The logic goes something like this: cops, who for obvious reasons don’t like being held accountable by the communities they are ostensibly serving, are looking for ways to “hack” livestreams and videos that get posted to social media. Because tech companies have adopted draconian copyright policies, galaxy brain thinking might lead the kind of cop who wears a Thin Blue Line facemask to believe playing Sublime’s “Santaria” while ignoring a citizen complaint would be enough to have a livestream taken down.

Clearly, Beverly Hills’ finest ain’t got no crystal ball either, since the sad attempt to avoid responsibility doesn’t seem to actually work. Dexter Thomas, writing for Vice:

Fair doesn’t seem to be up-to-date on his social media copyright policies, however.

In May of last year, Instagram clarified its policies on including music in livestreams, and began to advise people to only use short clips of music, and to ensure that there is a “visual component” to videos—“recorded audio should not be the primary purpose of the video,” the company said. Instagram declined to comment on this specific video, however, a spokesperson told VICE News that “our restrictions take the following into consideration: how much of the total video contains recorded music, the total number of songs in the video, and the length of individual song(s) included in the video.” Under that rubric, Devermont’s video should be fine, since it’s just one song, and is purely incidental.

Apparently, not even a song by the famously litigious Beatles was enough to get a stream taken down.

The American Right can’t seem to sort out where they stand on abusing copyright for extralegal purposes. The Bush administration famously looped pop music and even the Barney theme in a misguided attempt to break prisoners, leading some to ask whether Donald Rumsfeld owed them royalties. There’s a long list of musicians who have asked Republicans to stop playing their songs at campaign rallies.

Of course, it’s possible this has nothing to do with copyright at all and is just another example of cops refusing to do their jobs.