Dan Robinson's Copyright & DMCA FAQ: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and shut down my operation

I'll get into these reasons in more detail, but here is a short summary:

• Copyright infringement was an existential threat to my entire operation, and the sole reason I had to shut it down in 2025. I already covered that in my intro above. The lost income from infringements was the primary reason I was not able to continue being a photographer and cameraman full time, and was the only reason I had to ultimately shut the entire operation down. If I never issued any takedowns or fought copyright battles, the end of my operation would have happened a decade ago.
• I'm bearing all of the costs and risks of capturing my content. I spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on fuel, hotels and vehicle costs, take dozens of unpaid days off of work, maintain expensive equipment and relentlessly spend 12 to 36 hours at a time in harsh weather to capture my images. I finance my own operations - I am not sponsored or supported by anyone, nor am I wealthy with lots of disposable income. My images and video that result from all that work and expense are my main 'product' that I sell, and those sales are how I am able to pay my bills and continue doing what I do.
• Competing copies of my photos and videos on the web and on social media take traffic away from the legitimate copies here on my web site, my Youtube channel and my own social media accounts. Competing copies often go viral instead of my original. I receive no benefit from that so-called "exposure" - more on that topic follows below. No matter whether it's an organized piracy operation or just a teenager with a weather page, all competing copies equally do serious damage to my income stream.
  
  Above: The effect of competing infringing copies of a viral video. These captures from my Youtube analytics show video traffic data from a viral original without competing copies (bottom) and another (top) with a competing copy posted soon after the original. Note the scale of the vertical axes!
• Many times the infringing copies rank higher in search engines than my original and sometimes cause my original to not show up at all in search results, including Twitter and Google Images searches. I'm repeatedly having to file takedowns for images that outrank me in image searches - if I didn't, the infringing copies would take more than half of all organic image search traffic away from my site. On Youtube, a competing copy (or video incorporating a significant amount of my footage) can completely replace mine in recommendations, searches and related video slots. Youtube's automated systems can also (mistakenly) deem the stolen copy as the original and consider *mine* the stolen one, causing a loss of monetization. All of those become more likely if the thief's channel is larger than mine.
  

  Above: This example is illustrative of how reposts outrank my originals and sometimes even bump them from results altogether. This repost of my Greensburg tornado photo on Reddit was at the top of the Google search results page, while my original page or image doesn't appear in the results at all. Below: Another (separate from the above) repost of my Greensburg tornado image showed up 10th in Google images, while my originals did not show up at all.

  
• Credit lines, mentions, compliments and accolades bring no tangible benefit to me and are not acceptable substitutes for payment. I cannot use a photo credit to fill up my gas tank.

It's always interesting that many infringers expect me to contact them first before issuing a DMCA takedown, when they couldn't be bothered to contact me for permission to use the video/photo in the first place! The answer to this question is very simple: contacting you takes too much time. That is time that your copy of my work sits there and gets indexed by search engines, and racks up views and shares on Youtube and social media in direct competition with my original copy. Consider that I deal with sometimes a dozen or more infringements of my work per day. I'm supposed to do tons of extra work to keep track of all of that, all the while an infringing video is making the thief thousands of dollars a day while it racks up millions of views?

No, I will not retract any copyright claims. A strike is not only fully reasonable, many times it is just the starting point of an infringement recovery operation. It's quite incredible that infringers that use some of my most valuable footage to make money for themselves illegally (while competing directly with me for views on my own videos) expect me to just retract a claim and call it a done deal. I have to spend at least an hour a day searching for these infringing uploads and manually sending the takedown notices. That is time lost from my life and work that I'm already having to spend, in addition to the lost income from the infringement itself.

Consider that a single copyright strike on most platforms like Youtube expires in 90 days. Channels only get terminated if they get three strikes within that timeframe. A first strike is a warning that gives a channel owner that made a legitimate mistake (a rare circumstance in my experience) a chance to correct their actions before getting another strike. For a channel owner that has truly learned their lesson, that first strike provides them with the opportunity to clean up their channel by removing and/or obtaining permission/license to use all infringing material. Afterward, the strike will expire after the 90 days, and their channel will go back into good standing.

