New Jersey Sues YouTube Over Crash Video 410
eldavojohn writes "The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) has sued YouTube and a number of other video sites for showing footage of a car crash that happened on the turnpike and was, therefore, property of the turnpike. The NJTA requested the footage be removed under the DMCA — which YouTube complied with — unfortunately, the video was copied to several other sites. The NJTA still seems to be targeting YouTube since YouTube 'did not try to prevent the very same video from being uploaded again by users immediately after it was purportedly removed.' We'll have to watch this closely and see if, even after you take down material violating the DMCA, you are at fault to any extent for people who already copied said material."
What copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)
video of the crash (Score:5, Informative)
Higher quality version (Score:5, Informative)
"requested the footage be removed via DMCA..." (Score:3, Insightful)
Will they never learn?
The Streisand effect (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:video of the crash (Score:5, Funny)
Background on the crash (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Background on the crash (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Background on the crash (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy shouldn't have been driving, but it's not really surprising that he was. The system as it is, only punishes people who have seizures and are honest about it.
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Correct. My girlfriend had a period of about a year in college where she would occasionally get minor seizures on the left side of her body. She could tell one was coming a few minutes before they occu
Re:video of the crash (Score:4, Informative)
Someone else said that the driver was having seizures several hours before the accident? Why was he driving? It's lucky that the tollbooth stopped him or he could have killed several other people. It's unfortunate he died, but fortunate no one else was hurt.
By the way, watch the SUV that just goes on by through the EZ Pass at regular speed as if nothing happened. Just another day on the turnpike, I guess. Also, the nitwit running towards the flaming car might want to lookup what 'secondary explosion' means.
Re:video of the crash (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course said nitwit might have been an off duty police or fireman, perhaps a first responder. Or maybe just an ordinary citizen, more concerned with helping others than the potential of being injured.
You keep to yourself, snug and safe behind the keyboard.
Re:video of the crash (Score:5, Informative)
Re:video of the crash (Score:5, Informative)
doesn't matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway it's public record and even a news story.
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Re:video of the crash (Score:5, Informative)
Have you ever even seen anyone actually have a seizure? There are a whole spectrum of symptoms.
I have seen two in the last 15 years. Both times, it was more like the person was just zoned out rather than what we typically think of (grand mal).
One happened to a girl while she was skiing, and she just froze as she picked up speed and went through a fence at high speed without turning (or twitching or anything else). Scary as fuck to watch anyway.
The other happened as I was talking to a co-worker, trying to get through some bureaucracy, and he just kind of zoned out for a couple of minutes and started drooling. Fortunately I realized what was going on and managed to help minimize his embarrassment when the seizure passed.
It sounds to me that it could certainly have been a seizure, cop or not.
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No, it's a symptom [slashdot.org] of toll [slashdot.org] booths [slashdot.org].
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Cops do often hang out near those things and he could have seen it from the side of the opposite lane, gone down to the "cop only" turn around point a couple hundred yards up and turned around.
There are fire extinguishers in each one of those booths, so it is sort of interesting how nobody went for one. Cops typically carry them too.
OR, more likely t
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Yes. If he'd had a heart attack, stroke, etc., then no. But he'd had a seizure earlier that day... and it's illegal for someone who's had a seizure (within a certain period) to drive. Even if his earlier seizure was his first ever, he shouldn't have tried driving.
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Anyone with a history of seizures should not be driving. It's a terrible thing to do. It's on par with drunk driving. In fact, it's WORSE than drunk driving because a drunk has impaired reasoning, but this man was stone sober when he started up his car. If he had plowed into a mini-van full of children would you defend him?
Yes.
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Except the SUV owner, who is probably late to get her kids to school while she talks to the secretary of the PTA on her cell phone, who actively changes lane to avoid SAID FUCKING FIREBALL that HAPPENED WITHIN EYESIGHT, and cruises on past.
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What exactly is wrong with not rubbernecking? (Score:3, Insightful)
If more people were like her, we wouldn't have traffic jams after traffic accidents due to people indulging in their curiosity at the expense of others.
If you want to help, pull past if you can. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you ever see a car accident just to the side of you, and are planning on stopping to assist, pull PAST the accident before pulling over (assuming you can do so safely). Don't just stop right where you are. Behind or right next to the accident, you're just going to be in the way of the firetrucks, ambulances, etc. that are going to need to get in, plus you'll be stuck there until the scene is clear and everyone else is out of the way, which is far longer than you'll be of any use.
If I'd b
Re:What copyright? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Is the NJTA a private corp? If so, then the above wouldn't apply.
Your thoughts on this? I'd value your perspective.
