YouTuber Gets Copyright Strikes For Posting Publicly Streamed Parole Hearings
from the f#$@-it-we'll-do-it-live dept
Perhaps it’s a result of spending many years now writing about intellectual property matters, but it is still shocking just how little understanding there is for how fair use works in conjunction with copyright law. It’s especially irritating when the folks who don’t understand it come from the government itself.
Which brings us to the Louisiana parole board. Interestingly, parole hearings are all publicly streamed in a live format, but the Parole Board does not make those videos available for viewing outside of the live stream. But one YouTuber, going by the name of Mandoo, records those streams and then adds commentary to them, with the stated purpose of making the system transparent and commenting on the way the justice system works. Mandoo was also handed 52 takedowns of videos on his channel after a local news organization used them in some of its own reporting on a specific parole hearing.
After our report aired though Mandoo said 52 of his uploaded parole board hearings received copyright claims and were deleted from his page, including Thomas Cisco’s hearing.
Mandoo said he had been recording the hearings for about a year without any issues.
“Maybe it has something to do with the controversy behind that [Cisco’s] hearing. Maybe it didn’t. I don’t know,” He said. Mandoo is said he’s concerned this could be a violation of his rights.
And I agree with him. This seems to be pretty squarely in the realm of fair use. These are public hearings that the government is streaming itself, meaning there is a serious degree of public interest here. The Parole Board, for its part, claims it doesn’t make video recordings available for download in order to “protect the victims” who testify in those hearings. Which, you know… doesn’t make any fucking sense. They’re not protected in the live stream.
Add to all of that a couple of things. First, the commentary and purpose of Mandoo’s videos adds to the claim of fair use. The fact the commentary centers on government action makes the case even clearer. And there are laws outside of fair use that make all of this legal in Louisiana anyway.
Scott Sternberg, who represents media organizations across Louisiana, said besides fair use Louisiana’s open meeting law makes clear the public has a right to record a meeting.
“In the day of cell phones where everybody’s got a camera and can take 4K or even 8K video, you know, people record stuff in public meetings all the time and yes it is perfectly legal to do so,” Sternberg said.
All of which is leading to Mandoo appealing the copyright claims and takedowns with YouTube. I expect those videos will be reinstated soon as they absolutely should be, perhaps even by the time this post is published.
Filed Under: copyright, louisiana, louisiana parole board, mandoo, parole hearings, public info
Companies: youtube
Comments on “YouTuber Gets Copyright Strikes For Posting Publicly Streamed Parole Hearings”
My first reaction was, “wait! Copyright? By a government?” But that issue is only clear regarding the federal government. State governments, it seems, vary a lot.
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Few works that are produced by a government of any level, if any such works, should have copyright attached to them.
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While this is also my personal belief, the notion of Crown copyright that exists in certain Commonwealth nations would disagree with us.
Re: Re: Re: To be fair to the British Crown…
At the very least, when Crown © expires, it applies worldwide. This means I could legally sell my own memes/parodies of “Keep Calm and Carry On” (as seen here on RedBubble). The non-copyrightability of US Public Domain works, however, means that I cannot sell outside of the US my own VIP of my own “Occupy Chiptune” track mixed with the “Series of Tubes” speech from then-US Senator of Alaska Ted Stevens (as seen here on the internet archive).
(BTW, I’m sure I have the particularities of the law wrong, and I’m more than happy to have anyone who actually knows more about IP law correct me)
Re: Re: Re: USA
That may be true, but we are talking US copyright. The only Crown we honor here is Crown Royal 🙂
Re: Re: staet courts, certainly
A state cannot copyright its court’s opinions, at least. Banks v. Manchester, 128 U.S. 244 (1888). The parole board hearings here are not far from that.
It is a shame that the victims of these false copyright claims do not bring actions against the false claimants, having not only declarations but perhaps also fees. It ought not take many such actions before claimants became more careful about over-reach and unreliability.
keep circulating the tapes, folks!
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Watch out for snakes!
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I like your comment very much. It’s pretty nice!
My best guess is that Southern lawyers are such big hams in the courtroom that the whole trial qualifies as some twisted form of high-stakes theater where the outcome is that a man is either free or imprisoned.
And if it is so theatrical, it qualifies as performance art, therefore copyright can be invoked to protect it
If that information was problematic it was so when they first aired it
Of all the excuses to try to justify the takedowns ‘You can’t show the videos, you might out the people in them that we already outed‘ is really one that shoots itself in the back, so I dearly hope someone pointed out just how bad an excuse that was and that YT sees it as the lousy justification that it is.