But that's never what happens.

No, these channels only beg for a strike to be retracted because they have no intention of removing infringing content or even to stop posting it in the future. No channel I've ever issued a takedown for has ever removed the rest of the stolen material they've posted. Me retracting the strike would just enable that channel to continue stealing from others. Other photographers in my niche who deal with this issue have learned that the "begging for a strike retraction" is oftentimes a stalling tactic employed by organized piracy operations to keep the channel (and its income) going. They fully expect the channel to ultimately be taken down with strikes, and their begging for retractions often works to buy them more time before that happens.

Even worse are the channel owners that employ the strategy of weaponizing their fan bases against photographers who issue takedowns. This is also something done by the organized piracy groups. After getting a strike, these oftentimes-millionaire channel owners post sob-story videos portraying themselves as the innocent victims, while the small-time photographer trying to pay for his or her rent and groceries is labeled the evil tyrant "copyright troll". I've been on the receiving end of many of these hate campaigns.

In any case, I am not going to retract a strike unless a legal settlement is reached that includes that as part of the final agreement.

This is completely false. Seriously, how does an idea so outrageous come to be and become so widely believed? The most basic, kindergarten-level reading on copyright would put this to rest. This is one of the lies spread around by organized piracy cartels and their advocates. It's designed to sway public opinion toward them and vilify the people who do all of the work, bear all of the costs and take all of the risks to produce valuable material.

Copyright law, since its inception 300 years ago, codifies that a person immediately owns the copyright to any photo, video, artwork, writing, or any other work the moment they create it. Posting that work to the internet does not relinquish those rights. If you somehow still believe that is wrong, then I'd invite you to find the source for your belief and get back to me.

That statement is a myth at best, and a lie at worst. Creators don't benefit from "exposure", they only benefit when their work is licensed or viewed on their official channels. As I illustrated with the "water tank" graphic above, "exposure" via competing copies diverts viewers and revenue from the creator, harming them, not helping them!

Ever since the dawn of publication, media and entertainment, "you'll get great exposure" has always been a go-to line by con men, shady talent agencies and ruthless media execs looking to take advantage of writers, actors, photographers, artists and more. And not suprrisingly, it's now being used and popularized against creators in the online world. Every creative professional has heard this line, likely fallen for it when they started and (hopefully) quickly learned the hard way that it's a scam when that "exposure" yielded them absolutely nothing.

I get all the publicity I need from my web site, Youtube channel, social media pages and when my work is purchased legitimately for publication/broadcast. Publicity and exposure does not do a thing for me. I know from experience! I've had interviews on national and international television, credits in prominent TV shows, magazines, newspapers and books. I never get extra web traffic or sales from those! The only benefit I received was from the license fee I was paid for each use.

Think about this for a minute. How many times have you Googled the name of someone you saw in the credits of a show or in a photo credit line in a newspaper/magazine, then went to their web site and bought something? That's right, probably never. Guess what - you're not alone. No one does that. The 'great exposure' I get from infringing use is completely useless to me. I only make meaningful revenue from usage license fees, which is exactly the thing every infringer steals from me when my image is used without permission and payment. It's no different than a shoplifter taking something from a store.

One example showing the negligible effect of "exposure". This graph shows daily views on my Youtube channel's official El Reno tornado video during the time a large and popular multi-million subscriber Youtube channel showed the entire footage in one of their videos without permission or a license. The large channel received over 2 million views on their video, while my channel only received an extra 4,500 extra views and only a small handful of new subscribers above normal.

If you're a media employee or personality, you of all people should know the true value of publicity and exposure for a photographer (that is, there is none). Some of you are on TV every day. Does that publicity pay your rent and buy groceries? No, then why do you think it would pay for mine? Would you stay at your job if your GM said "You know, since you're getting all this publicity from being on TV all the time, we aren't going to pay you any longer". Copy editors and writers, does that credit line pay your salary, or is it the company that employs you?