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It appears that the NJTA is a public entity under the state of New Jersey, but it's not clear to me if it receives public funds or not. Also, many enterprises receive varying amounts of public funds. At what level and nature of public funding before everything they do ends up in the public domain? Ie, how does accepting public funds taint an organization?
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Don't confuse that there is one reason against it with the idea that that would be the only reason.
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such as whether police filming police actions (ie. producing wholly state-funded content) is privately-owned or public-domai
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But I'm no lawyer and I don't know the DMCA I just remember reading that here somewhere.
Re:What copyright? (Score:5, Informative)
>
> is copyright material or not.
This is not true. Nothing obligates you to obey a takedown notice. If you _do_ comply then you are immune to suit for copyright infringment but if you do not the putative copyright owner must still sue you and prove infringment. A takedown notice is just a letter from a lawyer. It isn't any sort of an official document.
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Re:What copyright? (Score:4, Insightful)
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No. First, the 17 USC 512 take-down system only covers copyrighted material, to the extent that it is copyrighted. So if you post public domain material, for example, then you can safely ignore a take-down notice. Second, ISPs aren't obligated to comply with the notice, although doing so will help to protect them in the event that the material really was put up in an infringing manner. Third, the person who put the material u
Re:What copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What copyright? (Score:5, Interesting)
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What about currency, postage stamps & similar stuff.
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Excuse me but the rest of the world is not subject to US law.
Re:What copyright? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What copyright? (Score:5, Informative)
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Public roads (Score:5, Insightful)
So as far as im concerned its public not private
My 2 Watts
p.s. file under DMCA abuse
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Re:Public roads (Score:4, Insightful)
We have other laws to protect private information: privacy laws, theft laws, even classified information laws. The DMCA is a copyright law. Copyright law is not meant to protect secret information, it's meant to protect the copying of published information. However, government works are typically in the public domain.
If they want to stop the dissemination of the video because it's classifiied or private, the NJ government can do that. But they can't use the DMCA (assuming you buy the GP's argument).
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Nobody stole the camera. 'Nuff said.
How?! (Score:5, Insightful)
So...what was YouTube supposed to do? Seize control of the internet and delete all copies of the video?
Re:How?! (Score:5, Funny)
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The real issue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly -- who stole the media to begin with, and why aren't they looking more thoroughly into their own security problems, rather than spit lawsuits? Why are they unnamed, but the video sites are put right out there publicly? Detract attention from the real problem? The above quote is the very last sentence from TFA, and the only mention of how the video was leaked...
Re:The real issue? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is yet another example of the DMCA being improperly used by some corksoaking lawyer at the behest of another group trying to CYA for being stupid about security of their cameras... You're right... it's a diversionary tactic.
I wonder if a live feed of that camera's used anywhere? You know for TV traffic and that sort of thing?
Video link (Score:3, Informative)
Video is visible as part of a news report here : http://wcbstv.com/video?id=99739@wcbs.dayport.com& cid=2 [wcbstv.com] (Flash required).
Found through Yahoo! video.
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Re:Video link (Score:4, Funny)
Why is this copyrighted at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
A more reasonable legal tool for knocking this off the internet might be for the estate of the dead guy to sue under an right of publicity/invasion of privacy theory.
Some stuff doesn't belong in public circulation... but copyright is not the only way to control that sort of thing.
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This has little or nothing to do with the copyright system. Just because somebody claims to hold copyright on a video and somebody else jumps to remove it doesn't mean they actually do hold that copyright.
As has been suggested above, there's a very good argument that this is actually a copyright-free video (no creative input was put into making it; it is a straightforward reproduction of what actually occurred), and google is reactin
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Lawsuits are supposed to be about addressing genuine harm, not about using the courts to push people around.
Who has the right to sue? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think anybody has a right to privacy about something that happens in public.
Why did the guy crash? According to this [newsday.com] the driver had a "history of seizures". If so, then he shouldn't be driving at all, he was a danger to others. Or perhaps it was a suicide, or he could have been drunk or asleep, who knows. But anyway, he was the only one to blame on what happened. It was only luck that made him hit a toll booth
We must stop this copyright insanity (Score:5, Interesting)
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It is an agency of the state of New Jersey. State governments can own and enforce copyrights.
>
This may be a valid defense.
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Irrelevant.
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The NFL is different. It's a private orga
What does New Jersey have to hide? (Score:2)
The freeway collapse in San Francisco [sfgate.com] showed very thin concrete and poor adhesion [sfgate.com], in my opinion.
Maybe that's what New Jersey officials have to hide. Did someone take money to allow poor construction?
