New Jersey Sues YouTube Over Crash Video

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."

Comments

What copyright?

[russotto]

It's an automated camera system. There's no creative input. Thus, no copyright.

Re:What copyright?

[cortana]

OK then, it is a work of the government, paid for by the tax payers, and so should be in the public domain.

Re:What copyright?

[AlephNot]

If every post on Slashdot were posted by the same person, then I'd certainly agree that "slashdot is nothing more than a den of fags who try any excuse to steal music/movies/etc."

However, such is not the case (fortunately!).

Re:What copyright?

[QuoteMstr]

Not if it's the obvious way of doing something. See Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, which held that no, Virginia, you don't obtain copyright protection just because you put some effort into something.

Re:What copyright?

[Tuoqui]

Hello Mr. AC... I have a wonderful job opportunity for you at the MAFIAA. Anyways yeah like someone else said, if it is using taxpayers money then you can argue that the state and by extension the people own the copyright on it. If the people want to post it on YouTube then they damn well can if they want to. Especially if it is a live feed being streamed out to the internet for anyone to see and not some password protected site. Not like they can claim DMCA on something that had no DRM protection measures on it to begin with.

Re:What copyright?

[cpt kangarooski]

That argument was used against cameras before, and it failed. It'll fail now. There might not be much creativity, but the threshold is so low for that, that I have no doubt that it would be found sufficient. I agree that it shouldn't be, partially because the threshold should be a touch higher than that (or at least more carefully analyzed than is usual), and that an additional requirement should be the intent of the author to make a creative work, as opposed to something else, e.g. a mere recording for other purposes (to catch toll evaders, to record accidents, to compile evidence against criminals as to their whereabouts, etc.). But that's not going to help much here.

Re:What copyright?

[prelelat]

I don't know the DMCA and how it relates to take down notices, but I recall from anouther /. post on a different topic that you have to proceed with the take down no matter if it is copyright material or not. I think once you have complied you can fight it if its not copyright or not. But I think the law actually states that you have to take it down imediatly.

But I'm no lawyer and I don't know the DMCA I just remember reading that here somewhere.

Re:What copyright?

[cpt kangarooski]

I agree, but the current federal statute only prohibits the federal government from getting copyrights on works it creates. It ought to do the same for all governments, at all levels, worldwide. Governments don't need the incentive of copyright to create works; either they have other reasons, or they shouldn't be doing it anyway. So right now it would be up to New Jersey to have a similar policy as the federal government has. AFAIK, they don't.

Re:What copyright?

[John Hasler]

> I don't know the DMCA and how it relates to take down notices, but I recall from anouther
> /. post on a different topic that you have to proceed with the take down no matter if it
> 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.

Re:What copyright?

[Reziac]

ISTM the criteria ought to be "Is this in a publicly-funded venue? is it being filmed by publicly-funded equipment? then what happens here and is filmed here is in public, and therefore ought to be public domain, video and all."

Is the NJTA a private corp? If so, then the above wouldn't apply.

Your thoughts on this? I'd value your perspective.

Re:What copyright?

[prelelat]

Good to know, like I said I am not so familure with it. Thats also why I said I heard it on here, so that people would know my source may not be so accurate.

Re:What copyright?

[khallow]

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?

Re:What copyright?

[click2005]

Governments don't need the incentive of copyright to create works;

What about currency, postage stamps & similar stuff.

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

slashdot is nothing more than a den of fags Ohhh, is that why you come here? Cruisin for a little action there buddy?

If slashdot sucks so bad, get the fuck out, stay the fuck out and you'll never have to deal with any of us 'fags' again.

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the NJTA is state owned and controlled, then all the tolls it collects are taxes and therefore it is "publicly funded". Tolls to the government can not logically be called anything else but a "road use tax", but logic don't always get involved in court decisions.

Re:What copyright?

[DustyShadow]

FYI: It's called the "sweat of the brow" doctrine, which allows you to get a copyright in something that is not creative just by putting a certain amount of work/money into it.. Other countries have it for copyright but the U.S. does not.

Re:What copyright?

[bccomm]

Well, in the US at least, currency is not copyrighted (except for certain coins, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Money-US , and postage stamps are only copyrighted if produced after 1978 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_ Service#Postage_stamps ).

Re:What copyright?

[koreaman]

Those aren't protected by copyright but by anti-counterfeiting laws.

Re:What copyright?

[epee1221]

What about them? The government doesn't use copyright law to keep people from making their own -- it uses counterfeit law.

Re:What copyright?

[bccomm]

Correction: depictions of currency are not copyrighted, and postage stamps are copyrighted if released after 1978, at least according to Wikipedia. The distinctions are probably important, however, IANAL.

Re:What copyright?

[ezterry]

Last time I checked you *ARE* allowed to use the image of money and stamps (in the US) so long as it is obvious that the copy is not legal tender/postage. Please do note there are precise rules as to what is considered non-obvious).

Now if you try to use these as currency however.. don't expect it to go over well

Re:What copyright?

[Kjella]

Except that no ISP is going to take that fight for their customer. They take it down, whoever wants to protest can file a counternotice and go after those who sent the takedown. I think it's been tested before that if you send a takedown for public domain material, most of them will just do it. Maybe, just maybe if you have a flag in your account saying "Being harassed by asshat, check takedown notices" they'll verify it but otherwise not. Wanna fight this? You post it, you have it pulled, you send counternotice which means they'll have to either sue or let it be restored. Then you and the ACLU or whoever take the fight. Right, wrong or otherwise the sane thing for an ISP is to comply, there's absolutely nothing for them to gain by becoming a party to any lawsuit.

Re:What copyright?

[cpt kangarooski]

Do you think that the government would not create banknotes, coins, stamps, etc. if it could not get a copyright on them? (Which, incidentally, it cannot do for the former two, and only can for the latter due to the way it reorganized the Post Office in the 70's)

They make those things because it is important to have uniform national currency, and a postal system. Whether artwork appears on them isn't important, but they do it anyway for various reasons: an appeal to patriotism, decoration, as anti-counterfeiting measure, propaganda, to showcase historical figures and events or landmarks, etc.

Like I said, the government doesn't need copyright as an incentive. And if copyright isn't incentivizing an author to create and publish a work, then it is inappropriate to have it. Why have a regulation that doesn't accomplish anything good, but incurs a significant cost in the process.

And as others have mentioned, counterfeiting laws deal with people who would reproduce certain items as counterfeits for the originals. And impersonating government officials, or acting fraudulently in the name of the government is also generally prohibited. But why should the government care if you reprint a copy of a statute or something?

Re:What copyright?

[cpt kangarooski]

I was addressing the reason presented. There are in fact several independent reasons that ought to prevent this from being copyrightable: it's not creative, it's not meant to be a creative work, it's done by what is, ultimately, a government body. And there are reasons why even if it were, it shouldn't be relevant here, the main one being that it's become news and thus publicizing it is likely fair use.

Don't confuse that there is one reason against it with the idea that that would be the only reason.

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

and you are an ignorant homophobe who doesn't have 1/1000th of the brain capacity to understand even the tip of the copyright iceberg, let along intelligently participate in the discussion.

Re:What copyright?

[mangu]

the placement of the camera is not creative input?

Not if it was determined by technical issues alone. Placement of the camera could be considered "creative input" if it was done in a way that emphasizes some aspect of the picture, such as lighting or perspective, but not if it was done solely to catch traffic violations in a stretch of the road.

Of course, if you want to insist that any action needed to obtain a picture is "creative input", then the engineers who designed the camera should own the copyright on any picture it takes. After all, no one would be able to create pictures if someone hadn't created the camera before.

Re:What copyright?

[Reziac]

All good reasons (I agree with you on all points), and as you say the horse is pretty much out of the barn on this one.

But my question was re whether public-funding-means-public-domain is a legally valid and/or viable concept. ISTM that has much broader implications, such as whether police filming police actions (ie. producing wholly state-funded content) is privately-owned or public-domain material. That could touch on evidence laws too, perhaps?

Re:What copyright?

[Reziac]

Those are damn good questions. I'm not sure I have any rational answers, but my gut feeling is that if you take from the tax pool, you should be obligated to give back equally.

But if interpreted too broadly, it could reach a ridiculous extreme like "farmer receives a publicly-funded subsidy, therefore his crop is public property". And there is no position so ridiculous that someone can't be found to argue for it in court!

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for feeding the troll, thus ensuring it's continued patronage of this site.

Re:What copyright?

[cpt kangarooski]

you have to proceed with the take down no matter if it is copyright material or not

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 up can file a counter-take-down notice with the ISP, which requires them to put it back up again, or else lose protections against that person. Of course, this should only be done if that person believes that they acted lawfully and is willing to see things escalate.

Of course, if there's a court order, as opposed to a mere takedown notice or other cease and desist letter from an attorney, then the ISP had better comply with it. But that doesn't seem to have happened here, nor does it happen in most cases.

Re:What copyright?

[cpt kangarooski]

Sure, it can be done. There's no reason why the government cannot condition acceptance of public funds on having any work that is wholly or partially funded with that money be in the public domain. It is of course up to the author as to whether or not to accept the money and the strings that accompany it. If the copyright is terribly important to them, they'll secure funding elsewhere.

such as whether police filming police actions (ie. producing wholly state-funded content) is privately-owned or public-domain material. That could touch on evidence laws too, perhaps?

Films made by police in the course of their official duties would fall under the government. The individual policeman is doing it as a policeman, not as a private person. As far as production of copies in evidence, courts routinely ignore copyright law for these sorts of things. The needs of the overall judicial system come first, and even if you wanted to argue it (which would be unbelievably foolish; litigants are guaranteed discovery and this would be guaranteed to piss off a judge) I cannot think of many stronger fair use arguments.

(I have heard of at least one lawyer who tried to interfere significantly in discovery with copyright arguments. I only heard of it long after the fact, but had it happened to me, I'd've pressed for sanctions from the court and the bar in a heartbeat.)

Re:What copyright?

[billcopc]

how does accepting public funds taint an organization?

Under a fair, uncorrupted government, accepting public funds could be treated like funding from any other entity. For private businesses it would be a loan much like one from a bank. When you mortgage your house, the bank is the effective holder of the property until you pay it off. Same thing should apply to loan-funded businesses.

For publicly traded companies, the public funds should be seen as a purchase of stock, ideally with a few harsh conditions to limit stock fraud. Under no circumstances should such an investment result in the government having a controlling stake in the company, as not only does that imply horrible financial performance, but it also creates a conflict of interest as private shareholders would essentially be riding a public venture.

Either way, in the case of New Jersey and other cheapass states, you should just get rid of toll roads entirely. Drivers are already taxed halfway to hell on fuel, why should you pay again for toll roads ? Many countries even have laws explicitly forbidding tolls for passage.

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no creative input. Thus, no copyright.

What? Are you saying that everything on Slashdot is actually public domain?

Re:What copyright?

[sugar and acid]

This is an interesting point. It is off a camera that is for surveillance on the NJ turnpike. It would seem it came from some security officer that took a tape and did some editing. In truth the creative input and therefore copyright is with the mystery guy that did the editing around miles of random footage, but they obviously either broke some laws or the terms of their employment and aren't going to come forward.

Re:What copyright?

[Vegeta99]

Drivers are already taxed halfway to hell on fuel, why should you pay again for toll roads ?

Because the federal fuel tax hasn't been raised in eighteen years. The cost of asphalt tar and fuel? sure has. So roads are more expensive to make. Local taxes don't matter too much, the Feds fund the interstate system.

Re:What copyright?

[rossdee]

"I agree, but the current federal statute only prohibits the federal government from getting copyrights on works it creates. It ought to do the same for all governments, at all levels, worldwide."

Excuse me but the rest of the world is not subject to US law.

Re:What copyright?

[evilviper]

Right, wrong or otherwise the sane thing for an ISP is to comply, there's absolutely nothing for them to gain by becoming a party to any lawsuit.

I have to disagree with you on that point. The benefit for them is that they retain more of their valuable content. The secondary benefit is that word will get out, and companies will be careful not to send a bunch of illegal DMCA take-downs, since they know they will likely be sued by a well-paid army of lawyers from a company larger than themselves.

You're basically saying insurance companies should settle all frivolous lawsuits, because fighting them would be too expensive. Ignoring the fact that by doing so you're encouraging escalation of this bad behavior, which will eventually make settling more expensive than a few legal battles... Though, at that point, even if you do the right thing, you've gone too far, and it will cost even more to reverse the trend.

Re:What copyright?

[Reziac]

All very interesting. Not the sort of thing we usually think about in these copyright discussions, but as you say, being used as evidence may be the ultimate "fair use".

Quote the good Captain, "I have heard of at least one lawyer who tried to interfere significantly in discovery with copyright arguments."

ISTM that action effectively says "this here content owner's right to make money is stronger than the court's right to dispense justice."

Come to think of it, that's exactly what the more-draconian copyright laws attempt to do -- redefine "justice" in terms of how much money the content owner wants to make. :/

Re:What copyright?

[LocalH]

No, if /. was really one person you'd say "wow, that person is fucked in the head", since one person can't be a "den of fags".

Yes, I'm pedantic today. Deal with it.

Re:What copyright?

[itlurksbeneath]

Maybe they should have taxed it like any other product. If it were sales tax on the amount of the sale rather than on the amount of the product dispensed, as gas prices went up the amount of tax would go up as well. In 1997 (last time gas taxes where changed) the tax was 18.4 cents per gallon and was about 15% of the price of gas. Now it's only about 6%. Of course, had they done that, gas prices would be about $3.50 in May instead of $3.20.

Re:What copyright?

[jafiwam]

There seems to be some confusion about the purpose of the take down. (So responding to parent is a good a place as any to mention it.)

The take down notice and restore notice is just a mechanism to pass identifying information from the alleged copyright owner to the alleged offender and back. Basically giving each the ID of the other for purposes of lawyering afterwards.

The WHOLE POINT of that part of the law is to take obscurity due to the hosting environment out of the loop. Too keep the host from saying "we don't know who posted it and we are not touching it" essentially leaving the alleged copyright holder stuck, but rather forcing them to either take it down or take it down, put it back up and make sure the two parties have legal contact information.

It is NOT a method for the ISP to review the authenticity of the notices at all. It's to make a connection between interested parties.

Re:What copyright?

[jollyreaper]

It's an automated camera system. There's no creative input. Thus, no copyright. I've been saying the same thing about RIAA acts for years.

Re:What copyright?

[jollyreaper]

No, if /. was really one person you'd say "wow, that person is fucked in the head", since one person can't be a "den of fags".

Yes, I'm pedantic today. Deal with it. But what if the fags were holed up inside him? Would that make him a den or just goatse's kung-fu master?

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the original poster was using the term "worldwide" to refer to the governments whose work would not be covered by US copyright, not the jurisdiction of the proposed law.

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this was taken by the state, isn't there an argument that by definition it falls into the public domain?

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

Tell that to the RIAA. Tell that to whoever tried to shut down The Pirate Bay.

Re:What copyright?

[xantho]

You're basically saying insurance companies should settle all frivolous lawsuits, because fighting them would be too expensive. Ignoring the fact that by doing so you're encouraging escalation of this bad behavior, which will eventually make settling more expensive than a few legal battles... Though, at that point, even if you do the right thing, you've gone too far, and it will cost even more to reverse the trend.

Not necessarily the case. Insurance companies settling all frivolous lawsuits isn't going to happen because they pay out from their own money. Sure, they may raise premiums in the future to make up the loss, but it's still on the insurance company to come up with the money. An ISP or website complying with a takedown is an externality because the results of complying are felt by the third party and not by the ISP. There may be some backlash from the third party who may feel that they have lost the service that they are paying for, but that's another matter, I think.

Re:What copyright?

[cpt kangarooski]

No. New Jersey would need to have some sort of law or policy by which it doesn't have copyrights, because the federal government is certainly going to grant one to that state just as it would for any other author.

Re:What copyright?

[RealGrouchy]

Okay, that's for Virginia, but what about New Jersey?

- RG>

Re:What copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

The State of South Carolina owns the copyright to the Code of Laws of South Carolina.

http://fulldecent.blogspot.com/2007/05/intelligenc e-in-sc.html

Re:What copyright?

[cpt kangarooski]

Precisely. Of course, I think it's a good idea on its own merits and I would hope that other governments would consider it as well, but whether or not they adopted such a thing would be up to them.

Re:What copyright?

[slashqwerty]

an additional requirement should be the intent of the author to make a creative work

An additional requirement should be to promote the progress of useful arts. The New Jersey Turnpick Authority clearly has no intention of ever publishing this video.