The only benefit I get from use of my work is when I'm paid a license fee. The 'you'll benefit from the exposure' line is, at best, a myth by those who really don't think about what they're saying, and at worst a lie by the unscrupulous trying to take advantage of someone they think doesn't know any better.

Credit lines are meaningless. They do absolutely nothing. And they're not this magic wand that make all copyright considerations go away. It's an unfortunate myth that a credit line entitles someone to just take whatever they want.

A credit line is a professional courtesy for paid, licensed use - it is not required nor do I care whether or not I'm credited when my work is licensed. I only care that I get paid. Credits don't fill my gas tank, pay my rent, buy my groceries and pay for my equipment and operating costs: money does. When was the last time you saw a credit somewhere and did anything as a result? By that I mean something like visiting that person's web site, buying something from them, or doing anything at all that would benefit them even slightly? Right. Never. And guess what? You're not alone. No one does that.

There was a recent thread on Twitter/X regarding a popular aggregator/compilation account (Massimo) stealing the best photos from hundreds of photographers, then justifying it by saying "I gave them credit!" (and that account is far from the only one, there are dozens). I asked his followers straight out if they followed the accounts of any of the photographers as a result of that credit. They all said "No, why would we? The aggregator account is where all of the great photos are. It's too much trouble to follow the photographers". They wouldn't even do as much as click "follow" for the photographers, much less anything more than that! And that's the reality of credit lines everywhere. They do nothing for the photographer.

Credits also never have, and never will, factor in as a defense when a photographer pursues the infringement in a legal case.

Even if you don't make any money on the video or photo, the platform that you're posting it to does in the form of advertising revenue. I covered that in my introduction at the top of this page. You are also causing me to lose viewers on my own web site or Youtube channel, which does cost me, even if you're not making any money. I also have to spend time sending DMCA takedowns and searching for infringing copies like yours.

These is also nothing stopping you from monetizing your social media following in the future. The growth you receive from posting my video now has a direct benefit to you if and when you ever choose to monetize your account.

Let's first establish this fact: the vast majority of those on Youtube and social media don't know what Fair Use actually is. I'll prove it to you: ask anyone claiming Fair Use to, without Googling it, name one of the four factors of Fair Use in the law. You'll never get a correct answer. They can't name even *one* of the four factors, much less all four of them - yet they'll be the ones coming at photographers like me, shouting things like "Hey! Ever hear of Fair Use?" Yes, and I know it well - do you? To these Youtubers and social media accounts, Fair Use just means "whatever I want to do", not anything remotely related to the actual law, because they've never even read the law once.

Just to ensure that everyone reading can see this at least once, this is what Fair Use actually is: 17 U.S. Code § 107 (source):

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Almost everyone stops reading at the first sentence in the law, concluding that anything that is "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching or scholarship" means that copyrighted works can be used without a license without restriction. Not only is that a patently absurd and unfair assumption, it's completely ignoring the main part of the law that comes next: the four factors. Every federal copyright infringement case was decided on the four factors alone (view actual case decisions here to see for yourself), not simply whether they were "transformative" or "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching or scholarship". The four factors actually place narrow guardrails on "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching or scholarship" that disqualify most of what you see being claimed as Fair Use on the internet today.

Fair Use was intended to allow unlicensed use in a very specific and narrow set of circumstances. Much of today's Youtubers and social media account owners have no desire to do anything that Fair Use actually intended to allow, rather they are mostly either willfully ignoring the law, or trying to illegitimately shoehorn what they're doing into one of those narrow categories. It's all just to weasel out of getting permission or paying license fees for the same type of uses that have always been paid in the entire history of media and publication. There have only been a handful of borderline actual Fair Use cases involving my work that I have elected to not pursue or file takedowns for. If I had to give a figure, Fair Use might apply in something like 1 out of every 10,000 cases I discover.

