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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."
It's an automated camera system. There's no creative input. Thus, no copyright.
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
So...what was YouTube supposed to do? Seize control of the internet and delete all copies of the video?
Maurice Wilkes, debugging, 1949
"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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Really, he's not going to get upset about the video.
Anyway it's public record and even a news story.
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.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
please me, have no regrets.
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).
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?
No sig today...
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.)
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).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Did they get the appropriate releases signed from all of the persons recorded?
Have gnu, will travel.
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...
Camping on quad since 1996.
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.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.