*When several bystanders began filming a sheriff’s deputy during a confrontation on the Alameda County courthouse steps in Oakland this week, the officer thought he had the perfect way to prevent them from sharit on YouTube. He pulled out his phone and started blasting Taylor Swift’s 2014 hit, “Blank Space,” thinking that any copyrighted song in a video would automatically be rejected by YouTube.
YouTube’s automated copyright system detects and removes unauthorized protected material from being uploaded to the Internet.
After the bystanders asked the officer if they were having a dance party, the deputy — identified by local media as Sgt. David Shelby — said, “You can record all you want, I just know it can’t be posted on YouTube.”
One of the filming bystanders, James Burch and his organization — the Oakland-based Anti Police-Terror Project, which seeks to hold local police departments accountable — posted the video anyway. By Friday morning, not only was the footage still up, but it had more than 110,000 views.
“The officer was trying to be a little smart, and it kind of backfired,” Sgt. Ray Kelly, a sheriff’s office spokesman, told The Washington Post. “Instead of censoring it, it made it go viral.”
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