"The video serves no worthwhile purpose and shows a tremendous lack of common human decency towards the family of the victim"

Instead they intend to dispose of the video keeping it out of the public domain, effectively making their exclusive right last an unlimited time.

Re:What copyright?

[khallow]

That sounds like a poor argument since one would treat a private company differently in such a case.

Re:What copyright?

[khallow]

Economically, tolls are a superior way to maintain a road and similar infrastructure because it is paid for by the parties that use it. I would say that countries that ban tolls for passage are in error here.

Re:What copyright?

[evilviper]

An ISP or website complying with a takedown is an externality because the results of complying are felt by the third party and not by the ISP.

If some other site has "censored" videos that Youtube doesn't, they lose money. It's less direct of a loss, but it's still a loss.

They also directly pay staff to handle the flood of DMCA take-down notices, which could be reduced.

Re:What copyright?

[billcopc]

That does seem like a problem. Here in Canada the fuel tax is much much higher, since we work in litres, not gallons, and we have two fuel taxes: provincial and federal. Then of course we tack on the ubiquitous sales taxes so in the end, about 1/3rd of the pump price goes to our sloppy government. The provincials usually spend it all on hookers and booze, but the federal budgets take care of our roads to a certain extent. Most of the road problems are the result of inadequate man power, because you know you need eight guys for each shovel.

Re:What copyright?

[budgenator]

What does the Kung fu master call Goatse, "little peep-hole"?

Link please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this story will do nothing more than drum up interest in seeing the video. Does anybody have a working link?

Public roads

[Martix]

The turnpike was funded by tax dollars.

So as far as im concerned its public not private

My 2 Watts

p.s. file under DMCA abuse

Re:Public roads

[gardyloo]

Dangerous argument, as things like public libraries and some health clinics (in addition to the obvious case of government agencies) are also funded by tax dollars. You want your reading habits and medical records out and around?

Re:Public roads

[codepunk]

I fully agree with you, it was taken with a camera owned and manned by a govt authority using public
dollars...As far as I am concerned it is public domain.

Re:Public roads

[gardyloo]

(That's not to say that I think that the NJTA's actions weren't absolutely idiotic.)

Re:Public roads

[AlinuxNCSU]

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).

Re:Public roads

[Breakfast Pants]

As far as the law is concerned, that only matters if it was the federal government, or a state with such a clause (I can't name a single one, but there may be one).

Re:Public roads

[QuoteMstr]

There's no expectation of privacy on a highway anyway, but you'd have every right to expect that your library records and medical history would remain private. Copyright is about keeping others from copying what you would make public, while privacy protection is about keeping others from accessing what you would keep secret.

Re:Public roads

[Aaron Denney]

Those indeed should not be covered by copyright. Copyright's primary purpose is not to keep things secret -- we do have privacy laws, after all.

Re:Public roads

[AgentFade2Black]

But what about the camera? It's still property of the NJTA.
Thus, with their equipment, they created it, so it is their IP to control.
And for Allah's sake, think of the family involved. What would you say if your family was killed in one of those crashes, and it was put on the Internet for all the world so see.

Then what?

Necessary disclaimer: IANAL.

Re:Public roads

[Anonymous Coward]

>Dangerous argument, as things like public libraries and some health clinics (in addition to the obvious case of government agencies) are also funded by tax dollars. You want your reading habits and medical records out and around?

Libraries buy copyrighted information. The information libraries generate should not be copyrighted. This means things like lists of books the library has, your library records, etc. should be non-copyrighted. Privacy laws should still apply so that your private information is only released to you (although, as it is not copyrighted, you are welcome to do with it as you wish).

Medical records should not be copyrighted. A doctor should not have his hands tied by copyright law when trying to access information on you to help cure you. Can you imagine the hell that would result if the hospital you were last at said they would sell your infomation to your doctor for the low, low sum of just $10,000 per copy? Privacy laws would, of course, apply.

Re:Public roads

[Dunbal]

But what about the camera? It's still property of the NJTA.

Nobody stole the camera. 'Nuff said.

Re:Public roads

[pyite]

Then what?

Then what, what?

Toll and tax dollars paid for that camera. My tolls and taxes, in fact. I don't want the video taken down.

Re:Public roads

[tr1907]

Since public already paid for the construction of Turn Pike shouldn't it be toll free then?

Re:Public roads

[EvilIdler]

Let's use a car analogy. Yours sucks.

The equivalent for cars would be if they recorded all day, facing license plates,
and kept track of when everyone passed by the camera, then published that data.

Re:Public roads

[Blackknight]

I'd say welcome to the information age. The internet has changed the rules, a video can be globally distributed all over the world within a few hours. It might be distasteful for people to post it but it's not any worse that what the news on tv would show.

Re:Public roads

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority apparently wants to stop the dissemination of this video because it is a "snuff film." Obviously, they need to burn the original footage, or delete it, whichever is more applicable.
If the NJTA did own the original footage, would it be legit for them to use the DMCA to take down accidental snuff films?

Re:Public roads

[Anonymous Coward]

All analogies suck. If you can't comprehend a situation without an analogy, you certainly aren't going to comprehend it with one.

Re:Public roads

[UncleFluffy]

But what about the camera? It's still property of the NJTA.

... and who is the NJTA the property of?

Re:Public roads

[AgentFade2Black]

The State of New Jersey.
The automatic public domain law of governmental works only applies at the Federal level.

Re:Public roads

[UncleFluffy]

The State of New Jersey.

To which, as you'd expect, my reply is: "and who is the State of New Jersey the property of?" :)

They don't own the actual video

[abionnnn]

I hope that the EFF will pursue this matter promptly!

Re:They don't own the actual video

[HeLLFiRe1151]

Even if they do own it, you could probably get a copy through the Freedom of Information Act, and post it all you want.

video of the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright this

Re:video of the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, gotta love the double watermarks . . can nobody get original videos anymore?

Re:video of the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow cool, that is frickin awsome.

Re:video of the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

The Google Ads for airbags beneath the video seem a bit tasteless!

Re:video of the crash

[lseltzer]

Read the news article just above you dipshit. He had seizures. But even if he didn't he might have had a heart attack or some other diabling condition with sudden onset. You going to blame him for that?

Re:video of the crash

[aldheorte]

It's pretty impressive how the toll booth structure absorbed the impact easily. The structure did not even wobble. It looks like a tollbooth operator would have been okay even in the booth that was hit, at least if there was no shrapnel from the explosion. No doubt concussed and shocked, but alive. I say good engineering on that one.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Mk, then why exactly was there a police car with lights ablazin that pulled up right behind this issue, in the same lane?

Have you seriously ever talked to anyone that gets seizures? I'll give you a hint, if they drive, they usually can tell when they're going to happen. I think the seizure defense is a bit much, but the family will win the lawsuit and get money.

Re:video of the crash

[Achromatic1978]

And of course, what do you see immediately after the crash? All the other cars slowing down and stopping, because, y'know, of the "BIG FUCKING ON FIRE CAR".

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.

Re:video of the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife had a seizure once. She never saw it coming. Good thing I was the one driving at the time.

Re:video of the crash

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

They're designed for that kind of thing. Maybe not that speed, but yeah. Sink a pipe far enough down and fill it with concrete, and you'll stop some things.

Re:video of the crash

[The Dobber]

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

[zoogies]

"pretty sweet"?! The driver was killed. I'm glad you think he deserved it. I think from a legal standpoint, if it's recorded by a NJ Turnpike camera, there's not much to be said. Footage of the turnpike itself is not necessarily property of the turnpike (is it?). I wonder how they got this clip from NJ turnpike security cameras? As for why anyone would think this clip has entertainment value, that's beyond me..

Re:video of the crash

[mad flyer]

In europe you are told, when you avoid an accident, to CLEAR the way as much as possible before giving any assistance if you think you might be of any help. We are in a case where there was police cruiser right behind, it was at a place with people working on site and that have access to phone or priority channels with police/firemen or their headquarter. And the car was a fracking fireball. Since toll both have video surveillance it might not even be necessary to stay and give testimony. Absolutly no reason to stay around whatsoever...

Or you can stop get hidden in the smoke and be the first in a pillup...

Re:video of the crash

[rizzo420]

If you watch the video, the guy was obviously speeding the entire time. If he was having a seizure, what is the likelihood that his foot kept him going at 65 MPH? He also didn't swerve very far, so I'm guessing he was driving too fast and didn't have enough time to think twice. When you're coming upon a toll plaza, there's plenty of warning to slow down. I find it unlikely that he had a seizure. Had he had a seizure right around the time he swerved out of his lane and into the barrier (which was the one right next to his lane, so he didn't swerve far), he should have been driving a whole lot slower to get through the toll booth anyways. Last I checked, the toll booths around there on the turnpike don't have the EZ Pass Express lanes that allow you to stay at speed.

As someone else already said, the cop showed up behind him less than a minute after it happened with lights flashing. Either it was all just dumb luck that he had a seizure at the exact moment he came to the toll booth and a cop happened to be right nearby or something else happened. I tend not to believe in coincidental occurrences, especially in situations like this one.

Re:video of the crash

[pedestrian crossing]

I find it unlikely that he had a seizure.

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.

Re:video of the crash

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If there's a big fucking on fire car in your lane (and a cop within eyesight), what exactly do you do? Cop's already there, so you get out of the way and drive on, that's what you do.

Re:video of the crash

[Dun Malg]

Have you ever even seen anyone actually have a seizure? There are a whole spectrum of symptoms.

I'm pretty sure having a cop close on your tail with lights flashing is not a symptom of a sudden seizure.

Re:video of the crash

[niiler]

I could be wrong, but it looked to me like said nitwit had flashing lights on his/her car. I was going to comment on the impressive speed of first response until I realized that most toll-booths have cop cars at the ready.

Re:video of the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

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. They could have been calling emergency services on their cellphone, never know.

Re:video of the crash

[Negadecimal]

You going to blame him for that?

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.

Re:video of the crash

[rizzo420]

I have seen seizures, both severe (grand mal) and not so severe, similar to the one you described with the co-worker. In the severe ones, the body went limp. If he had a severe one while he was driving, he surely would have slowed down pretty fast. In the minor ones, they did generally just zone out, but their bodies still went into a more relaxed state and did not tense up where they would have stepped harder on the gas. Again, this would have caused the car to slow down.

In the video, it is pretty obvious that the car is going a fairly constant speed. Granted, we can't see if he accelerated at all up to the toll booth because of the distance the camera shows, but he certainly did not slow down as if his foot came off the pedal.

Now the cop makes it seem even less likely to be that he had a seizure. Even if the cop had been parked by the toll booth, which they do on occasion, he came from outside the view of the camera, meaning he was not at the toll booth. My guess is that this guy was just speeding down the highway and the cop saw him. Maybe he was trying to avoid the cop, maybe he was checking his cell phone or playing with the radio, but somehow he got distracted upon entering the toll booth and missed the lane (which he only swerved out of when he was very close to the toll booth).

Re:video of the crash

[evanknight]

Watched it in media player and zoomed on said nitwit. It was actually an On Duty Cop in a fully marked charger. He turns on his lights and gets out, then moves toward the crash. Good timing, I guess.

Re:video of the crash

[cecil_turtle]

why exactly was there a police car with lights ablazin that pulled up right behind this issue, in the same lane?

Because police often site at toll plazas, he likely saw the speeding car and the crash and immediately drove 300ft to the scene where we see him pull up.

Re:video of the crash

[Nataku564]

With the obscene amount of fireworks sold every year around the fourth of July, you figure humans kind of like to see things go boom. A car erupting into a massive fireball is a pretty big firecracker. Chemical reactions are pretty.

Re:video of the crash

[jafiwam]

That looks more like 80 mph to me. I sorta want to find out what type of car it was as it sure blew up like the infamous Ford Pinto... to avoid riding in one.

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 the reason they are making a stink out of it is the cop just started chasing him due to speeding and the dude tried to flee and ineptly ran into the thing. So, they are worried about getting sued by this dumbass' family for creating a dangerous situation (police chase).

Re:video of the crash

[cecil_turtle]

I'm pretty sure having a cop close on your tail with lights flashing is not a symptom of a sudden seizure.

No, it's a symptom of toll booths.

Re:video of the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

If you watch the video, the guy was obviously speeding the entire time. If he was having a seizure, what is the likelihood that his foot kept him going at 65 MPH? He also didn't swerve very far, so I'm guessing he was driving too fast and didn't have enough time to think twice. When you're coming upon a toll plaza, there's plenty of warning to slow down. I find it unlikely that he had a seizure.

This is /., it's not the place to be talking out of your ass.

...okay, maybe it is. But nevertheless, that's what you're doing!

Re:video of the crash

[DejaFu]

NJDOT has only 8 Turnpike cams published on their website and none of them is this one. Seems to be an inside job. Releasing something like this could be trouble for a NJDOT IT worker. It would seem they're building a case against the worker by bitching in public about "copyright" issues. When (not "if") they succeed, they'll be better able to coerce other government employees to maintain State Secrets. The mafia approach to government - get used to it. Meantime, like most censored material, it's plastered all over the net. Thanks, all you lowly plasterers! :)

Re:video of the crash

[MrWhitefolkz]

I realize your being a troll, but there are several other cars that keep going in the left hand lane. But we all appreciate the fact you point out the SUV... thanks.

Re:video of the crash

[Achromatic1978]

Yeah. Heaven forbid the cop isn't superman and you might, shock horror, be able to assist. Ah, fuck that, that'd mean being... what's that word again ... ? Selfless. Oh yeah.

Also, in most jurisdictions, witnessing an injury accident and not stopping is at least a misdemeanour.

Re:video of the crash

[cvd6262]

OT, but hey...

Did you notice two drivers continue through the toll booth after the accident?

Re:video of the crash

[Melfina]

You're a cock.

Re:video of the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

someone dies in a car accident... and they were driving like a maniac... it's their own fault they were killed. they were asking for it. and i'm a cock because i pointed this out? i'd say the idiot driving like a maniac is the cock.

Re:video of the crash

[RevAaron]

Considering how slow the cop rolled up, what's your explanation why he didn't just drive up after he saw the explosion from a block or so back from the booths, parked where cops often are at booth areas?

Re:video of the crash

[chrispycreeme]

That is what I would do. Why stop? Can you save the guy? Can you do anything productive or will you just be creating a traffic jam and pissing off the cops that have to respond to the incident? Spending my day waiting around to be interviewed for five minutes just to say "I saw a car on fire, it looked like it hit the tollbooth" is not my idea of fun or productive. It's sad the guy was killed, but there is really nothing anyone could do to make the situation better...

Re:video of the crash

[lena_10326]

He had seizures. But even if he didn't he might have had a heart attack or some other diabling condition with sudden onset.

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?

You going to blame him for that?

Yes.

Re:video of the crash

[Distortal]

It's an automated system. There's no creative input.

Re:video of the crash

[OutOfMyTree]

"She"? Good eyesight, or big chip on shoulder?

Re:video of the crash

[moosesocks]

Most tollbooths have a large (ie. huge) reinforced concrete barrier directly in front of the booth where the attendant sits (assuming that it's not an automated booth, which many Turnpike of the booths on the turnpike are)

What I don't understand is why he was going 65 anywhere remotely near a tollbooth. The NJ Turnpike only has booths on the on/offramps to improve traffic flow. Get on the highway, take a ticket from the booth. Get off, return the ticket, and pay the toll for the distance travelled.

Seizure or not, driving 65mph on a ramp is not a very smart thing to do.

Re:video of the crash

[budgenator]

yeah well it's the same with kiddie porn, I fail to see the entertainment value, but the perverts who like that sort of stuff do. Snuff videos, staging bum fights, faggot busting, gang rapes and even school kids who "befriend" the unpopular kids so they can video an ambush are all about the same in my book.

Re:video of the crash

[budgenator]

Sometimes Google borders on scary, makes you wonder if the NSA is a Google customer

Re:video of the crash

[KudyardRipling]

Has anyone noted that many of the newer cars & trucks use pulse-width modulation for the brake/running/turn tail lamps? There is perceptible flicker from these. I work in the computer repair industry and my specialty was CRT displays at one time. I know about things like refresh rate on CRT displays vis-a-vis phosphor persistence. Use a short persistence tube in a chassis that has a slow refresh rate and flicker will result. This flickering has resulted in triggering epileptic seizures in prone individuals. Similar warnings are posted on video games and VR helmets. If these tail-lights are causing seizures in previously **undiagnosed** as well as diagnosed individuals, we will soon have a flicker test administered by one's personal physician or DMV MD as a condition for initial and renewal licenses. The LED based emergency lights on police vehicles are very irritating. This sort of pseudoranmdom strobing could trigger such a reaction and thus pose an unintended danger.

