February 18, 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, February 18 was a day packed with noteworthy events.

I had just returned from service call to find our office at CIS Internet in Scott Depot, WV surrounded by violent, muddy rising water from a small overflowing creek next door raging from the daylong downpours. After spending a frantic 30 minutes moving computers off the floor onto the desks and moving papers and files up to high shelves, I stepped outside as two cars wrecked right in front of the office on the rain-slickened Teays Valley road. Fortunately, no one was hurt and the damage was minimal.

I stayed on standby at the office until the water finally started receding at 7:30pm. Thankfully the water never made it inside the building, but did it ever come close. Others throughout the area didn't make out so well- One person drowned and two were missing north of the city after a rescue boat overturned at a gas station near Sissonville. Hundreds of houses were flooded, roads were washed out, and lots of damage done. It was quite a mess.

As I was driving home, there was lightning all around from several cells surrounding the area. The flashes were mostly intracloud, but a few scattered discharges made it to ground. After driving around unsuccessfully looking for photo set-up spots, I decided to go home. The best display of lightning came after 8:00 PM on Friday night when an unusually strong cell moved through Charleston. I shot 3 rolls of film for the next 2 1/2 hours, but only one of the frequent in-cloud lightning flashes barely peeked through the clouds (below). Sporadic lightning and thunder continued through most of the night, but I was too exhausted from the day's adventures to stay awake.....