July 14-15, 2000

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.

Friday: Although lightning was frequent and close, simply none of it wanted to strike where I had the camera pointing. I didn't capture any 35mm images from this storm, but two back-to-back distant discharges flashed for the video camera (first thumbnail below).

Saturday: A all-day mountain biking chase and camping trip in the New River Gorge near Thurmond was interrupted several times by weak early-evening storms. Since it was still daylight, I didn't try for any 35mm shots, but one distant strike made it onto video (second thumnail below). The rainfall created the classic valley fog formations on the mountainsides, which along with the river, sunset, and distant thunder created a rather refreshing scene (last thumnail below).

Click on each thumbnail image to view the associated video clip:

July 14, 2000 (399KB)
Charleston, WV
Fire trucks and distant lightning.