Re:video of the crash

[crucini]

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.

That may have just been extreme boredom. I've done that a couple of times, although I try to keep the saliva contained.

Re:video of the crash

[iamroot]

If he was having a seizure, what is the likelihood that his foot kept him going at 65 MPH?

I'm not familiar with that particular toll plaza so I don't know how likely this is, but it could have easily happened if he had been using cruise control. Personally, I've always been surprised that most cruise control systems don't have a dead man's switch, although it might not have helped in this case.

Re:video of the crash

[StikyPad]

Concrete is a lot stronger than vehicles. The former is typically formed in solid, dense blocks; the latter are mostly air. We have concrete phone poles here, and they absorb the impact of several vehicles per year (although obviously not typically the same pole) without visible damage. In fact, I lost traction and slid into one about 6 months ago. I was knocked out by the impact, and can't remember my speed at the time, but the speed limit was 45, so I'm sure my speed was at least 50MPH. Car totaled, neck whiplashed, pole looks no worse for the wear.

How?!

[raylu]

'did not try to prevent the very same video from being uploaded again by users immediately after it was purportedly removed.'

So...what was YouTube supposed to do? Seize control of the internet and delete all copies of the video?

Re:How?!

[gardyloo]

Put sieves with the right-shaped holes in the tubes. Empty periodically. Easy.

Re:How?!

[cortana]

They could record hashes of any removed content, and compare new uploads with the list of banned hashes.

Re:How?!

[Anonymous Coward]

They already do this, but even one bit difference between two files will change the hash.

So, re encoding the video or clipping 1 second from the length will render hashing useless.

Re:How?!

[cortana]

Well, I didn't say that it had to be a cryptographically secure hash. I assumed someone would eventually think up some kind of "good enough" video hash... good enough for them to show that they had made reasonable efforts to keep the content offline, that is. Honestly, these DMCA prats really annoyed me. They got exactly the law that they wanted--now they want Youtube to do their job for them!

Re:How?!

[Achromatic1978]

You might want to look into fuzzy hashing, where you can determine that a file is "similar" to another. Variations are used in spam filtering.

Re:How?!

[evilviper]

So, re encoding the video or clipping 1 second from the length will render hashing useless.

"tree" hashes exist for just this purpose. Changes in one section of a video will only affect that chunk, all others will still match.

Also, hashing every frame is easy enough, and would also prevent this kind of simple digital manipulation. mplayer -vo md5sum will already do all this for you.

Of course, if they actually re-encode the video, it won't match. However, the next person who re-encodes from the same video with the same settings will match, so there's a fairly small pool of possibilities which will quickly be exhausted.

The workaround will probably be noise... Change a small number of bits in the each frame of the video by a random value, and they'll never be able to hash all possible variations. Also, shifting the chroma, luma, and contrast/brightness of the whole video should also work quite well.

It will be an extremely long time into the future before the kind of computing power needed to detect these changes becomes inexpensive enough for widespread use.

Re:How?!

[ragefan]

They could record hashes of any removed content, and compare new uploads with the list of banned hashes. What if someone converts to a new format or removes .5 sec of footage to shorten it? The hash would now be different.

The real issue?

[heyetv]

"The NJTA also is suing unnamed corporations and individuals who may have helped distribute the stolen video. "

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?

[Doctor_Jest]

Because it's easier to illegally invoke the DMCA (god, why can't this law be struck down?) than to actually check to see if there's a mole or a "thief" inside the NJTA. (Rather than claim it's NJTA property, which by default is the people's property... since it is funded by taxes, they should've said it was for an ongoing investigation of a security leak.)

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?

Re:The real issue?

[ajanp]

I have to agree with the author in that this lawsuit really makes no sense.

1. They claim "The video serves no worthwhile purpose and shows a tremendous lack of common human decency towards the family of the victim," yet they had to have known that the amount of publicity and attention they would get from a lawsuit would drive even more people to find the video now that it's out in the wild (aka internets), not to mention the family of the victim would now be even more involved in this and won't even get the opportunity to put the whole event behind them to move on with their lives.

2. "defendants have either refused or failed to remove the video from their Web sites." Youtube immediately complied with the DMCA notice they received and is still being held accountable despite the fact that another site, LiveLeak.com had approximately 10x more viewers, but they were "voluntarily removed them from the lawsuit after they removed the video". Liveleak had 213,295 views and YouTube had 24,346 views, but the NJTA decides to drop LiveLeak from the suit and continue suing YouTube despite the fact that they both complied with their requests. Apparently YouTube is being singled out because the NJTA doesn't want to accept the fact that the video had already spread and for some reason they think YouTube has control over every video on the internet.

3. Bringing attention to this situation is undoubtedly going to raise the questions about how this tape got out in the first place. The parent post raises a valid issue about why there aren't more questions being asked about the apparent lack of internal security and the article fails to raise the issue about why the main issue isn't related to how the video got out in the first place and who is actually responsible for the copyright infringement (perhaps creating a situation where the users are to be held accountable in a court of law rather than the distributor (YouTube/LiveLeak/etc).

Really those are my major concerns with the premise of this lawsuit, but I have to wonder why they would want to create such a large issue out of a case like this, when it would certainly make more sense to try and keep the entire situation as low-key as possible. This is undoubtedly going to bring more attention to this situation and it can only have a negative effect on the victims they are supposedly trying to protect. Also the fact that they are continuing to sue YouTube regardless of their full co-operation (all the while dropping the case against LiveLeak despite the fact they had 10x more people view the video on their site) makes me think they must have some strange reason for wanting to sue. Why would the NJTA want to sue somebody with the resource of YouTube/Google... I don't know... perhaps there is pressure from someone within the company, maybe they are upset that YouTube really wasn't able to prevent future copies being uploaded, or maybe they just want better roads.

Regardless, this case seems to have very little merit exercising some pretty bogus copyright rights and suing despite the legal cooperation of the aforementioned parties.

Video link

[Exaton]

Video is visible as part of a news report here : http://wcbstv.com/video?id=99739@wcbs.dayport.com& cid=2 (Flash required).

Found through Yahoo! video.

Re:Video link

[superpulpsicle]

According to the complaint, the offending video has been viewed 19,833 times on YouTube, 189,037 times on LiveLeak.com and 6,933 times on break.com as of May 21. Less than 24 hours later, on May 22, the videos had been viewed 24,346 times, 213,295 times and 16,812 times, respectively. Well I guess by creating this lawsuit, the video will now be unofficially available all across the web and increase the views to 1,194,345,431,456,345,223 times.

Re:Video link

[TheoMurpse]

You underestimate the power of the internet; I think the video will be viewed 09,F91,102,9D7,4E3,5BD,841,56C,563,568,8C0 times.

Why is this copyrighted at all?

[Maximalist]

This just goes to show that the whole copyright system is absurdly broken.

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.

Re:Why is this copyrighted at all?

[julesh]

This just goes to show that the whole copyright system is absurdly broken.

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 reacting to a request they don't actually need to react to. If anything, it suggest's google's lawyers are broken.

Re:Why is this copyrighted at all?

[Kohath]

In order to sue, you're supposed to have suffered harm or damage in some way. How was the dead guy harmed by this video?

Lawsuits are supposed to be about addressing genuine harm, not about using the courts to push people around.

Re:Why is this copyrighted at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the deceased has family?

Re:Why is this copyrighted at all?

[Kohath]

So how was the family harmed? Were their feelings hurt? Courts should stick to resolving claims based on real, actual harm, not on hurt feelings.

"My feelings were hurt. Give me money." No.

Re:Why is this copyrighted at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

A more reasonable legal tool for knocking this off ...

Knocking off the legal "tools" - AKA Lawyers - seems a bit drastic.
Let's do it the New Jersey way, and take them on an all-expenses paid,
one-way shark fishing expedition.

Re:Why is this copyrighted at all?

[tkrotchko]

"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."

Yes, except the police routinely search cars on the theory that cars in public are not private places.

So which way do we have it... driving in your car down a public road assumes a right to privacy or not?

Re:Why is this copyrighted at all?

[jibjibjib]

So if someone rapes you without physically injuring you, then that's ok?

Re:Why is this copyrighted at all?

[Kohath]

Not analogous. Assaults using force against people are injurious to more than their feelings, even if they seem physically unhurt. It's also a criminal matter.

Posting a car crash video on You Tube forces no one. Feeling bad about it is really the family's choice. They can choose to either feel bad, or be OK with it. Why should they be able to cash in by deciding (or pretending) to feel bad?

Real Reason

[lithiumfox]

I think they are doing this just because they want some money. Isn't NJ in a huge deficit?

Re:Real Reason

[Harmonious Botch]

I don't think profit is the driving force here. They stand a good chance of taking a loss on this due to attorney's fees.
If making money were the primary goal they could sell it to a tv show.

Re:Real Reason

[C0R1D4N]

It's probably more to do so with the state trying to lease out the NJ turnpike and Garden State Parkway. They don't want the image tarnished to potential lessees. Not that the people of the state will ever go for it, but since when did our legislature ever listen to the people of NJ? They're too busy trying to ban texting while driving, smoking while driving and ignoring corrupt politicians and police.

Who's Property?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would think the driver of the vehicle(may he rest in pieces) might have something to say about who owns the video of his death. None-the-less, this is not a case of copyright violation, this is a case of poor security on the part of New Jersey. They are just trying to shift the blame.

unadulterated video

[Bananatree3]

Copyright this!

Re:unadulterated video

[CyberSnyder]

What an idiot (they person in the car trying to be speed racer through the toll booth). Kudos to the guy that got out of his car and went up to see if he could do something. Most people would sit in their car and just watch.

Re:unadulterated video

[N3WBI3]

I believe that was a state trooper its kinda hard to tell in the video..

Re:unadulterated video

[skiflyer]

I dunno, that looks like the driver might have been asleep.

Re:unadulterated video

[lpangelrob]

More likely, the driver fell asleep, (or as a previous poster suggested, had a seizure).

The car was traveling well in excess of 55 mph judging by the force of impact, so it's probable that having a seizure or falling asleep elsewhere on the road would be fatal. But in other parts of the highway, you can survive driving off the road and brushing up against a wall, or even bouncing off a cable barrier. This driver had no chance up against a concerete toll barrier.

It's a case for not putting large concrete islands in the middle of tollways - open-road tolling is preferred.

Re:unadulterated video

[clarkkent09]

Seems like there was a police car righ behind (chasing?) him at the time he crashed. See the dark car that comes up right behind about 9 seconds after the crash. It's hard to see but it seems like a police car to me with lights flashing.

Re:unadulterated video

[Dunbal]

lol thanks... the power of the internet.

Re:unadulterated video

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch :( Crash test programs should start testing the tendency of a car to burst into a fireball in a crash situation. I wonder if diesel-powered cars are safer since diesel requires higher temperatures than gasoline to ignite.

Re:unadulterated video

[neomunk]

I'm -REALLY- not sure of this, but looking closely at it it seems that just maybe the driver is thrown out of the car. You can see a dark looking shape that seems to be ejected from the front of the car just as it hits the island. If that's true, it's still highly unlikely the person survived, but in this (rare) case I think being ejected could possibly have been beneficial to the victim (or victim/perp if the case may be, I dunno) as the vehicle itself very quickly became unsurvivable.

Thought I'd toss out that glimmer of hope for the person.

Re:unadulterated video

[CyberSnyder]

Usually there are rumble strips as you approach the toll booth which should wake the driver. I'm not sure about the Jersey Turnpike, but a lot of the booths are manned. The concrete barriers are necessary to protect the workers in the booths. Usually they have some type of impact mitigation in front of the concrete, but I don't think anything is designed for that type of impact.

I thought it looked like a case of someone trying to race through the toll area fast enough so they wouldn't be caught by the cameras.

Re:unadulterated video

[dougmc]

I concur. Looks like a cop car.

Re:unadulterated video

[appleguru]

It is a cop car; if you look at the video link posted a bit above this (the one to the .mpg, that hasn't been re-encoded.. twice...) you can clearly see it's a cop car, lights and all. It's unclear if the officer was following him for speeding and was about to pull him over, or was stationed before the toll booth and saw the thing happen.

Re:unadulterated video

[appleguru]

...you can even see his front left wheel go flying off into the area between the two ezpass lanes on the left... and his right two wheels go flying off to the right; his front right bounces up and hits the roof and his back right sails across and hits the toll booth.

Re:unadulterated video

[ahecht]

If you RFTA, yes he was killed. However, the thing that got thrown from the car was the front left tire. There are better quality versions of the video floating around that show this clearly.

Re:unadulterated video

[ahecht]

If you RTFA (well, the one posted above, not the one in the story), it says that the cop was at the tollbooth looking for trucks to give tickets to for spewing too much exhaust.

Re:unadulterated video

[budgenator]

Ford has a automated fire supression system available in their Crown Vic's that are often used for Police cars. When the car is rear-ended and then comes to a complete stop, the system activates. The biggest customers to date are Taxi cab companies not police organisations.

Higher quality version

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.flicklife.com/81920c872c1787382f04/Driv er_slams_into_toll_booth_and_explodes.html

We must stop this copyright insanity

[QuoteMstr]

This is an abuse of the concept of copyright by the turkpike authority; they're simply trying to censor unpleasant material. That we even entertain this idea is insanity, and is a testament to this idea that everything needs to be fenced off and owned. The turnpike organization is a public authority, and even if it weren't, you can't claim copyright on an automated recording of a public place! There's no creative element, no promotion of the arts, nothing other than a senseless and greedy enclosure of what ought to be common.

Re:We must stop this copyright insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they are going about it the wrong way. It may not be copyrightable (then again, organizations like the NFL claim copyright over their telecasts of the games) but it could be considered *stolen* material. Just because someone leaked it and it propogated doesn't change that.

Re:We must stop this copyright insanity

[QuoteMstr]

Only property can be stolen, and information is not property. You can steal a physical tape, but you're only liable for the tape itself, not the video on it. You can infringe on copyright (as you normally would by copying a stolen tape), but as a government work (even indirectly) the video should not have a copyright. Governments can make certain pieces of information secret, but this video is not classified, and there would have been no reason to make it classified.

The NFL is different. It's a private organization. If you treat the government as if it were a private entity, it will screw you over like one.

Re:We must stop this copyright insanity

[John Hasler]

> The turnpike organization is a public authority...

It is an agency of the state of New Jersey. State governments can own and enforce copyrights.

> ...and even if it weren't, you can't claim copyright on an automated recording...

This may be a valid defense.

> ...of a public place!

Irrelevant.

Re:We must stop this copyright insanity

[tftp]

NFL has plenty of reasons to claim copyright because the cameras are pointed at players by people, and the views from those cameras are mixed and switched by people, and all those people are trained in their art -- and it is an art to create an entertaining video show out of a general view of some people running around.

In this particular case the recording was automatically made, so no artistic factor can be claimed. Even a stupidest operator would have enough brains to zoom on the crash, or to pan to show the response from the witnesses, or to follow cars that went by the wreck without stopping - but this camera was welded to the pole and had no creativity whatsoever.

Re:We must stop this copyright insanity

[CatoNine]

Well, they could argue that the turnpike is a theater
for performing spectacular car crashes...
That way, they'd have the required creative input for claiming copyright ;-)

What does New Jersey have to hide?

[Futurepower(R)]

It's amazing to me how people easily accept abuse, and how abusive the U.S. government has become. There is only one reason to control information about roads: To aid corruption. What does New Jersey have to hide?

The freeway collapse in San Francisco showed very thin concrete and poor adhesion, in my opinion.

Maybe that's what New Jersey officials have to hide. Did someone take money to allow poor construction?

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[Microlith]

There are, you know, reasonable conjectures that can be made when building things.

Expecting to have a fuel truck explode and cause an extremely intense fire right underneath that spot likely wasn't expected. A car fire maybe, but not that.

Hindsight is always 20/20, and it's even clearer for armchair engineers.

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[eriklou]

Someone moved the booth at the last second!

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[Tickletaint]

Oh, God. Cue "9/11 was an inside job!" nutbags.

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oakland != San Francisco. They are two cities on opposite sides of a big-ass bay. Oakland is largely a shithole while SF is nicer. Biiiiig difference.

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Expecting to have a fuel truck explode and cause an extremely intense fire right underneath that spot likely wasn't expected. A car fire maybe, but not that.

I would wager that the scenario was considered but that the cost to ensure structural integrity in that event outweighed the expected cost of the collapse occurring, given the low probability of such an event.

