​The Weaponization of Copyright by Police Officers and the Need to Automate Fair Use

In July 2021, an on-duty police officer in Alameda County being videoed by activists took out his phone and played ‘Blank Space’ by Taylor Swift, in hopes of hindering social media circulation of the video by attracting the attention of automated copyright enforcement algorithms. This was merely one of the more recent examples of a larger unsettling trend in law enforcement where police officers are weaponizing copyrighted music to thwart bystander recordings of police from going viral.