Judge Tears Into Cops For Beating A Man Who Dared To Question Their Words And Actions
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It doesn't happen often enough, but it is so very refreshing to watch a bunch of assholes get torn new assholes. (h/t Peter Bonilla)A man who was violently "arrested" (read: beaten) by several Allentown (PA) police officers was cleared of all charges last November by a jury. The judge had plenty of harsh words for the officers who participated in this brutal farce. John Perez tried voicing his opinion to some cops who were apparently using a bunch of foul language while "investigating" (read: standing around) reports of an armed man in the neighborhood.The cops didn't like Perez's questions and decided to punish him for his inquiries. A video that went viral showed the violent response from the Allentown cops, who first pushed Perez to the ground before deciding he needed to be punched into submission. Perez ended up being charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. He was found not guilty after a jury trial and that's when Judge Maria L. Dantos decided the involved officers needed to be told some things they'd probably never been told before.The full transcript [PDF] has been released and it's a hell of a read. Dantos briefly recaps her career as a former prosecutor, working hand-in-hand with the DA's office and the PD to carry out raids, search warrants, and investigations. Then she comes to the point: what happened here was inexcusable and shameful and she makes sure the officers know it.I was very proud of my years of service. I tried to provide to my community. I do protect and serve. But then you come in here with this case and proudly display to this community how you talk to people.There were at least nine Allentown Police officers there that night. That is likely 90 percent of the evening's platoon. That is a lot for a 200 man department. You came into that scene like angry, hostile bullies from your first contact with those citizens, and especially officer Battoni. Dantos lights into the DA's office as well for choosing to pursue these charges, despite the actions of the officers captured on video that night. She points out beating someone for talking to cops does nothing to help community relations and bringing charges against a person who was beaten by cops makes that divide even larger. She quotes one officer's own testimony, where he stated "no crime" had been committed at the point he decided to shove John Perez to the ground.Instead of being community leaders, the cops chose to be thugs with badges and power. And the DA's decision to pursue this particular case highlighted everything that is wrong with that office and the police officers involved in the arrest.I have seen murder cases, shootings, robberies, burglaries, pled to all manner of offers. In this case nothing? You chose to, instead, put on display police officers calling people pussies, bitches, threatening to shoot a dog, forming your disgusting blue line of four officers who turned their backs and said they saw nothing.You perjured yourselves. You escalated a situation without cause. Cops smirking on the stand at this jury, laughing at the defense attorney, high-fiving in the hallway after testimony as if there were something, anything, to be proud of here. What cop thinks this is something that should go unpunished, if not actually celebrated? Far too many, it seems.You, officer Lebron, shoved Mr. Perez because you were mad, period. And then you got up on the stand and told that jury that you were just trying to make some space. That is not what happened.[...]Nine officers, most of the night shift, pulling cars from other areas of the city because you lost it. That's what happened. You lost it. Over nothing. Because someone was talking to you in a manner you didn't like? No crime. You serve them. Judge Dantos closes this reaming by pointing out this isn't her problem to fix. She can only do so much. But those that need to mend relationships with the community apparently have no willingness to do so. All she can do is point out where the blame lays and who should be holding their own officers accountable so this sort of thing doesn't happen again.Choices were made. I warned the Commonwealth and yet you displayed this conduct for the world to see. It's shameful. I'd really like to be a healer. I would really like to unite this community between law enforcement and the citizens. But the blame for this lays with you and it is for you to fix. Will this be the flashpoint for reform? It seems doubtful. The DA took a case stemming from a very dubious deployment of force all the way to a jury and came out with a loss and a judicial dressing down. The Allentown PD has a history of excessive force deployment which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements. But that money hasn't bought them a better police force. While it's good to hear a judge has finally had it with bad cops, it's up to the PD to fix the problem. And it won't because it clearly hasn't done it yet, despite having ample reason to do so.
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Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
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If you had told me a few years ago that we would have multiple stories at Techdirt over copyright issues surrounding video game emotes, I would have said you were a crazy person. Unfortunately, it seems that it's the world that is crazy instead. Fortnite in particular has been a focus of many of these stories, as a popular feature in the game is the ability to perform emotes, some of which are or are accused of being based on pop culture occurrences from other media. It is all, I can assure you, very stupid.But people claiming likeness to Fortnite emotes isn't the only copyright issue that surrounds their use in the game. Even when Epic has tried to do right by creators of copyrighted content, it still has managed to find itself in trouble. For example, it seems that Epic, which properly licensed Rick Astley's meme-famous Never Gonna Give You Up audio for an emote inspired by his song, has been forced to patch the game so that players can mute the musical content of that emote. Apparently, YouTubers are finding themselves receiving copyright strikes over the song.Fortnite introduced its Rick Astley-inspired emote just one week ago, and the company has already rolled out an update to let PC players mute the music in response to complaints: creators said they were getting copyright claims over the licensed track that plays when the emote is used.While it’s clear that Epic licensed Astley’s song, which defined early memes for an entire generation of people, the company didn’t think of how this would affect its creator base. Giving players the ability to mute might take away from the fun of the emote, but it’s a good middle ground for now. It also allows Epic to pursue other popular tracks for its game while ensuring the creator community isn’t hurt. This shows yet another flaw in copyright law in terms of it functioning well within the modern era of technology. Epic licensed the song properly, except that nobody planned for the obvious eventuality of that licensed emote being used by YouTubers, where the label then issued copyright strikes against those video uploads. What's the argument by the label? Every YouTuber doing let's plays has to license the song as well, even though they're only playing the game? Is Epic supposed to work out a separate license for YouTube videos? Is it a public performance?Or is this all terribly dumb and a barrier to the original purpose of copyright law? That, probably. After all, it's not as though a snippet of a song that was otherwise licensed appearing on YouTube is somehow a replacement for that song. It's also not as if rick-rolling weren't an incredibly common trollish trope, for which Astley is principially famous among the present youth. Epic having to patch the audio of the emote out of its game for this reason is silly.But that's modern era copyright for you.
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