We may not like it, but engineers make these sort of decisions all the time. Nothing that's ever been built has been proof against everything, and smart engineers know it. A good engineer is not one who thinks of every possible scenario and designs his structure to withstand it, because that engineer's structure will cost about the same as the GDP of a small European nation to build. No, a good engineer thinks of every possible scenario, comes up with probabilities and expected costs, and designs his structure accordingly. Yes, sometimes these costs involve human lives, and the engineer does not always choose the side that saves them, but those are the decisions that must be made if anything is ever to get constructed.

Now aren't you glad you're not an engineer?

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[Achromatic1978]

Much as I hate the movie, this quote from Titanic sums it up very nicely:

Thomas Andrews: The pumps will buy you time, but minutes only. From this moment on, no matter what we do, Titanic will founder.
Ismay: But this ship can't sink!
Thomas Andrews: She is made of iron, sir. I assure you, she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty.

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[nacturation]

Maybe that's what New Jersey officials have to hide. Did someone take money to allow poor construction? Did you watch the video? The tollbooth seems to survive without much more than a scratch. Seems like rather excellent construction to me.

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that's what New Jersey officials have to hide. Did someone take money to allow poor construction?

Please read your first sentence again, paying especial attention to the words
beginning with N and J.
Therein lies the answer to your questions.

Re:What does New Jersey have to hide?

[Thing 1]

Did someone take money to allow poor construction?

Seeing as how the car was completely stopped by the barrier, no, I doubt poor construction was involved. Well, it may have been constructed by the poor, but that's just wordplay...

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[Anonymous Coward]

You've seen it. :o

Oblivious...

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta love the dick that traveled through the left gates at the end of the video... the toll-booth is _on fire_ and they just cruise through...

Re:Oblivious...

[jhmaughan]

Two cars passed through on the left, but you can see where one stopped and started backing up. The last one slowed down, but the video was then cutoff.

Is New Jersey in a budget crisis right now?

[Antony-Kyre]

Is New Jersey in a budget crisis right now? This has to be a joke. Roads are part of public property, are they not? How can they sue for something like this?

Re:Is New Jersey in a budget crisis right now?

[KudyardRipling]

Technically, no. A cursory glance of the eye will reveal those signs that read STATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority is a statutory corporation. As such, it can own property and does own lots of it. The New Jersey Department of Transportation is a state agency. It techinically owns all other major thoroughfares (SRXX, SR1XX, SR2XX, SR3XX, SR4XX). It also handles the Interstate Highway System (a federal project called the Defense Highway System; why are there no tricolor US PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING signs?). In theory NJTA properties should have signs that read NJTA PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING and NJDOT properties should read STATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING. "Public property" tends to be things municipal like local streets. I can only imagine the combustion plasma of collective ire about sidewalks: Public enough for everyone to use and private enough for the owner to be liable for its upkeep. Maybe the question should be "Can a person trespass public property?"

Re:Is New Jersey in a budget crisis right now?

[Antony-Kyre]

State property is government property, correct?
The government is by, for, and of the people, therefore the government is the people.
Therefore, wouldn't state property be public property in a sense?

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't a clue as to the meaning of a word, please refrain from using it. Inerudition like yours, particularly in the affected guise of learning, only serves to debase the currency of knowledge (and almost as badly as does Wikipedia).

what are they trying to hide?

[nanosquid]

This was a public, newsworthy event, captured by a public camera. Not only is there nothing wrong with viewing and posting it, there is something decidedly wrong with trying to hide it. In fact, that's the kind of behavior you'd expect if they are concerned about getting sued (say, over dangerous tool booth design or signage).

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.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[fermion]

I am the most cynical person I know, but perhaps being cynical is not the most reasonable approach. An accident is a traumatic event, and it can be argued that a compassionate society is not going to make it's chief form of entertainment watching such tragedies. It is one thing to watch a few individuals prostitute themselves for fame, as is done regularly on America's Funniest Home Videos, but quite another to flaunt other's misfortunes to the anonymous masses.

This really is a side effect of our societies obsession with filming everything that happens in the world. We are so scared that someone, somewhere, might be stealing a bag of candy or not comming to a full stop at a red light, or enoying themselves is some societal unacceptable manner, that jestison the civlized concept of privacy, trust, and independence for the uncivilized concepts of demanding papers with no probably cuase, profiling based on the clothes a person wears, and ratting out our family members. There was a time when the later were clearly confined to the facist governments, and governments for the people, and by th4e people, avoided them.

So we end up with a predictable problem. Footage that should be accessible to only a limited audience slips out to the de-facto public domain. 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.

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. But I believe there are issues. For instance, a while back a school camera monitoring a middle school dance caught what appeared a pre-teen couple progressing though all manner of intimate activity including what could be interpreted as sexual congress. Though there were no incriminating physical evidence, only circumstantial, I believe it was in bad taste to release even the stills. It was pure publicity for the news stations, with no real new value.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[nanosquid]

An accident is a traumatic event, and it can be argued that a compassionate society is not going to make it's chief form of entertainment watching such tragedies.

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.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[ScrewMaster]

If you drive on a public highway, you have no expectation of privacy.

You got that right. In my state the cops are using shotgun microphones to eavesdrop on passing cars. I know someone who was pulled over and had her car and her person searched because a passenger said the word "pot". I don't know in what context, but apparently the mere utterance of certain keywords is considered probable cause.

Makes me wonder if a mounting transducers to each window and feeding them a nice pink-noise signal would restore a measure of privacy to rolling conversations.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[Thing 1]

Quite to the contrary: a compassionate society wouldn't try to hide suffering and death under a blanket of silence.

You know, I completely agree. At the risk of going off topic, it is rather shocking that the Bush administration was able to censor images of caskets coming back from our wars on two fronts. First, they embedded journalists so they could "show off" to US citizens how amazing our military capabilities are. And then, only allow us to see one side of those capabilities?

There should be severe penalties for abusing the legal system; however, it seems the biggest abusers are also those who either write the laws, or pay for the laws.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[TrappedByMyself]

In fact, that's the kind of behavior you'd expect if they are concerned about getting sued

That's EXACTLY why that want to maintain control over it.
The state and federal highway organizations are very protective of certain data and media concerning the roads because of potential lawsuits.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[Scaba]

...however, it seems the biggest abusers are also those who either write the laws, or pay for the laws.

This has always been true.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[hey!]

It all boils down to expectation of privacy.

There was a case a few years back where a "Cops" style reality show sent cameras with a helicopter emergency medical team. They also put a microphone on the nurse. The victim sued for invasion of privacy. The court held the video footage allowable because it was something anybody standing in the public place could have seen. However the audio recording were ruled to infringe privacy, because you would not normally be privy to the conversation between the victim and the responder.

I know that law and right aren't the same thing, but it seems to me this particular dichotomy at least makes some rational sense. What you would normally expect people to be able to observe from vantage points they have a perfect right to occupy -- that is public. To use technology to penetrate the normal expectation of privacy -- that is an invasion.

Now the copyright argument in this case? Pure swill.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[G00F]

What state is that? I would think it would take a warrant just to be able to listen in on someone like that. In a car taking to a friend, I would expect a certain level of privacy, sure they would see us, but not hear us.

Re:what are they trying to hide?

[ScrewMaster]

Illinois. I would hope it's not standard practice. It did seem to be one of those testing-the-waters situations, where they push the envelope a little to see what kind of reaction they get. A town I lived in about fifteen years ago had a situation where the local police had put in mobile radar cameras and begun issuing automated speeding tickets. There was a huge uproar and the cops had to get rid of them, after expressing "disappointment" at the "poor judgment" of the town's population.

That was then: now they're listening in to what have previously been considered private conversations. And given the court system's tolerance of law enforcement monitoring pretty much anything outside the home, I suspect this will hold up as well, particularly if use the "T" word to justify it. In reality this is just another way to increase the take from a selective tax.

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually if you watch, you can see the guy (or more likely, part of the guy) sail onward from the crash and land on the road.

At least it was quick, right? I mean that -had- to be a suicide attempt.

Misleading Slashdot Article

[Shajenko42]

The Slashdot article does not make it clear that the video was taken using NJTP property. On first reading, I thought that someone used their own camera to record this, and New Jersey was somehow claiming copyright on anything that happened on the turnpike.

Re:Misleading Slashdot Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Thereby increasing page views.

Re:Misleading Slashdot Article

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

NJTP isnt a private organization, they are a branch of the NJ government which is bought and paid for by the people of NJ, and anyone else who pays a dam toll on the NJ turnpike.

Re:Misleading Slashdot Article

[halcyon1234]

That's fine and all, but answer this-- did they get a release form from the driver in question/flames?

I mean, if you're going to claim you own the footage, then you have to take responsibility to securing the rights to use the images of everyone who appears. I don't see a signed, dated Model Release. And no, you can't just build it into the unsigned "contract" of using the turnpike. Not only is the turnpike public, but from the best I can see, even if it was, the driver wasn't on the turnpike. At least, most of him wasn't.

"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[mary_will_grow]

From the summary:

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?

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[FunWithKnives]

Who pays for the cameras on the NJTP? The government. Where do they get their great pile of money from? The public. Which means that anyone should have the right to post or view that video along with any others whenever and wherever they see fit. This reactionary stupidity by NJ is rather weird, and makes it seem like they have something to gain by the censoring of that particular video. Why else would they care enough to invoke the fucking DMCA?

The fact is, though, that the footage of the crash, whether it was captured by an NJTP camera or not, is property of no one but the public who pays for it all.

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people submit stories and summaries before even understanding the target article?

Because they're stupid.

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[noidentity]

Thanks for the correction. This seems to be the downfall of citizen action: citizens exaggerating things in an attempt to gain more audience, but then losing all credibility when others find out what really happened.

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[cgenman]

Why do people submit stories and summaries before even understanding the target article?

Because of the 30 people who submitted that story, 29 took the time to read and understand it and 1 just rushed to submit it. Guess who was first.

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[stereoroid]

I'm still wondering about "a car crash that happened on the turnpike and was, therefore, property of the turnpike".

Who'd want to own a car crash? (I shoulda bin a Engrish teecher, me...)

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[catbutt]

Well, people do elect the officials who made the decision (or at least the people who hire them), so indirectly, it was the people's decision to decide what to do.

I don't agree with the decision, but I also don't agree with your logic. We pay for lots of things that the government keeps secret. For instance, what if it was police photos of the inside of your house taken during an investigation into burglary? How about photos of injuries to a victim of a sex crime? By your logic that should be publically viewable by anyone.

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[FunWithKnives]

You're misconstruing my logic. With regard to evidence that police gather for possible prosecution, there are already laws covering the situation. Also, while the public does pay the salary of the police department, the evidence they gather in the course of investigation is not said to be under copyright. You won't hear of a police department invoking the DMCA to keep people quiet. They will (or should, at least) use the laws that already protect ongoing investigations.

If there is a valid reason to keep this video under wraps for the time being, then the NJTP Authority should invoke the laws that are in place for that type of situation. The incident took place on a public road, and was captured by a public camera. It is not covered by any copyright, it is public domain. If there is no agreeable reason (that is, a reason that would be covered by current law and upheld by a court) to censor this information, such as an ongoing investigation, then there is no justification for the attempted censorship, and the NJTP Authority certainly has no right to claim copyright over it, regardless of the circumstance.

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[RasputinAXP]

Actually, the government pays for nothing concerning the Turnpike or the Parkway. Both roads are paid for solely through the tolls collected on them.

The camera is owned wholly by the NJTPA, and so's the footage. They should be addressing the source of the leak.

That the accident actually happened on the Garden State Parkway, nobody's picked up on yet.

Re:"and was, therefore, property of the turnpike"

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the general level of reading comprehension is not as good as it should be. I tutor adult readers, and I can tell you that there are all levels of comprehension ability out there. And Slashdot proves this every day.

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[FunWithKnives]

Your moral compass does not lead the way for the rest of us, dude. Free speech is not "free until a small subset of the population is offended" for good reason.

Will this ever end?

[Anonymous Coward]

All slashdot is about is posting absurd stories about the actions of insane yahoos somewhere in the world while all the people with half a clue insansly post the same old tired responses.

Re:Will this ever end?

[notnAP]

I'm trying to digg your comment, but I can't find the Digg button...

Oh, wait... nevermind.

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that was a fatal crash. The man is believed to have suffered a seizure which caused him to lose control. Even though help was on the scene mere seconds after the crash, there was nothing that could be done. If the impact didn't kill the driver, which it almost certainly did, the fire made any help impossible.

People watch these videos not because they want to see people die. Crash videos are interesting because they show what can happen. It is an unusual situation, one which most people will (hopefully) never experience themselves. Curiosity is only natural. In this case, curiosity didn't kill anyone, did not play a part in the accident or follow-up accidents and is generally harmless.

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[QuoteMstr]

You're right (aside from the malapropism) in that the crash was probably fatal, and I'd be a little leery of anyone taking a great deal of pleasure from it. Part of living in a free society is allowing others to do things you personally disagree with. That some people might take pleasure in watching somebody die is not a good enough reason for you to support banning the video, or to support the Turkpike Authority's actions, which amount to the same thing.

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[Doctor_Jest]

That's not the point. The point is the NJTA is trying to bully the distribution of the video for rather thinly veiled reasons.

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 the Congressional Record. It's TAX FUNDED camera equipment. It's a PUBLIC ROAD. The NJTA is _not_ a private entity. So, therefore... simple deduction garners one to only this conclusion: THE PEOPLE OWN THE COPYRIGHT.

The NJTA is patently wrong to even attempt this nonsense. It is yet another example of a bad law doing even more bad things in the wild without any legal precedent to strike said law right into the dirt. The DMCA is used to silence the minority, to prevent the truth from coming out, and to put a lid on the powerful's exploits. It is abused and overused... Thank you Bill Clinton. Your legacy is a suppression of the truth just like Shrub's is.

I saw the video earlier today

[AtariDatacenter]

Basically, a small car going at a high speed towards a highway toll. But it fails to go through the toll gate. Instead, it crashed into a barrier that was between lanes, and erupted into a huge fireball. What caught my interest was the number of cars rubbernecking and driving through. And then someone who actually stopped to take a look.

Kind of makes you wonder why someone would be going so fast through a toll gate, but even stranger, why they managed to miss the toll gate and crashed into the barrier between gates. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. But it is a spectacular video to watch.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/n y-bc-nj-njo--fatalcrash-vi0518may18,0,7816124.stor y

The video depicts a car slamming into the Garden State Parkway's Great Egg Harbor toll plaza, about 10 miles south of Atlantic City, at high speed and bursting into flames. Killed in the crash was Bernard King, 52, a casino dealer from Lower Township. State police said Friday that they are still investigating the cause and are trying to determine if King's history of seizures was a factor.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[mgabrys_sf]

re:"What caught my interest was the number of cars rubbernecking and driving through. And then someone who actually stopped to take a look."

Yes - when confronted by a vehcile engulfed in flames my first thought is to jump into the middle of it and not keep my distance.

re:"kind of makes you wonder why someone would be going so fast through a toll gate"

They were probably drunk

re:" but even stranger, why they managed to miss the toll gate and crashed into the barrier between gates."

They were probably drunk

re:"It just doesn't make a lot of sense."

In the United States we have a substance that is served without caution to people at most drinking establishments called alcohol. It's even served when the buyer is obviously drunk already (this is frowned on legally - but often times is secondary to making profit). It impares judgement, vision, and reflexes. Just the thing to consume before getting behind the wheel. People in all countries where alcohol is served often use this lack of judgement to get in their car. Darwin ensues. As far as whether I'd want someone to see my drunk ass getting killed - yes - I would. Might help prevent another drunk idiot splattering their brainpan while "having a Budweiser". Not all of course - perhaps 2. Tops.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[the_cowgod]

TFA has an error, this crash happened on the Garden State Parkway, not the New Jersey Turnpike. Both are toll roads operated by the NJ Turnpike Authority. The parkway has toll plazas in the main traffic lanes at a number of points, so if you were to drive the length of it, you might have to stop and pay a toll 5 or 6 times. Someone who becomes unconcious/asleep/etc while driving might easily smash into the tolls at full speed.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[Em Ellel]

Kind of makes you wonder why someone would be going so fast through a toll gate, but even stranger, why they managed to miss the toll gate and crashed into the barrier between gates. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. But it is a spectacular video to watch I think the official explanation is that the driver had a seizure and lost control, but that police car that arrives seconds later makes me wonder how they got there so fast. But maybe a cop was just nearby.

