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Tuesday, August 16, 2011 - 8:50AM CDT

Steam devils near Mascoutah, IL - August 16

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and shut down my operation.

In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.

A nice surprise this morning - I passed this lake on Highway 161 in Mascoutah, as I do every day - but this time it was full of dozens of steam devils (fog devils). These are small vorticies that spin up when warm waters are present during cooler temperatures and calm winds (we were down to 57°F this morning). After I pulled over, they only lasted for another two minutes before the sun began rapidly burning off the fog. I was able to catch a couple of decent ones before they were gone.