighted music to keep me from being able to play these videos on social media. Then tells me in the second video he couldn’t hear me earlier in the day and also couldn’t hear me then, all while playing music.”

“He isn’t alone. I have video of this happening with another officer who played music as I was talking. Is this an order from the top? Wait till I show you more. Until then I’ll be filing a complaint on this officer Fair and officer Reyes who had done it before to me. It’s outrageous.”

Though we cannot jump to a conclusion that police officers are doing this in accordance with an order from the top, it’s undeniably plausible.

Since October 2020, DMCA and copyright strikes have been a hot topic since popular streamers found that their recent videos and older ones were removed from platforms because of music copyright infringement.

Regardless, this incident has given us an excellent example of the Streisand Effect, which is a social phenomenon where a person tries to hide their actions but end up with the opposite effect and the action is exposed to a wider audience.

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