-Em

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[Anonymous Coward]

The cop probably enabled the secret remote control feature that is mandatory in all cars built after January 1st, 2002. That's why they don't want you to see the video. (In case someone does this to you, the override is "shift-up, shift-up, shift-down, shift-down, steer slightly to the left, steer slightly to the right, steer slightly to the left, steer slightly to the right, wiper, horn, start".)

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[Anonymous Coward]

In France tollbooths are constructed with easily crumpling barriers of several meters to prevent exactly this problem. I gather that even when you drive at 130 km/h (the maximum speed limiet on sunny days - when it rains it's 110 km/h) you have a decent change to survive such a collision.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[ahecht]

One of the articles posted above said that the cop was waiting nearby to pull over trucks that were spewing too much exhaust.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[kinglink]

Ahh I knew this would come up, someone takes an accident and a death as an opportunity to push their agenda on everyone. Let's ignore the fact that millions of people drink and get home safely every day.

And let's ignore the fact we don't know anything about the driver in this situation or what is going on. Even the person before him posting that the man used to have seizures is irrelevant because we got an agenda today.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm used to NY toll roads, but most of them have cops stationed at toll booths. I've always assumed they were 1) there to pull over anyone who ran the booth without paying, 2) probably needed there for fender benders when people tried merging after leaving the booths, and 3) good places to stick cops within easy reach of some high-accident segments of highway. All in all, pretty practical.

So having a cop right there very quickly? Not really suspicious to me.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[mgabrys_sf]

They were probably drunk.

Just because you don't like to hear it doesn't make it probable.

A seizure is improbable. Most cars pull to the left or right when the steering wheel is released. If he were having a fit - it would be faster. That was a straight-on hit with no lateral deviation. The family or rumor mongers most-likely don't want the liability that comes with crashing into a toll-plaza while stone drunk.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[kinglink]

Wait for an autopsy then, wait for any shred of proof, but you won't of course, you've shown that. Even though it'll be obvious if he's drunk if they test the blood alcohol, that will take too long. You want to use the death of a poor man you didn't even know to try to push your agenda of getting rid of alcohol, and that is just distasteful.

Re:I saw the video earlier today

[mgabrys_sf]

Wow - you're a paranoid guilty fuck. I didn't say get rid of alchohol. You did. Stop driving drunk fucker.

Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[bombastinator]

IIRC The reason you can get all those pretty NASA photos for free is that any media created by the government is automatically considered to be property of the American people and as such falls under the public domain.

I took a peek at the NJ turnpike authority website and while the "about us" area is apparently broken, it looks very much like a straight out government agency. (I'm still not totally sure though, the turnpike is a toll road and very well might be private)

I am not opposed to NJ trying to keep video like this off the net. I personally find purient interest in such things to be a bit disgusting. I suspect however that they really needed the freedom of information act (which gives them like 50 years or something, I forget) rather then the DMCA for protection here.

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[John Hasler]

> Isn't all government stuff public domain?

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 themselves to argue successfully that the output of such an automated system is creative.

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[QuoteMstr]

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.

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 true, it shouldn't be. One can apply exactly the same arguments used against federal copyright to state copyright with exactly the same result. It's still not in the public interest to allow the state to hold copyright.

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[bombastinator]

Federal republic actually. IIRC a straight federation would be more similar to the old confederacy,in which I agree your point would hold.

If the public domain issue was based on a legal decision, as is likely, I fail to see how a state could have more protection than the federal government.

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[xvx]

Being a NJ resident myself, and for anyone else who is, know all to well that our state government is extremely corrupt. That being said, the NJ turnpike is actually privately owned in certain sections, if not all of it by now. The NJ state government has been selling it off because it can no longer fund it, money is disappearing. So it will be interesting to see what comes out of this. Aside from that, I fully believe that this falls into public domain, as it is news. It's not every day some jackass tries to fly through a toll booth, thats atleast 8 feet wide and clearly states the speedlimit is 10-15mph, at 90mph+ and blows his/her car up. Especially after our own Governor was almost killed a month or so ago in a car crash because of excessive speeds, this video should be used as a PSA. Even if the video was stolen, it is still news worthy. It's not like anyone would have known this video existed outside of the NJTA and could have made a formal request for the video. They probably have videos that make this one look like a fender bender in comparison.

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[LordCrank]

According to copyright.gov the law states, "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise." This states specifically that the federal government may not receive copyright for works it creates, but it does not deny states the right to receive copyright protection for works they create. The real question is if the video is considered creative enough to warrant copyright protection (in my opinion it's clear that it isn't creative in the slightest).

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[QuoteMstr]

So why wouldn't exactly the same argument against federal copyrights apply to the states? That is, the work is funded by the public, and therefore ought to be owned by the public. The level of government doesn't apply. I wouldn't be surprised if several states waived copyright themselves.

Again, show me some, any, evidence that states can indeed hold copyright. I live in New York, and I've never seen a document copyrighted by the state of New York. Or New Jersey, for that matter.

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, show me some, any, evidence that states can indeed hold copyright.

How about Florida?

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[LordCrank]

The (legal) argument against the federal government being able to hold a copyright is that there is a specific law forbidding this for works that they create. Without a similar law that applies to state governments, there is nothing preventing them from holding copyrights for works that they create. From a legal standpoint all the proof that is needed to show a state can hold a copyright is the fact that no law forbids it.

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[QuoteMstr]

Conceded.

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>> Again, show me some, any, evidence that states can indeed hold copyright.

>> How about Florida?

> Conceded.

Wow, this must be a Slashdot first! Even Al Gore didn't concede Florida! :)

Re:Isn't all government stuff public domain?

[bombastinator]

Mmmm.. That does make me wonder if it wasn't leaked rather than stolen then.

Highways are all going private

[popo]

Think you're driving on public roads? Think again. It's estimated that 35% of public roads will be private within
the next 20 years.

Your rights to photograph (even with your own camera) will soon be seriously curtailed.

The enemy to personal freedoms isn't government -- its private corporations and intellectual property law.

Your masters are corporate.

Re:Highways are all going private

[Anonymous Coward]

All your public roads are belong to us

Re:Highways are all going private

[slacktide]

Yeah, I read that book too. I'm practicing for my new career as a high-speed pizza delivery specialist as we speak.

Re:Highways are all going private

[Anonymous Coward]

Outta mod points...

I loved Snow Crash, especially the fighting between the owners of two private roads that crossed each other. Classic.

Anyway, GP is wrong. Even if it does take place on a private road, it's an acknowledged public space.

Re:Highways are all going private

[avanha]

I just read a Business Week article that talked about this - it probably true, but don't blame the corporations - As usual it's the shortsighted politicians.

1. City and state governments are short on cash and need more money to pay for welfare programs.
2. The can't raise taxes because most people don't want these increases.
3. They can auction off public properties like roads and airports to private companies to get cash now.
4. We'll pay ever increasing tolls and surcharges.
5. The money these governments receive will be wasted in a couple of years anyway and they'll be demanding more tax dollars anyway.

Re:Highways are all going private

[Anonymous Coward]

> City and state governments are short on cash and need more money to pay for welfare programs.

This is pretty funny. Do you REALLY know how much your city and state are spending on public assistance, or are you just taking someone else's word for it?

In my experience, government bodies tend to invite their biggest campaign contributors to slop at the public trough, and somehow I think welfare recipients tend not to be big campaign contributors.

Can the poor, disabled, unemployed and homeless really afford pork?

Streisand Effect

[Mr. Underbridge]

Idiots. If the point was to reduce viewing of the video, this ain't the way.

Re:Streisand Effect

[Dunbal]

link plz, lol

Not Bloody Likely

[QuoteMstr]

That's not a good enough reason for censorship. If you personally don't like the video, don't watch it. I don't particularly like it myself. But who are you and I to force our views on other people? It happened in a public place; should we scrub the memories of the people who were there, lest they tell prurient stories to their friends?

As for the Turnpike Authority -- the name should give you a hint. It's a Public Authority of the same kind famously employed by Robert Moses. The main benefit of an authority over a typical organ of government is that an authority can issue bonds to raise money. Fine. But that it takes on any other corporate-like powers, like being able to hold copyright, while simultaneously being owned by the government is outrageous.

Re:Not Bloody Likely

[bombastinator]

There are other less high minded reasons for censorship. Off the top of my head, One thing I noticed was that the concrete barrier the car blasted into at freeway speed had no impact protection on it. There probably should have been a bunch of those big yellow water barrels or something to divert the impact.

There may be an argument that there is lawsuit material here.

My point about the decency based censorship attempt though was that as a public agency they have to at least make some kind of token attempt because there are going to be fantastically large number of people offended by the thing on that basis. If they didn't it could possibly go even worse for them public relations wise.

Completely asinine reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

New Jersey isn't trying to hide anything, they're just lashing out because a (presumably) state employee who shouldn't have done so made a grisly video public.

I'm not sure how the state could be to blame for the accident itself. At first I thought the driver fell asleep, but the story I read about it later said the driver was a 52 year-old casino worker who had a seizure while behind the wheel. Either way, that car was most likely gonna hit something-- it just happened to be the toll plaza. If the state has any liability concerns, it's probably that the victim's family could sue the state for emotional distress at seeing the guy die on a publicly-released video.

Invoking the DMCA is nothing but a scare tactic to get the video yanked quickly. The road, camera, and tape of the incident are all paid for by tax dollars, so there's no way this can be a copyright issue.

Re:Completely asinine reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, if they're trying to censor the video they are clearly trying to hide it.

And this, children...

[Fuzzums]

This is what happens when you give the big corporations what they want and pass laws that are there for the companies and not for the people. People that a government are supposed to protect / represent.

NJ Just wants the (C)

[N3WBI3]

So they get paid when this thing is aired on Maximum Exposure

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[Anonymous Coward]

> That's a rather sick video anyway, that crash was almost certainly fatal, and any interest in viewing it is pretty mis-appropriated.

"That's the only reason I watch auto racing. I'm waiting for some accidents, man. I wanna see some cars on fire. I don't care about a bunch of red-neck jackoffs driving 500 miles in a circle. Five hundred miles in a circle? Children can do that for christsakes. Doesn't impress me. I wanna see some schmuck with his hair on fire, running around punching his own head trying to put it out. I want to see the pits explode. I wanna see a car doing a 200-mile-an-hour cartwheel. Hey, where else besides auto racing am I gonna see a 23 car collision and not be in the son-of-a-bich? And if a car flies out of control, lands in the stands, and kills 50 spectators, fine! Fuck 'em. Serves 'em right. They paid to get in, let 'em take their chances with everybody else. Just means more fun for me! More fun for me!

"Hey, 'least I admit it. Most people wouldn't admit to those feelings. Most people see something like that on television they'll say 'Oh, isn't that awful? Isn't that too bad?' Lying asholes! You love it and you know it.

"Explosions are fun. And hey, the closer the explosion is to your house, the more fun it is! Did you ever notice that? Sometimes you have the TV on and you're working around the house. Some guy comes on television he says 'Six thousand people were killed in an explosion today.' You say 'Where, where?' He says 'In Pakistan.' You say 'Aw, fuck Pakistan, too far away to be any fun!' But if he says it happened in your home town, you'll say 'Whoa, hot shit! C'mon Dave, let's go look at the bodies!"

"I love bad news. I love bad news. Hey, the more bad news there is, the faster this system collapses. Fine by me! Fine by me. Don't bother my ass."

- George Carlin, "Jammin' in New York"

Who owns the NJTA

[siriuskase]

If it is owned by the state, then the video is public domain. Even if it is a private corporation operating under a state granted monopoly, the state has rights to the footage if it was placed there for public safety. If it is available as evidence in court, for accident investigations or whatever, it is available for other public uses by people other than the state or the NJTA. Standards for keeping publicly owned information classified are high and are completely different than copyright which the stae doesn't have a right to use, since we, all of us, are the state.

Good for the NJ Turnpike

[trimbo]

Not every DMCA request is not a violation of YOUR rights. For a minute, put yourself in the place a relative of the person driving this car, who probably feel asleep at the wheel on the way to work. How do you think they feel about having people watch their loved one die on You Tube? What about their rights?

So far this is the only DMCA request I actually agree with. Using DMCA to get this, an obvious snuff film, off of the web is at least morally appropriate. I too am not sure about the copyright aspect of a public entity's video, but I'm glad they're at least doing something about keeping the video off of YouTube.

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[trimbo]

Accidental double negative. Was supposed to be "Not every DMCA request is a violation of YOUR rights"

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[QuoteMstr]

Even accepting, for the sake of argument, that the video ought to be banned, abusing copyright law to do that hurts us all far more than the video would. You're basically arguing we should be free to abuse the law and ignore its purpose and spirit as long as that abuse is used to further your personal moral crusade. That provides precedent to abuse the law for other ends, which I'm sure you would not so wholeheartedly approve. If you really feel that everyone should have a right to be happy all the time, regardless of others' rights, then lobby your congresscritter to introduce a law making it illegal to show videos that might possibly have the potential to make somebody a little upset for a few minutes. See how far that gets you. People like you are the reason our country is slouching toward fascism.

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[pembo13]

Spoken like a true American.

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[trimbo]

It's common on /. to believe that every slope is slippery, but that's just not true. Because the lawyers at NJ Turnpike concluded they are within the rule of law to ban this video under copyright -- which is their job, to interpret the law -- we're in a fascist state? I hope most people agree that conclusion is absurd.

Also, is it really an abuse if no one would fight it, not out of fear but common sense or decency? You could take their lawyers to court to reinstate the video ... that's what we have courts for. But if you asked a lawyer at the EFF to fight this, for their sake, I hope they would turn you down. Fighting it would mean trying to keep a snuff film, with no political or intellectual value, on YouTube. The EFF should save money and good PR for tangible abuses, like the spying program.

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[MrSteve007]

No intellectual merit? This film teaches me quite a bit. #1. Jersey toll roads are dangerous. Having a seizure on Jersey toll roads near a tool booth is 100% more dangerous than having a seizure on any of my state's non-tolled highways. #2. Whatever make of car he has is dangerous. I wish I knew what make it was. I'm quite sure a BMW or Mercedes wouldn't have blown up in a fireball like that.

Under your interpretation of a 'snuff film' you would also have all the footage of 9/11 confiscated. Complete rubbish.

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[kanweg]

"How do you think they feel about having people watch their loved one die on You Tube? What about their rights?"

Interesting remark, giving rise to plenty of stuff that could be discusse.

So, what about the Twin Towers, the space shuttles, cool US guided missile attacks etc? Shouldn't these be shown, too? Did you turn the TV off, out of respect for the relatives? Advocate to others that they shouldn't watch?

Should the mere mention of such events or your contribution to this discussion then equally be forbidden? It shouldn't be restricted to video, or should it? Any mention would bring the bad thoughts up again, torturing the relatives.

Bert

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[Charlie Kane]

1) You don't know what a "snuff film" is. 2) People don't have a right not to have their feelings hurt. A videotape of a fiery crash on the Garden State Thruway (according to the linked news report, this did not happen on the New Jersey Turnpike) is newsworthy. In fact, having just driven the entire length of the Garden State Thruway yesterday, I took a fairly keen interest in this video, and not just for reasons of prurience/schadenfreude. (Certainly it will make me an even more attentive driver next time I'm on a toll road.) I can't think of a single good reason (again, "my feelings are hurt" doesn't count) why government-owned footage of significant events on a state-owned highway system shouldn't be available to any member of the press or public who wants access to it. Giving the government the right to withhold information from the public on copyright grounds sounds like a Very Bad Idea to me. (Maybe the White House will next try to block newspapers from republishing classified material on the grounds that it violates the government's copyright on those documents?)

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[NevDull]

What rights does the family have regarding this video?

I may be an insensitive prick. OK, I *am* an insensitive prick.

Explain to me a legal right that his family has that's violated by this video being distributed.

Not a moral imperative, not how we should be nice... a right.

Thanks, I knew you couldn't.

Re:Good for the NJ Turnpike

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes, the "ends justify the means" argument. I love it already.

I'm so glad my NJ tax dollars are being wasted

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice to know my exorbitant NJ tax dollars are being utilized so well. Probably some official's lawyer relative or buddy getting the money.

[offtopic] utilize

[QuoteMstr]

Why use "utilize" instead of "use"? It adds nothing but pretention to whatever you're trying to say. Read George Orwell's short essay Politics and the English Language.

Re:[offtopic] utilize

[hamfactorial]

That's a great link, thank you for posting it. I'm annoyed at much of the writing I see today, and now I understand why some of it bothers me so much! Orwell has always been one of my favorites, and I loved the section on bad political writing.