Fair Use is not based on this tunnel vision on "transformativeness, commentary and editing" that so many believe. Almost everything that has ever aired on television, media and in the movies has commentary and editing. Just think about this for a minute: news broadcasts do nothing but comment on footage from news cameras, and that has never been considered Fair Use, even though it is "news reporting". The four factors must be considered when evaluating a Fair Use claim - that includes things like "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching or scholarship". Fair Use is supposed to be fair, not a free-for-all against the owners of the content. You can read this from the source at the U.S. Copyright Office. Here are those four factors and how they apply in the case of works created by photographers like me:

• "Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes": A Youtube video that is running ads and receiving AdSense revenue is commercial use! If your copy of my video is earning you money, it fails this part of the 'fair use' test right away. And no, just because it is news footage doesn't make it free. Do you believe TV cameramen don't get paid to do their jobs? Every TV news network pays me to use my video. A monetized Youtube channel or social media account is no different. No further explanation needed.

  "Commercial" is a broad category that includes anything that can or does result in financial gain, directly or indirectly, now or in the future. This means things like building a social media following, even when non-monetized. This is because large social media followings have commercial value and can be monetized or sold at any time. Non-monetized accounts can nonetheless still gain financially via merch sales, donations, tips and other types of business. Accounts with large followings are routinely sold for significant amounts of money.

• "Nature of the copyrighted work": This refers to what category the copyrighted work in question falls under, meaning either video/photos of actual events or fictional/artistic works. This is the only one of the four factors that would weigh on the side of those using chaser/news photographer footage in things like documentaries, but courts give this factor much less weight than the others (source).
• Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: What this refers to is not only how much of the copyrighted work is used, but whether the heart of the work is used (source). This means that a video that only uses a few seconds of my footage, but used the heart of that video (for example, the most dramatic part of an icy road or tornado clip), would weigh heavily against fair use. Contrary to myth, there is no "time limit" in copyright law that makes it OK to use something if you only use a small part of it (for example, the common-but-false "5 seconds or less rule"), especially if that small part is the "heart" or best part of that clip. I see this frequently with infringers taking my lightning footage, thinking that since they only used a split-second of the video during a lightning strike (which happens to be the best part of that video) that it's all OK.

  Most infringers, however, go far beyond that. Youtube and social media infringers always take my best and most popular scenes and play them in their entirety (for example, the entire icy road action sequence, tornado or lightning strike scene). I make my own compilations out of my best videos, and the thieves essentially take the same scenes from those and insert it into theirs.

• Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: Copies of my videos, including videos incorporating large amounts of my footage, often completely replace my originals in search results and algorithmic slots (like recommendations or features). Even if they don't, they are directly competing for viewers with my channels using my own videos (see the water tank example in this article's introduction). Any way you slice it, every diverted viewer is a direct financial loss.

  It matters where content gets viewed. Why do you think the movie studios and the NFL control so tightly where you can watch a movie or a football game? Because it matters! If everyone could watch new releases on Netflix, why would they go to a theater to watch a movie? Why are Super Bowl ads so expensive? It's because you can't watch the game anywhere else. Once a viewer has watched my video on another channel, they have already "seen" it and have no reason to watch it again. If they do re-watch, they will go back to the compilation and watch it again, they will never go searching for the original, even if the link is in the description (and most infringers never post the link to the original anyway).

  As I said earlier, Facebook pirates have received more views on my videos than my Youtube channel has in its entire lifetime. And I never have seen a spike in traffic from those infringing uploads. Every one of those has been a devastating financial loss to me. This goes back to the "I gave you great exposure" myth I went through above. When you take views away from my channel, you are taking money and food right off of my table. I also sell license for the use of my videos. Not only is a second copy anywhere on the internet taking views away from me, its use to begin with is something I normally charge customers for! It's no different from shoplifting in a store.