Is New Jersey in a budget crisis right now? (Score:2)
what are they trying to hide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not they are concerned about liability in this particular case, setting a precedent that governments can take down public footage of public, newsworthy events through the DMCA would be bad. This kind of video needs to be open to public scrutiny.
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This really is a side effect of our societ
Re:what are they trying to hide? (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite to the contrary: a compassionate society wouldn't try to hide suffering and death under a blanket of silence. There is nothing shameful about either dying or other people taking an interest in it; in a compassionate society, that is what people do. What is shameful and incompassionate is that people like you are trying to insulate themselves from these natural events.
If one believes that the highest form of art is sneaking up to a window and filming a neighbor in a compromising position, then there is no problem with this video.
Now you have slipped from bad arguments to pure demagoguery and name calling: what, please tell, does voyeurism have to do with documenting a news event on a public highway?
We were such in a hurry to film every innocuous act, that we did not set up a proper legal framework to control the flow of the footage, so we use the DCMA, a blunt and largely ineffective tool, to close the barn door after all the horses have escaped.
We have a legal framework, and it applies here: in some places, you have an expectation of privacy, in others, you don't. If you drive on a public highway, you have no expectation of privacy. And, in fact, the reason this video appeared in the first place is because the NJTA didn't recognize privacy rights in the first place: they released the video to the press, after all. All they are complaining about is that it has received wider distribution than they originally intended.
Misleading Slashdot Article (Score:5, Insightful)
"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike" (Score:5, Informative)
Showing footage of a car crash that happened on the turnpike and was, therefore, property of the turnpike.
No. They don't claim they own the footage because it happened on the turnpike, they claim it is their footage because it was an NJTA camera that recorded it. The summary's incorrect statement leads people to believe that the NJTA claims everything recorded by anyone on the turnpike is their property. Reading the first paragraph of the actual article dispelled that.
Why do people submit stories and summaries before even understanding the target article?
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The fact is, though, that the footage of the crash, whether
Streisand Effect (Score:2)
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And this, children... (Score:2)
NJ Just wants the (C) (Score:2)
Who owns the NJTA (Score:2)
my 2 cents - FUCK NJ, DMCA, and censorship (Score:2)
(as a side note, its a BITCHEN car crash).
http://www.btfh.net/cool-shit/NJSP-car-crash.mpeg [btfh.net]
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That's what I would do, and I saw in the video that the police officer was the only one who stopped close to the wreck and then approached it. Other drivers either
Offtopic (Score:2)
But man, I seriously gotta admire how that toll booth was constructed. Even the upright walls of the booth didn't waver in the slightest.
At least there's some good engineering involved. (Or maybe it should have been made as a break-away thing to protect drivers in such an incident; I
FOIA (Score:3, Interesting)
May not be copyrightable at all. (Score:4, Informative)
This could be interesting if YouTube fights it. It's an open question under US law whether security camera images are copyrightable. See this legal article [golishlaw.com], note 153. The Supreme Court ruled in Feist vs. Rural Telephone [cornell.edu] that the data in phone books are not copyrightable; "The standard of originality is low, but it exists". So anybody can scan in a phone book and put the info into a database.
That's a famous decision - whole industries are based on it. The Court ruled that originality is a constitutional requirement: "Original, as the term is used in copyright, means only that the work was independently created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and that it possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity. 1 M. Nimmer & D. Nimmer, Copyright 2.01[A], [B] (1990) (hereinafter Nimmer)."
The output of a security camera has no author. That's the key here. Copyright must start with an author.
Property of the NJTA? (Score:3, Insightful)
unadulterated video (Score:5, Informative)
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The morality of watching the video is not in question here... the illegality of the NJTA trying to stomp the video out using a copyright claim is the issue. (hasn't anyone learned that this NEVER works in the Internet Age? It only makes things more popular?)
the NJTA has no business invoking the DMCA for their cameras any more than Congress has invoking the DMCA to try and suppress
Not Bloody Likely (Score:2)
As for the Turnpike Authority -- the name should give you a hint. It's a Public Authority [wikipedia.org] of the same kind famously employed by Robert Moses. The main benefit of an authority
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No. US copyright law provides that the US government cannot enforce its copyright on works created by US government employees as part of their duties. However, this applies only to the Federal government. State and local governments can and do own and enforce their copyrights. The United States is a _federation_, not a monolithic state.
The video may not be protected by copyright at all, though. The authority's attorneys are going to have use some creativity
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I googled for a few minutes and couldn't find any supporting evidence, even on the US Copyright Office site. Do you have any sources that support this statement?
Even if it is
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If making money were the primary goal they could sell it to a tv show.
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-Em
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