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[morari]

Nuh-uh! That thing was way wicked sick. It had fire and everything, dude!

my 2 cents - FUCK NJ, DMCA, and censorship

[Indy1]

I've mirrored the video, anyone is welcome to grab it and mirror it as they please. Hopefully a lot of our euro friends will mirror it and give the fuckers in NJ the finger.

(as a side note, its a BITCHEN car crash).

http://www.btfh.net/cool-shit/NJSP-car-crash.mpeg

Re:my 2 cents - FUCK NJ, DMCA, and censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that it may be common to post police vehicles around heavy use tolls for a speed trap, etc... But doesn't that police car arrive a bit more quickly than one would expect? I lived just a few blocks away from our local police depot and it still took them 15 minutes to respond to an accident in front of my house.

My theory is that we are seeing the result of a high-speed chase. Normally it wouldn't be taboo to post an accident caused by a police chase. However, if the chase was not appropriate, say that it was due to petty theft or a misdemenor traffic violation, the police could be in trouble for continuing the pursuit. Police officers do have limits to under what circumstances and at what speeds/areas they can chase suspects, if the officer got carried away and caused a fatal crash over something petty they have every reason to try and hide this.

Re:my 2 cents - FUCK NJ, DMCA, and censorship

[LibertarianWackJob]

I was born and raised in NJ and had the misfortune to commute on the GSP for many years. The NJSP often hang around the toll booths in their patrol cars. I always supposed it was to catch or discourage any toll runners.

Offtopic

[PhotoGuy]

Offtopic for sure, and condolences to those who (probably) died in the crash (despite the fact they were going too fast, and obviously not paying attention to signs (and often road bumps) warning of the toll booths and such).

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 doubt it, though, as protecting the toll booth attendants from hazardous drivers seems to make more sense.) Or maybe, the car was just terribly flimsy, a smart car or something?

Re:Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Mass is your friend (if you're a toll booth operator). Wedge-shaped reinforced concrete about 3 feet thick by 6-8 feet long, followed by a metal porta-johnnie (or toll-booth, as they're called), followed by more wedge-shaped reinforced concrete. There are no toll booth operators in the "EZ-Pass only" lanes where cars are supposed to slow down (20-25MPH) and not stop.

Re:Offtopic

[Alioth]

The Smart is NOT at all flimsy. (On the contrary, it's usually the SUVs that are suprisingly un-crashworthy).

Take a look at this video of a Smart Car being crashed head on into a concrete barrier at 70 mph. The passenger area is barely deformed. Indeed, you can still open and close the doors. (Unfortunately, the deceleration forces from hitting a concrete barrier head on will kill you regardless of what you're driving, well, unless you have a ten metre long crumple zone):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s

Re:Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart Cars - Flimsy???

Go watch an old fifth gear episode, they crash a smart into a concrete barrier at 60mph and the passenger compartment does not disform - the doors can still open and close!

A hyundai on the other hand...

What they should be focusing upon

[PhotoGuy]

Is how the video, on a private system, got distributed. I have no problem with it being uploaded to sharing sites, and being on the loose, free of copyright hassles, in itself. It's an interesting clip, and a good cautionary tale. But some bugger who works for, or has access to the government systems, took this from work and put it online.

Copyrights aside, surely *his* employment agreement forbade him for doing so; if not, it should have, and future employment agreements with such workers should; lesson learned. If it did include such a clause, he should be terminated or reprimanded accordingly.

Suing Youtube et al, has only *one* significant effect; creating a buzz so *everyone* (including me) is seeing a video, that would have never otherwise come to their attention.

Re:What they should be focusing upon

[RasputinAXP]

Simple: the New Jersey Turnpike Authority has traffic cameras. They used to have them on the Parkway too, but it appears they're down now. Go figure.

The point

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is not to stop viewing of this video.
The point is to stop viewing of videos made in the future

They are setting up the ground rules which will forbid photography
on their highway.

Re:The point

[QuoteMstr]

It's the highway of the people of the state of New Jersey, not the Authority's highway.

YouTube suing standards

[zukinux]

I think it's quite fashionable to sue YouTube, that's why everyone (Like Uri Geller) is suing them! but I don't think anyone should be sued over posting a video, since in the same situation if this movie was interesting enough people would have shared it at P2P or FTP or even XDCC rooms.
The one who should be sued is the one who published the movie for the first time, i.e if you published a video at some channel at the television, don't blame anyone if it gets to YouTube! if the video is private and wasn't published yet, then it's fair to sue for it.

GOT THAT LAWYERS ?!

Madagascar

[C_Kode]

There is a reason the movie Madagascar called New Jersey a cesspool.

Thanks 'Mericans

[His Shadow]

And your lobbyists are trying to bribe Canadian officials to adopt these idiotic and near fascist intellectual property laws? Has anyone pinned down the exact moment when the government apparatus for the US became entirely the domain of corporations and their shills?

Re:Thanks 'Mericans

[Anonymous Coward]

Shortly after the revolution. No govermnent has ever been free of the influence of the rich.

Re:Thanks 'Mericans

[happy*nix]

1913
President Woodrow Wilson
Instituted the Federal Reserve (A Large PRIVATE central bank). Giving basically a regulated Private bank to control economic policy, and the creation of money.

Nice educational video, google "money as debt"

FOIA

[DustyShadow]

I did like a 2 minute search on Lexis and one case I found was where a county government sued for copyright infringement on tax maps and it was dismissed due to the state's FOIA. So even if they are able to get copyright, the FOIA may trump it.

NJ Crash Video

[JLWoz]

First off, I agree - no way is this video copyright protected. If public money went to it, there is no arguement to not let the public see/broadcast/etc it (except in a case of someone going on trial and/or police are searching for someone, the video is evidence and has something in it that would hinder finding the suspect or would "contanimate a jury pool", then it can be delayed, but still not kept from the public, but by court order only - with "maybe" an exception in a rape on video or something involving a child). As for the guy (or gal) who drove head first into the toll booths - well, that one was an EZPass lane (as proved by that little purple strip above the lane they were attempting to go through at 65 miles an hour). EZPass people don't think they need to slow down (I forget the exact speed limit through those lanes, but it's pretty slow), so the idiot just decided he'd just fly through. As for the other cars - would YOU want to drive close to a car on fire that might blow up? - My only regret, since it was an EZPass lane, there wasn't an over paid politician's relative manning the booth. Harsh I know, but now to my final point... The reason NJ doesn't want the video out, is they don't want everyone to know how dangerous and deadly the tolls are, because they enjoy stealing money from everyone, even when the tolls for the Parkway were suppose to be taken out sometime when I was 1 year old (and now I'm 30!). They don't want people to talk on cell phones, drink coffee and change radio stations - but they DO want us digging for change at 65 miles an hour while people fly in front of us to go several lanes over to the "appropriate" toll lane. Yep, that's the real reason they are supressing the video. If the public has proof the tolls are dangerous, they might actually have to - *gasp* - get rid of them in the duty to public safety!!!

Re:NJ Crash Video

[Anonymous Coward]

As posted slightly further up the page, the guy driving the car was known to be prone to having random seizures. But wow, thats some serious hate you've got for tollboths there.

Re:NJ Crash Video

[kanweg]

I believe you forgot to mention his fine understanding that stuff, such as roads, has to be paid for.

Bert
Who doesn't like referenda, where a decision is made by the average wisdom of the voters
Who doesn't like decisions being made by politicians who don't explain stuff to their electorate and, instead, perpetuate stupid cliches that government is bad, taxes are bad etc.

Re:NJ Crash Video

[Blackknight]

It's only dangerous if you drive like a moron. Every toll I've been through has you slow down, even for the EZ Pass lanes. The other lanes you just slow down and wait in line.

Re:NJ Crash Video

[tftp]

but they DO want us digging for change at 65 miles an hour

Is there any specific punishment these days for stopping at the booth and *only then* reaching for the coins? If a business wants my money it *will* wait while I get it out.

A primer on the NJ Turnpike Authority

[RasputinAXP]

The accident happened at the Egg Harbor toll plaza on the Garden State Parkway, not the New Jersey Turnpike.

The confusion here is that the New Jersey Turnpike Authority is in charge of both the Turnpike and the Parkway.

Always glad to enlighten non-Jerseyans, though.

May not be copyrightable at all.

[Animats]

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, note 153. The Supreme Court ruled in Feist vs. Rural Telephone 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.

Re:May not be copyrightable at all.

[evilviper]

The output of a security camera has no author. That's the key here. Copyright must start with an author.

How about if an author mounts his camera on a tripod, and leaves it there, rolling? How is that legally different than someone installing security cameras? How long without human intervention before the output of a camera loses it's originality?

Re:May not be copyrightable at all.

[tftp]

I can't say what a court (or a lawyer) would say about your questions, but if I were on a jury and without any other guidance, I would ask myself what role the supposed author had in creating the work.

If you are a photographer you choose the model, the place, the lighting, the film, the postprocessing ... those are the tools that you wield to create your masterpiece. Now, in this scenario the supposed author only picked the angle of the camera, but had no control over other essential elements.

As a juror, I would award him a tiniest copyright on the camera position and orientation -- but only if he proves to the jury that it was his artistic vision, and not some technical necessity, that prompted him to mount the camera there. If, however, I am told that the camera was there just because there is only one suitable anchor, and the camera had to be oriented this way to get coverage of all toll booths (as it seems to be in the video) then his artistic claims disappear, replaced by a utilitarian need to record events in a specific area. There is no artistry if you are told what to do and how. An artist has to have a free will.

law system for the net

[Ep0xi]

The laws above the internet should be somehow special because of the reach of the system.
Imagine if you are in a poor village and some person says something wrong about you, but you don't want to be in public to comment about the damage, then the fair trial should be multiplied by the number of persons involved in the damage: The public.
That would be justice applicable to the internet laws, because that is the justice i've paid for.

Background on the crash

[jokestress]

"Killed in the crash last week was Bernard King, 52, of Lower Township, Cape May County... King, a dealer at the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort, was traveling south on the parkway when he crashed into the Great Egg Harbor toll plaza in Somers Point around 8:30 a.m. on May 10... King's mother, Edna King, said her son had a seizure about three hours before the accident... King's car was traveling an estimated 65 mph when it hit the toll booth." Parkway officials investigate leaked video of fiery crash

Re:Background on the crash

[Random Destruction]

I thought having seizures prevented one from getting/keeping a license. The guy I knew who had them wasn't allowed to get his license until he had been seizure free for a year. Certainly sounds like he shouldn't have been driving.

Re:Background on the crash

[Kadin2048]

He shouldn't have. Unfortunately, the restrictions against people who have seizures are so strict, that many people who occasionally have minor seizures fail to report them, because it can be ruinous to lose your driver's license. (Lose license = lose job, lose house, etc.) There's very little middle ground.

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.

Re:Background on the crash

[NMerriam]

He shouldn't have. Unfortunately, the restrictions against people who have seizures are so strict, that many people who occasionally have minor seizures fail to report them, because it can be ruinous to lose your driver's license. (Lose license = lose job, lose house, etc.) There's very little middle ground.

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 occurred, and because they were on the left even if one had come on suddenly it didn't really affect her ability to operate the gas/brake or steer out of traffic to wait for them to end. She didn't report it precisely because she needed to drive to get to work and knew she'd lose her license, have to drop out of school, etc.

Re:Background on the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

not having a license does not magically keep someone from driving, 95% of all stupid morons that get nabbed for drunk driving end up happily driving on their suspended license.

Honestly the man's foolishness and rampant carelessness is what killed him. Having a seizure and then going for a drive is plain old full blown stupidity. His family is incredibly lucky he did not kill someone.

If you have seizures and you drive, you are FUCKING STUPID.

Re:Background on the crash

[enronman]

The system as it is, only punishes people who have seizures and are honest about it. Maybe you want to reword that? Find a word besides punish, because not allow someone who is a danger to other to drive isn't punishment.

Re:Background on the crash

[packeteer]

because not allow someone who is a danger to other to drive isn't punishment.

So true...

A person who has seizures should right a bicycle. I personally commute on a bicycle and it works great. Yes it would be VERY dangerous to have a seizure on a bike but it is less dangerous than a car. Maybe you would get run over but you wouldn't endanger anyone but yourself. As much as i would like to sympathize with someone who has minor seizures and their supposed "need" to drive what society needs is to have drivers who can safely operate their cars.

Someone proposed once to make cars with controls that were small joysticks like a video game so that people without normal arms can drive a car. The problem with this is that it is dangerous because it is too easy to bump or lose control of a small control, in a car you need big movement to get big change in direction/speed. It is sad but necessary that some disables people just can't drive a car. Remember there is no "right" to drive a car. It is a privilege granted by the state you live in, you need a license to drive a car. You also give up certain rights when you drive because it is not a right itself, if you don't like the rules of the road or the rules that apply to drivers you are not obligated to drive.

Re:Background on the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

The system as it is, only punishes people who have seizures and are honest about it.

Losing your drivers license might be viewed as a punishment for being honest about seizures, but in light of the current Slashdot story it appears that the punishment for being dishonest about seizures is even worse:

Dying in a fiery crash.

This leads me to believe that "the system" is actually rewarding honesty; only nature is to blame for punishing people who have seizures.

Re:Background on the crash

[Kadin2048]

Might depend on the law of the state he's in, or the guidelines followed by his physician. Where I used to live, the rule seemed to be pretty much universally applied: seizure-free for a year or no license, or at least that's my understanding based on the (several) people with epilepsy that I knew.

A quick look at the Epilepsy Foundation's web page on the subject reveals a lot of variability. Some states have no mandatory seizure-free period, some are 90 days, some are as long a year, with mandatory physician-reporting and examination requirements. (If you want to see two relative extremes, compare, say, Connecticut and the District of Columbia.)

Re:Background on the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

because not allow someone who is a danger to other to drive isn't punishment.

Preventing somebody from getting an education or earning a living is punishment, and driving is pretty much part of that. Welcome to America.

Re:Background on the crash

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Besides, it implies that this guy who was burned to death screaming in agony in his car got off scott-free, while those who are prevented from dying in the same way are punished.

Believe me, the guy who lied about his seizures definitely got punished for it.

Re:Background on the crash

[RevAaron]

Remember there is no "right" to drive a car. It is a privilege granted by the state you live in, you need a license to drive a car.

Remember there is no "right" to life (unless you're a fetus). It is a privilege granted to you by the economic system you live in.

And unfortunately, for most folks (especially lower-income folks) that economic system requires driving. I don't doubt this guy could've found some job he could've walked to or biked to and made a lot less money at it. I don't know how NJ is laid out, but I don't think you'd be riding your bike along the highway to get to a job that paid more than $8/hr.

You're lucky you can ride your bike to work, work that presumably pays decently. I work at home, and am also lucky. But I can see people making these sorts of stupid judgement calls when their livlihood is at stake, or percieved to be so.

Re:Background on the crash

[RevAaron]

Note on your .sig:

Conservatism is a failed ideology which has joined communism in the trash heap of history.

Well conservatism (even radical conservatism) has always been a failed ideology. Throughout history it has been nothing but a looking backward; to tribalism, feudalism, monarchy, and various individual systems and ways of thought and doing things. Progress always wins out, for better or for worse.

"Communism" should be corrected to "Leninism." Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, and their ilk have beat this dead horse for a century, but there are many other aspirant ideologies which either self-ident or could be called "communism" that either have been tried or have been tried in some way and done OK (Spanish Civil War, say).

Re:Background on the crash

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I'm interested in practical applications mainly, and I can point to many successful applications of socialism, but it's hard to find good examples for communism. I'm always happy to be proved wrong, but I remain very sympathetic to socialism, and not so much to communism.

Re:Background on the crash

[someone1234]

Apparently he got his punishment dished out too. Why people try to outsmart rules that are there for their own safety?

Re:Background on the crash

[Thomas Shaddack]

Because taking the risk is more palatable than losing job/school/house/whatever?

Your question would make sense perhaps in some country with well-developed public transportation.

Re:Background on the crash

[RevAaron]

I'm interested in practical applications mainly, and I can point to many successful applications of socialism, but it's hard to find good examples for communism. I'm always happy to be proved wrong, but I remain very sympathetic to socialism, and not so much to communism.

Well, then first there has to be some clarification. Not to play semantic musical chairs, but simply because most folks don't have the right information.