“The Parole Board, for its part, claims it doesn’t make video recordings available for download in order to “protect the victims” who testify in those hearings. Which, you know… doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
My guess would be that they want to prevent long-term issues relating to the use of the video later, such as if a person does or says something stupid that can be turned into a meme or the video is used for some purpose after the prisoner is released and is trying to get a job or start a relationship.
That’s nothing to do with copyright, of course, but I’d hazard a guess as to that being the initial justification for not storing a public record.
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Pretty much. Copyright has already been used as justification for people to not discuss embarrassing news or pontificate over game reviews. Which is why the likes of John Smith desperately want to blur the lines between copyright infringement and defamation. They want all the oversight and all the consequences they can inflict with none of the necessary burden of proof.
I’ve long since said that if they could, copyright enforcers would take over murder investigations by saying that the accused perp infringed on the copyright of the victim’s life. But then copyright fans have never been known to value the life of a human. They’ve already argued that the value of a copyright should outlast the value of a human life by 70 years, and counting.
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Parole Board?
I fail to see why the author even mentions the parole board, since the only relation they have to this case is tha they are the original streamers of these videos. What the author should have done is to contact the TV station(s) and find out if they used PB streams or Mandoo streams. If they used PB streams, then they need to have their access to Content ID revoked. If they used Mandoo’s streams, not only do they need their access to Content ID revoked, but they should pay Mandoo damages.
Government Copyright Claims
No level of government is allowed to copyright anything. Anything produced by a government entity is in the public domain, barring any other restrictions.
The government copyright claims in Louisiana are frivolous. The parole board is a government entity.
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That’s how reality should be. But as an AC pointed out in a different comment: state laws aside, state governments are allowed to copyright works, which are distinct from edicts (laws). Additionally, copyright works given to a government remain copyrighted by the original author, and copyrights can be transferred to governments.
Re: Re: Registration
Unless the parole board registered the live stream with the US Copyright office, they have no power to enforce a copyright. Copyrights must be registered to be enforceable. If a take down notice is given, that has to be in conjunction with a registered copyright.
It is unclear if Louisiana government can copyright material it produces. I saw some states that specify that they can, but they were not on the list.
As the article states, I agree that at a minimum this is fair use. As for the TV station that broadcast parts of the stream, they are allowed to do that. It makes no difference how they got the material.
using copyright cartel logic
if a copyright infringement is $150K. then with 52 violations at $150K would be $7.8M!
i think these government clowns would agree to remove there copy wrong claim and pay out a small settlement then be faced with possible $7.8M lawsuit.
The perp of the strikes and results
I am a member of the “Mandoo” community. It was a member of the LA parole board that did a total of 63 strikes against his channel over a very short period after he aired the Cisco parole hearing. Then the news picked up on it airing it. Cisco was first sentences to death, then it was turned to life with out parole. Then life, then with certain law changes these lifers became eligible for parole after 20 years. The board gave Cisco parole at a date in the near future.
Mandoo aired it, the news did and the community was pissed. You can read about his crimes, Google him.
The Dept of corrections and LA PB were pissed. Even thou they streamed it first. After all the strikes and channel shut down he continued a bit on his back up channel, the news aired what happened to Mandoo and the DUI guy took his case probono. His channel was reinstated and all but 3 of his content were put back. But Ciscos case was still struck.
As for them saying they are protecting the victims? Bullshit. They don’t blur faces in LA or give the option for them to speak with out their cameras on. They give them 3 minutes to speak and if they go over they are told to “wrap it up”. There are many victims that contact “Mandoo” and thank him for airing these monsters and showing the community how they let these pedophiles etc out after a couple years and a class. In no way is the LA parole protecting victims.
On a side note all of this made such a cluster fuck, the news, the parole b member striking illegally the 63 meetings, all of it. Suddenly they said they took away Ciscos parole. Supposedly they found contraband in his cell during a pop shakedown at angola.ii believe it’s BS. They did it so they didn’t have to deal with the community. They fkd up.
Comically now the recent parole board comments on all the people watching on YouTube and often explain procedure so those of us watching on Mandoo understand. If any of you are interested, because it is an ongoing battle to not get struck doing the hearings Mandoo uploads Sun-Thur premiers with live chat at 5pm Eastern time, then right after does Mandoo Two which covers 6 other states parole boards and the fucked system, people they are letting out. Also the people who made small mistakes and got life that they won’t let out.
Tripped across this article and thought I’d throw in the results. He uses fair use and nothing was illegal… Except the un named parole board member that drank too much got pissed and hit the button 63 times in one night!