1. "Socialist" is what the USSR claimed and China, etc claim to be. Specifically they claim to follow "Marxism-Leninism." In my reading of Trotsky, I think they are pretty close, that it wasn't Stalin that "wrecked it" (what kind of shitty political/economic system is that?), but was set up for failure from the beginning. Today's China is essentially an capitalist political tyranny, though they do have some state owned enterprises. So, at this point you have to decide: their definition of socialism, or Marx's?

2. The same thing has been done to the word "democracy"

3. What do you mean by socialism? Norway and the like? Those countries are social democracies. They've done pretty good with that, higher standards of living than in the US at least. But a socialist is generally of the mind that those social democracies could do a lot better, with the economy being directly democratically (not privately, be it by a board or an individual) directed and owned by the people. Not by corporations, not by the State. Social democracies are generally just welfarist, nothing more. Socialism, in the broad sense, is *nothing* but the idea that the society should own the means of production, not individuals. This holds true for Marxism, anarchism, and all sorts of other isms, even though they clash on a million other things. The social democracies do not fulfill this basic requirement and as such are not "socialist." I personally think that a technology-driven social democracy is somewhere on the way to socialism, which is in line with Marxian thought (though not Leninist ideology). That said, there will still be a point, when the technology is available, that the people will need to rise up and take the reigns. It might be easy, it might be hard.

4. In my opinion, the only way real socialism will be enabled is through nanotech/molecular assembly and the kind of communications network the Internet will grow into. It's the only way to organize the kind of direct democratic control socialism requires. True (ala me) Marxian socialism was no obtainable in 1917, in 1949, nor in 2007. It might be in 20-100 years, though.

5. A State is defined by an organization that has a monopoly on the right to use force.

6. "Communism" is simply that stage of "socialism" when the state isn't needed anymore. That doesn't mean that a lot of the functions of a government, as in the US for instance, wouldn't be needed. Instead there would be democratic organizations and in some cases elected committees/bodies taking care of things. The only real difference between a bunch of bodies doing what the people want and a socialist "state" is that the State (like in a republic like the US) has a monopoly on force, presumably to surpress enemies of the state, people and new system.

7. Perhaps a State is inherently corrupt and self-interested. I don't know the answer to this. Anarchists differ from Marxists in that they assert this. They call for immediate communism- a voluntary society without enforcement at the beginning. The Marxists say "um, but what about when the capitalists try to counter-revolt?" I could take this a lot further, but I'll leave that to you to think about. I personally lie in between- I consider myself a pragmatist, and as such see the need for counter-revolutionary supression, but see that any organ tasked with thus is by the rules of human organization will soon become more interested in self-preservation than anything else and as such cannot itself allowed to survive and dominate. So, I'm a Marxist? Perhaps my concept of a socialist "state" is that it isn't a state, but some body given extraordinary power to organize people into new bodies, rather than move them to act itself. But by the definition of state, that isn't a state- so I'm an anarchist? Labels don't concern me.

ok I'm going back to bed!

Re:Background on the crash

[Profane MuthaFucka]

#4 is my favorite kind of socialism, just so you know. Also, communism has the implication of violent revolution, while socialism doesn't make that necessarily so.

Re:Background on the crash

[Ginger Unicorn]

its a lot more ruinous to lose your life. i'd rather be alive and poor than killed in a car accident.

Re:Background on the crash

[budgenator]

Doesn't hurt as much as you'd imagine, the pain overwhelms before the mind can process it into anything like hurt or agony. After the blisters break open and big flaps of skin fall away so the air can hit the raw nerve ending that's when it starts to hurt

Re:Background on the crash

[Maxo-Texas]

Conservatism- small government vs Conservatism- clinging to yesterdays values.

The first always succeeds in the short term but people slowly grow government and lock in "noble"/upper class/rich privileges until it finally fails.

We need a cap on spending, and a cap on the number of years any law can run.

We have neither.

I'm just trying to get by as best I can til I kick off. I really think the next generation is screwed.

Re:Background on the crash

[RevAaron]

Conservatism- small government vs Conservatism- clinging to yesterdays values.

The first always succeeds in the short term but people slowly grow government and lock in "noble"/upper class/rich privileges until it finally fails.

Well, that's just it- class interests and moral crusades trump the idealism of small government. Small government as a conservative goal is based in that looking-backward vision, to a time when the government was smaller. This rallying cry is held even when it doesn't make sense, though these days it isn't ever implemented. Unless "smaller government" means "bigger military." I guess if we just had a military dictatorship the civilian government could be pretty small. Someone should run that by Cheney.

We need a cap on spending, and a cap on the number of years any law can run.

Couldn't agree more. Wouldn't mind shrinking government a bit, but I think a fair bit could be done without loss of services, which is counter to the way both parties think.

Re:Background on the crash

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I've gone into detailed analysis in my journal about why the small government ideas which conservatism supposedly clings to aren't really due to any kind of belief in small government as much as it is a belief that government should only help people in small ways.

Conservatives relish huge government when it comes to manly-man things, such as the military and war. Libertarians do themselves a huge disservice to believe that conservatives are aligned with them. It's not enough to use the same political rhetoric. For people to be truly aligned with you, they have to want the same things for the same *reasons*.

So, I think you've got the situation nailed down with regard to the conservatives and their love of military spending.

Re:Background on the crash

[Anonymous Coward]

In California it's upto a doctor whether or not you can get a driver's license. My Neurologist set a requirement that I couldn't have more than 6 and had to be seizure free for at least 1 year or else he would not approve me getting a license. It's not so much that there's some magic number, but the doctor wanting to make sure that whatever medication they load you up on is going to work at suppressing your seizures. I've been off medication since 1997, and haven't had a single seizure since then.

Re:Background on the crash

[Maxo-Texas]

The people who have coopted the term conservative want huge government.

Personally, I'd prefer an absolute maximum of 25% taxes from all layers of government with the right to refuse to pay the government entity of your choice when the total rate exceeded 25%.

The problem right now is that there is no limit- left unchecked "conservatives" and "liberals" in power will both spend every dime we have and more.

Re:Background on the crash

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I'm not really sure that conservatives *ever* wanted small government, but I am gratified that more and more libertarians are understanding their moral basis, and the conservative moral basis, to a deeper degree. They are realizing that conservatives are morally nothing at all like libertarians, and they are not allies at all, except in the most superficial sense.

But I disagree with your last statement about liberals spending every last dime. If you examine the record you'll find that liberals are much more fiscally responsible than conservatives. Not perfect, but better. The reason is that our moral core requires that we provide opportunity equally to everybody. Huge debts restrict our ability to do this. Huge debts hurt the people who are traditionally denied opportunity.

Re:Background on the crash

[Maxo-Texas]

Sadly true.

Clinton was clearly better. But he was a very conservative liberal.

Every "conservative" since and including Reagan has been insane with regard to spending compared to liberals. However, the liberals were passing those bills to be signed. They made a deal for guns AND butter.

What is exactly their property?

[t_ban]

a car crash that happened on the turnpike and was, therefore, property of the turnpike.

What happened on the turnpike was the accident. So they can keep their accident, which is their property. They can sue anyone who attempts to distribute the accident without their permission.

The video, however, is a different thing altogether.

NJ property? Owned by its citizens?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than claim it's NJTA property, which by default is the people's property...

I always thought that NJ was owned by an organized crime syndicate, not it's citizens.

Re:NJ property? Owned by its citizens?

[cpt kangarooski]

I always thought that NJ was owned by an organized crime syndicate, not it's citizens.

No, think about it. No rational person would ever want to own New Jersey. Really, the only people who would be crazy enough to want to own NJ are the same people who are crazy enough to live there!

Of course...

[Belial6]

The video being available could help prevent what my city was doing. Namely covering up accidents so that they would not need to fix the roads. I ended up selling my home because after 150 accidents in one years, just on my block, I started pushing to have the road fixed. It turned out that the city government was well aware of the accidents, and had alterer motives for not fixing the road. When we started taking photos, and reporting the accidents, the mayor told me she would speak to the chief of police. Three days later, I got a call from a person identifying themselves as a lieutenant at the police department. He proceded to try to brow beat me into dropping the issue, and finally told me that I better drop the issue because "we know who you are".

Re:Of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Three days later, I got a call from a person identifying themselves as a lieutenant at the police department. He proceded to try to brow beat me into dropping the issue, and finally told me that I better drop the issue because "we know who you are".

Too bad you didn't get a recording of that call. It would have made a very interesting news item.

These assholes need to remember who they're working for!

doesn't matter

[r00t]

Really, he's not going to get upset about the video.

Anyway it's public record and even a news story.

Video shows police chase gone wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have another look at the video, more closely this time. It is quite obvious in the higher quality versions that the second car coming up to the toll gates after the crash is a police car with the lights on the roof flashing.

A grand total of 13 seconds passes between the initial impact by the crashed car and up until the police car comes to a complete stop. A fair amount of that time, about four seconds, shows the police car rolling slowly to a stop on camera. In other words it was giving chase to the crashed car, since there is only nine seconds worth of driving time between the crash victim and the police car. Some of those nine seconds was spent slowing down the chase car off camera, so unless you believe in extremely unlikely coincidences, then the police car was right on the tail of the crash victim a few moments before the crash.

Your speculations as to motives may commence below.

Re:Video shows police chase gone wrong.

[DruidFyr]

Those numbers also work if the trooper was on speed gun duty just before the toll. (ironically for the purpose of slowing drivers down as they approach)

I've seen troopers in several states take up positions both before and after toll areas.

Makes for lots of sudden braking.

4/29 was an inside job!!!!11

[u2boy_nl]

The freeway collapse in San Francisco showed very thin concrete and poor adhesion, in my opinion.

Hmmm, the 4/29 Truth Movement could use an expert like you to prove that the 4/29 freeway collapse was the result of a controlled demolition...

Who has the right to sue?

[mangu]

the estate of the dead guy to sue under an right of publicity/invasion of privacy theory.

I don't think anybody has a right to privacy about something that happens in public.

Why did the guy crash? According to this 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 and no one else was injured, he could have very easily killed innocent people.

Now, the reason why I think the highway agency is trying to kill this video is because it shows how insecure the toll booths are. It would be very easy and cheap to build a crash barrier so that any car that goes off the lanes would be stopped without exploding like the car in the video did. Just a few sand-filled plastic barrels in front of each booth would do it.

If anybody has a right to sue, I guess it would be the family of the driver that would have the right to sue the NJTA over the lack of such a protective barrier. I believe it should fall more or less in the same case of the people who successfully sued Ford because their relatives were killed in a Pinto that burst in flames in a crash. Even if Ford didn't cause those accidents, they should have provided better protection for the gas tank in the car.

To all the lawyers who /.

[HouseArrest420]

To all who have said this is invalid: If you have a naked sex video of your neighbor, that your neighbor gave you; does the neighbor have any say to what you do with it? No, once it leaves their hands they lose all legal claim. Could they sue if you put it on the internet? Yeah...but only for deformation of character, and even then unless your lawyers knew nothing at all, their chance of winning is small. The actual tape belongs to NJTA. If you think your local supermarket wouldn't sue you if you stole their security footage your to dumb to even contemplate this so stop reading. So can NJTA sue for the use of it? Hell yeah. Can they win? Hell yeah. Is it right? Probably not, but consider: You snuck that video of your neighbor, copied it, replaced the original and then spread your copy over the internet. Can your neighbor sue you? Hell yeah...and they'd win with no trouble at all. NJTA is just covering it's ass in case the family sue's. If you don't like it...petition. The only way NJTA is going to lose this is if they fight for the wrong reason. Watch and see. Either way you'll have to cry me a river, build a bridge and then get over it. (and that's no flame)

Re:To all the lawyers who /.

[wombert]

Could they sue if you put it on the internet? Yeah...but only for deformation of character

They shouldn't get all bent out of shape about it...

Re:To all the lawyers who /.

[HouseArrest420]

oh wow, just realized this was posted twice. The first was getting typed up as my manager walked by and I exited quicly, so for this one I didn't think it had already been submitted. Sorry to everyone who felt the need to read this one. It's the same as the first with a little bit more.

Re:To all the lawyers who /.

[Anonymous Coward]

HA420, the one who owns the copyright interest in the video has the legal claim, whether they give you a copy of the tape or not. The question here is whether the NJTA has a copyright interest in the security camera video. They may not for many reasons.

Re:To all the lawyers who /.

[HouseArrest420]

That arguement is all but valid. Your only thinking of "hollywood" industry version of legal. If I make a tape of you taking a shower, without your knowledge and you find out and sue....guess who gets tape? I'll give you a hint, the word can be replaced by one letter. Copyright is no question in this case because....there is no copyright. In such cases possession is 9/10 of the law, and how you came to possess is 1/10. NJTA is going to win if they fight for the wrongful use of thier surviellence tapes, and the theft of said tape. If they try to go for anything else they will lose. Now if the family decides to get involved, they can definelty win the case that's before NJTA. But they'd only win if they fought for the same reasons that would have NJTA losing this case.

May 10th, 1886

[Tony]

Has anyone pinned down the exact moment when the government apparatus for the US became entirely the domain of corporations and their shills?

Sure. May 10th, 1886, SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY. That's when corporations were granted "personhood," with the same rights and protections as individuals.

At that point, corporations stopped being entities that existed only by charter of the people. For good, and especially for ill.

DMCA?

[nurb432]

Who recorded the crash? If it wasnt them, then the DMCA does not even apply.

Be careful what you wish for

[SashaMan]

Because it's easier to illegally invoke the DMCA (god, why can't this law be struck down?) Be careful what you wish for. The DMCA is what's allowing Google to thumb their noses at the likes of Viacom and their ilk. The DMCA states that a site operator is immune if they comply with takedown notices. Thus, someone puts up an episode of the Daily Show on YouTube, Viacom sends a takedown notice, Google complies, and then seconds later someone has reposted it. This can go on ad infinitum, meaning that most of the time the video is available (users can repost videos MUCH faster than Viacom can monitor YouTube).

Sure, there is the problem that it's pretty easy to send a frivolous take-down notice and most site operators will comply rather than risk a lawsuit, but with the proliferation of so many video sites, the content will just pop up somewhere else, and the copyright owners are destined to lose this game of whack-a-mole.

Re:Be careful what you wish for

[Doctor_Jest]

I thought the common carrier (for lack of a better term) was in effect long before the DMCA for things like the phone company, etc. The common carriers can't be held liable for misuse of its network, and so forth.... (under most circumstances...) Like if someone phones in a death threat to a radio station, the cops can't go after AT&T... which come to think of it, would be really hilarious. :)

Did the DMCA clarify that for the internet age? (I haven't read it in ages... so I forget...) Or did it just narrowly define "compliance" as a substitute for common carrier?

And the whack-a-mole would exist without the DMCA, simply because the internet isn't in one country... the content just moves to a "safer" locale and the copyright goons will have to start all over again...

Why they even bother is the amusing part.

To all the lawyers who /.

[HouseArrest420]

To all who have said this is invalid: If you have a sex video of your neighbor, that your neighbor gave you; does the neighbor have any say to what you do with it? No, once it leaves their hands they lose all legal claim. Could they sue if you put it on the internet? Yeah...but only for deformation of character, and even then unless your lawyers know nothing at all, their chance of wining is small. To thos who will say that's not a good example, try this one: You're a moron if you think your local supermarket wouldn't sue if you stole their security video that showed the manager jackin his meat in some jars of mayonnaise (sp?) This "tape" belongs to NJTA regardless of what you think, purely by possession alone. So can they sue for the use of it? Hell yeah. Can they win? Hell yeah. Is it right? Probably not, but consider: You snuck that sex video of your neighbor, replaced the original and then spread your copy over the internet. Can your neighbor sue you? Hell yeah...and they'd win with no trouble at all. NJTA is just covering it's ass in case the family sue's. If you don't like it...petition. But eventually your going to have to cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it. The ONLY way NJTA is going to lose this is if they fight for the wrong reason. Which is exactly why all the sites involved have "tried" to comply already. -- The easiest way to win an arguement is to make the other involved party think they're wrong.

Gotta love the other drivers

[Tony]

Notice how only *one* other car stops? Nobody gets out to help, nothing.

We live a great fuckin' world.

Re:Gotta love the other drivers

[tftp]

If I were there I would stop a good distance away because:

• I should stay around in case a witness is needed, unless a police officer says otherwise.
• But I should not obstruct the approach and actions of firemen and police.
• And I don't want to see secondary explosions too close.
• And I can't just waltz into the fire and save the people inside.

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 stopped at least 100-150 ft. away, or just drove through the EZ pass because their help was *obviously* not needed (unless one of them could bring back the dead - a crash at 90+ mph is deadly enough even without the fire.)

Re:Gotta love the other drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

... did you even see the video? Nobody survived that crash. There were also two cops there in 30 seconds. Getting out wouldn't do anything, and might even slow down the cops. Nobody did anything wrong (well, except the driver), this shows nothing wrong with the world... you're just being cynical.

Re: Crash - they do explode!

[janrinok]

So US cars do explode when they crash - just like in films! Fortunately, I drive a European car....... :-)))

GLHF

[Myria]

I saw this movie a week ago, and it wasn't on YouTube. Was it even on YouTube first? Good luck and have fun enforcing this one, New Jersey.

Re: Crash - they do explode!

[DamnStupidElf]

If you look closely, there's a large curb in front of the toll booth. The car can be seen leaving the ground as its front end hits the curb, so it's very likely that the gas tank (which is almost always mounted below the trunk) hit the curb also. At 80 or 90 MPH (given the speed of the other cars), I don't think many gas tanks would hold up to a direct impact like that. With the forward momentum, all the gasoline ends up in the engine compartment next to the exhaust system which is more than hot enough to ignite it.

Property of the Turnpike?

[Khyber]

I thought the roads, funded by public tax money and the public paying tolls, meant it's a public resource. Shouldn't we have the right to look at that video footage since our money paid for the structure? How can you claim a copyright when the public practically paid for everything there, including the cameras, doesn't that make it public property?

Re:Property of the Turnpike?

[BradleyUffner]

The same reason I can't go down to the publicly funded library you use and get a copy of any books you checked out. Just because it's paid for with tax dollars doesn't mean you get to do what you want with it.

Re:Property of the Turnpike?

[Quila]

The federal government has it right. No work created by the federal government can be copyrighted, as it's public record. However, they do often get around this by contracting for the creation of the work, and then having the contractor assign copyright back to the federal government.

But as for states, they all have their own rules. And many retain copyright on publicly-created works.

New Jersey = Armpit of America

[PortHaven]

As the NJTA is the property of the people. Such should be public knowledge. But I'd expect this crud from a state like New Jersey.

Almost 90% of all my LJ phone posts were made while traveling through N.J. I don't know what it is about that miserable state that it is the only state out of half the nation I've driven through that is so piss-poor to drive through as to cause me to post in frustration.

DON'T EVER GET OF AN EXIT IN NEW JERSEY...JUST HOLD YOUR SHIT IN TILL YOU GET TO ANOTHER STATE (Jersey seems to think that having food/gas/etc signs for facilities over 5 miles away is acceptable for their highways system. You get off for a McDonald's and 45 minutes later get there only to find that the McDonald's closed at 9pm.

Nope...no doubt about it NEW JERSEY SUCKS

Ha, that's nothing!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

This "nitwit" you speak of has a car that looks actually like a police car, complete with flashing lights and all. He doesn't run towards the burning car either, but walks to the booth 1 over from the far left, or at least that's where is is at when the video is stopped.

Finally, I don't know almost anything about car collisions, but I believe the "secondary explosion" already happened. The car smashes into the building, it's rear end rises up, wheels and all, then falls down, and then the entire thing is engulfed in a fireball of death. Which I think is the secondary explosion.

What if the guy knew there was a police car tailing him (flashing lights or no) and was freaking out? He may know at least that it probably should be illegal to drive with whatever drugs he was on for the seizures, or even just that early after haing one. The stress may have induced some health problem or something. Or, he may have been paying too much attention to what was behind him rather than what was in front of him...

That is, of course heavily based on the assumtion that he actually had these health problems. Where does it say that?
I should probably get an account here finally...

Re:Ha, that's nothing!

[Anonymous Coward]

He had his cruise control engaged, that's why he was rolling at speed during the siezure. Most tollways have "TEST YOUR BRAKES" signs a mile out. That's so you'll disengage cruise.

Once you get a job a buy a functioning car you'll see how this works.

Big Brothers watching and owns all your....

[3seas]

...base in the form of copyright.

The real question is who was able to obtain the video in the first place? Do they work for the suing party?

Couldn't this be a set up to get money out of video sites?

Seems to me they need to go after the original poster of the video. Isn't that what the RIAA would do?

Re:Big Brothers watching and owns all your....

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the RIAA would go after every viewer of the video, since they're just average americans instead of career criminals. Much easier to hunt down, attack, and devour for predators.

Re: Crash - they do explode!

[janrinok]

Perhaps you should build them without curbs then?

Using abuse as an opportunity to act out anger?

[Futurepower(R)]

It's interesting to read the responses to my parent comment. When someone speaks out against abuse, often he or she is attacked by smaller abusers. It is VERY abusive that New Jersey pretends to own video of incidents built on public highways. VERY abusive.

There is an area under the freeway in Portland, Oregon where people often walk to go downtown. When you look up from there, the roads seem much better and stronger built than in Oakland.

Re: Crash - they do explode!

[Blackknight]

Not just European cars, any diesel vehicle would just leak without catching on fire.

Not true

[Anonymous Coward]

Works by the federal government are automatically PD. Some states make their works PD, others retain the copyright.

Saw this on my Local News

[donmilo]

I saw this a couple days ago on my local news. The story was about NJ suing YouTube and other Video sites for showing the video. My local news station then proceeds to AIR THE VIDEO, in order to show the viewers what NJ did not want aired!

He thought he could escape?

[kasperd]

despite the fact they were going too fast, and obviously not paying attention to signs

Did you notice the police car arriving 13 seconds after the accident? Coincidence? I think not. This guy was probably trying to escape from the police.

Even IF...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Even if the video is property of the NJTA, who the fuck owns the NJTA? The PEOPLE who pay taxes for the NTJA to exist. The people who pay tolls, etc.

It was them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet again slashdot has misrepresented a story. Shocking.

Hopeless

[Stanislav_J]

...unfortunately, the video was copied to several other sites.

This is why in the digital age, policing these things will be nigh unto impossible. A sufficiently interesting or controversial video can literally circle the globe in a matter of minutes or hours, and by the time YouTube takes anything down, chances are it's already been posted on dozens of other sites anyway. And while they try to get it taken down on those sites, it continues to spread. (And there are more little video sharing sites popping up every day, not to mention getting put in people's blogs, e-mailed around, possibly put on torrent sites, etc.).

Imagine you go out into your yard, and there's a bear. You shoot the bear, but now there a dozen more bears. And every time you shoot one of them, more show up. That's kind of what trying to contain this stuff is like -- it's an exercise in futility. Information spreads too rapidly to be contained in the Internet age.

LiveLeak

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm somewhat surprised that LiveLeak removed it. Ever since Ogrish merged all of their content into LL you would think that this stuff would stay on with a bit more of a fight.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that if this hits Digg this video is going to be one of the most viewed on the internet.

"requested the footage be removed via DMCA..."

[Joce640k]

They "requested the footage be removed", thus guaranteeing that that this obscure video would be copied all over the internet and millions of people would get to see it.

Will they never learn?

Cars and the 4th Amendment

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

Oh, it is possible to refuse a police search of a car under the 4th Amendment. It just doesn't happen very often.

Consider jurisdiction

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

NJTA is not suing LiveLink (yet) because LiveLink is based in the UK. UK legal system is "loser pays." Think what happens if the NJTA loses that suit!
Presumably, they are suing YouTube after the takedown because someone else immediately put it back. Providers are not normally required to check to see if someone is putting up the exact same video someone else has taken down, but maybe the NJTA thinks accidental snuff films from their cameras should be an exception.

I saw this on the 10 o'clock news.

[jhesse]

Which showed it not twice, but *three* times, and also mentioned that YouTube was being sued over it.

Way to get publicity, NJTA!

topic-focused link aggregators

[drDugan]

this situation is exactly why link aggregators are back.

focused on one topic, and finding content across multiple different sources

like this one on election 2008 videos
http://www.vid08.org/ (yes, a shameless plug)

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to watch videos like this, it's a good reminder to drive a little slower and pay more attention (even though that was probably not the cause in this crash). Our vehicle's are so quiet and comfortable these days, it's hard to remember that we are doing something inherently dangourus going at high speeds past stationary objects, and other cars, where just a little loss of concentration and boom, we're toast.

Look at the video.

[Futurepower(R)]

I hadn't seen the video when I made that comment.

The barrier that the car hit is supposed to take away the energy of a car over a few milliseconds and prevent extreme damage. However, the car was traveling fast. Maybe there is no way to design a system to stop a car going that fast.

Anyhow, I don't think the government should have copyright on anything owned by the government, except against modification.

As others have said, the New Jersey officials have assured that there will be huge amounts of publicity, and that the video will be downloaded and saved on tens of thousands of computers.

No such thing as secondary explosion

[Anonymous Coward]

Gasoline is not explosive. A fuel/air mixture of gasoline is explosive, but gasoline itself is not, and no such mixture would exist in the seconds following a crash. There is absolutely zero chance of a burning car exploding (though it certainly can become quickly engulfed in flame).

Actually..

[raehl]

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.

That's really the smartest thing you can do. Unexpectedly stopping is likely to cause a secondary accident when whoever is behind you, distracted by the explosion themselves, runs into you.

Re:Actually..

[SurfCook1]

Hopefully, the "SUV that just goes on by through the EZ Pass at regular speed as if nothing happened" pulled over and served as a witness to this tragic event. How sad if he/she didn't. I'd still like to think, for most people, this is not just "another day" on the turnpike.

If you want to help, pull past if you can.

[Kadin2048]

Word to the wise:

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 been in the SUV, I would have pulled through the plaza, gotten over to the side, and then gone and seen if there was any place to assist. Not park my big freaking car right in the middle of everything, particularly when there's already police on the scene (and no need to use it to block traffic -- that would be the only valid reason to stop in front of things).

Re:If you want to help, pull past if you can.

[Achromatic1978]

Absolutely. I wasn't implying "be a complete clown" about it, but the whole "not my problem, Jack" mentality pisses me off. Just think about "would I want someone to stop and help me if I was in that situation?".

Property of the NJTA?

[PPH]

Did they get the appropriate releases signed from all of the persons recorded?

Re:Property of the NJTA?

[chefmonkey]

Google the phrase "expectation of privacy". You can spend anywhere from a few minutes to several days reading through the results, and reach increasing levels of enlightenment as you do so.

Re:Property of the NJTA?

[Slashdot Parent]

No model release is required for editorial use of a person's image/likeness.

Do you think the 9 o'clock evening news gets signed model releases from the folks they show getting carted away by the cops in handcuffs?

On the other hand, if whomever makes handcuffs wants to use that footage in an advertisement for handcuffs, that firm would need a model release.

Can we say 'Cruise Control'?

[Anonymous Coward]

See, I knew you could.

Now have a cookie and stop trying to second guess some thing that requires evidence that none of us have access to.

Re:sick video, probably a fatality in that crash

[toddestan]

I would guess that part you see flying is actually the front driver's tire. It appears the front passenger tire also comes off if you watch closer.

DMV reporting issues

[JimBobJoe]

Unfortunately, the restrictions against people who have seizures are so strict, that many people who occasionally have minor seizures fail to report them, because it can be ruinous to lose your driver's license.

Indeed. My ex-gf (and a close friend still) has type 1 diabetes. Though she has, in her 7 years of having it, *never* come close to a seizure/collapse the state wants her to have a doctor's report every six months or so saying that she's in good condition to drive. (And the DMV messes this up and accidentally misses the report and suspends her license anyway.)

She is currently without a license because her endocrinologist is a new doctor and won't sign off on the form for some time.

I told her the last time she got her license that she should just say that she was cured. Who is the DMV to say that she's not?

Ford pinto was not the deadliest car of that era

[deacon]

If you read the table on page 16 of this pdf document, you will see that the car with the highest death rate was the 1975 VW beetle. The pinto is middle of the pack death-wise. http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/The_Myth_of_the _Ford_Pinto_Case.pdf Of course, the pinto (manufactured by a "large evil American corporation") was not cute and not loved by the hippies at Mother Earth news, who ideologically preferred a car manufactured by a large German corporation and originally conceived by He-who-must-not-be-named-in-an-online-forum. The hit job on the pinto is similar, really, to the one on the Corvair, or the Audi 5000.

Lucky thing this happened.

[Tiger Smile]

There is management of the NJTA that has identified themselves as needing to be replaced. Assuming that this goes on for a long time with a state agency acting like this, there is now a governer that has identified himself has needing to be replaced. Go Team Voters!

If they wish to sue, let 'em. What damages can they claim? In court they'll only find just enough rope for a self-hangus type of defense.

Read about the story? Hate the DCMA? Fumming ineffectively at home between commercials? Don't. Tell someone who cares that you wont vote for them, like a local politico.

The Streisand effect

[gr8dude]

They "requested the footage be removed", thus guaranteeing that that this obscure video would be copied all over the internet and millions of people would get to see it.

That's another instance of the Streisand effect.

That's hardly relevant

[Taagehornet]

Personally I can't really see any problems with making this video public, it's not as if you can actually identify the driver or any bystanders. However, as long as YouTube hosts it, then YouTube carries the responsibility. What technical difficulties they might have preventing this from happening is hardly relevant.

Would you still consider technical difficulties a valid excuse if YouTube was flooded with snuff videos or child pornography ?

What exactly is wrong with not rubbernecking?

[Valdrax]

Then I consider her a minor hero for having the clarity of mind to realize that there's not much she can do to help and for making an effort to swiftly continue on her way without holding up traffic behind her like all the idiots who are rubbernecking to get a vicarious thrill off of someone else's misfortune.

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.

Who Owns What

[flyneye]

As long as I pay taxes and this happened on an interstate turnpike this video belongs to me and other taxpayers.
NJTA is a government entity and as such doesn't OWN anything including copyrights,real estate,a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.
A mediocre mall lawyer should handle this so as not to lower the pool of legal aid to the public.
New Jersy,just pretend it isn't there.

I hope they win the lawsuits

[DGMavn]

That way they can put the money back into the dozens of millions of dollars that Corzine cut from higher education. Unfeeling and selfish, I know. But I can dream of not losing my scholarship money before I'm done with a college I can't pay for, right?

Toll Booths Kill

[bill_mcgonigle]

People in NJ have been saying since the Parkway was built that toolbooths are stupid and dangerous. Fortunately, they were temporary until the road was paid for... (ha!).

At least in the northern stretch they've eliminated half of them in the past few years (and doubled the toll on the other half...fine.. it's a start).

This is just documentary evidence that the People are right. Hence it must be suppressed.

Somehow the NJ Turnpike does just fine with no tool booths in the middle of the road - you pay when you get off.

And apparently now the NJTA owns the Parkway (there used to be a separate Parkway Commission), so this is even more curious. Maybe they're thinking of making the Turnpike into a tollbooth road? It's anti-sense, so it must be true, when that government is involved.

Brilliant URL. Stuff 'em - slashdotters.

[Rockin'Robert]

PATHETIC whiners! Let them eat well flamed spam!
//70.87.202.210/videos2/ugc/070520-203657-accident 89675w.wmv JERSEY CRASH:
TURNPIKE THUGS SUE YouTube and all sorts
claiming copyright of taxpayer funded images.
So it's now in DEMAND ... THE MISSING VIDEO.
//70.87.202.210/videos2/ugc/070520-203657-accident 89675w.wmv Just one of many BLOGS with more URLs:
http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=15199
THE VIDEO:
//70.87.202.210/videos2/ugc/070520-203657-accident 89675w.wmv

IF THEY WANT IT SO BADLY ... GIVE IT BACK!
RR

Very surprising

[jgoemat]

I bet if this case went to court, the video would be ruled public domain. I haven't seen this mentioned in a comment yet, but the only thing that is copyrightable is expression. AT&T couldn't copyright the phone book because it was simply an arrangement of information in a logical way, there was no creativity or expression embodied in the data.

Photographs (and videos) have enjoyed broad protection under the copyright act. A lot happens up until the shutter is released, the photograph or movie has to be framed in a pleasing way, the lighting and time of day have to be right, any point in space could be used to take the photograph and get various elements to stand out, etc... However, this is simply a NJ traffic camera that was thrown on a pole with a view of the road meant to get traffic in the picture. The position and angle were dictated by the need to record something, not for artistic expression. And it wasn't something that was created to express someone's creativity, some city worker probably was just told to put a camera up and put it there. Then it runs night and day for years merely capturing data.

In a traditional video, you at least have a cameraman taking the video. Even with webcams, you have the actor(/directory) that is creating the content. Also they are editing the video to display what they want you to see. Even JennyCam that was on 24 hours a day had her being the actor in it, plus it entailed behind-the-scenes espression like in the decorating of her room. This video is simply lacking all of the elements that are protectable by copyright.