  A subset of this factor that is evaluated by courts is the effect on the market for the work if the type of use in question became widespread. If the type of use that many Youtube documentary producers try to assert was actually Fair Use, then it would essentially mean that no one would ever have to buy a license to use photographers' footage. This is because their usage cases are identical to virtually all of the television licenses that photographers sell in their careers for documentaries and news coverage (as in Discovery and National Geographic tornado shows to name a couple).

What I don't get about the insane interpretation of Fair Use that so many have is how impossibly unfair it is. This idea essentially says that photographers have to bear all of the costs and risks of capturing content, then multi-million dollar Youtube channels and media corporations can just take whatever they want and not compensate us at all just because they added a couple of minimal lines of commentary in there. All the while showcasing the heart of the video, which is in direct competition with our original copies on our channels.

I like to ask this question to someone who is so liberal in their interpretation of Fair Use: What, to you, would *not* be Fair Use? Can you give an example of what you think would be copyright infringement? The answers to this are usually very revealing.

Finally, the interpretation of Fair Use held by most "amateur copyright experts" doesn't exist in the professional world. Everything you see on television and in the movies has been licensed or has written permission obtained: *none* of it was taken and used under Fair Use. And those are multi-billion dollar corporations with the most powerful legal teams on the planet. If they could take things under Fair Use in the way most amateurs believe, they absolutely would, and they have more than enough legal firepower to defend themselves from copyright challenges. Why do you think a Youtuber can do what the entire media and entertainment industry doesn't do? If you're a Youtuber wanting to use third-party content, take that free legal hint from lawyers you and I could never afford: properly clear everything you use.

Think about what the world of media and entertainment would be like if Fair Use was so permissive. There would be no professional photographers, writers or artists. The only video content that would be available for the big Youtubers and media corporations to use would be amateur America's Funniest Home Videos-style cell phone clips.

You'll hear some respond to the above that "fair use is always subjective, is never black and white and each case can only be definitively be adjudicated in a court decision". This is only partially true, and ignores the practical reality: countless cases are filed by small-time creators all of the time, and most are obvious enough that they settle long before going to trial. Most competent attorneys (either representing creators or defending infringers) know the likely outcome of most cases should they ever end up in Federal court. That means the high cost of Federal litigation is not an obstacle to small-time creators pursuing a case that is obviously not fair use per the four factors, as I can personally attest.

Right. That's why there is a 'share' button for every social media platform out there. Sharing of most anything online is a simple one-click deal. Quick. Easy. Painless.

But the thieves don't do that. No, they go through the extra steps to download the image or video and repost a separate copy of it to their account! Answer this very simple question: why would someone do that instead if just clicking 'share' or 'retweet'? Why would they go through all of that extra trouble? It's because they know they're going to get all of the viral benefit instead of the photographer by doing that! I invite anyone to try and defend that - you can't. That's not sharing, that is stealing.

"Sharing" is good, and all of the platforms have made it easy to do it. Stealing an image is never accidental - it requires additional, deliberate steps (right click, download, re-upload). As opposed to the simple one click of a legitimate share. Stealing diverts all of the viral traffic, likes, shares, retweets and links to the thief's account instead of the photographer's, causing their following to grow instead of the photographer's. And again, the little credit line or mention sometimes given in such cases doesn't do anything in reality. People will not click over to the photographer's account and/or search for me from the infringing post (I know and have the site traffic data to prove it!). They're just going to re-share or RT the thief's post without ever giving me a second thought. If they can see the photo on Twitter, why would they click over to my web site to see the same image again?

This is especially true of mobile users (on phones or tablets). They'll see an image or video on their feed, and they are just going to engage (comment/like/share) THAT copy, then keep on scrolling. No one on a mobile device is going to click away from Facebook, Twitter or whatever app to try and find my original or go to my web site. It just doesn't happen!

If that doesn't explain it enough, here's a more detailed post and infographic I put together on it.

Half of the time, an infringing photo ends up ranking higher in search engines than my original copy. This is especially true of TV station sites and media blogs. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and Reddit all have very high rankings in search engines, which means a copy of my photo on those sites will almost always outrank my copy here on this site. That means when someone searches for the image in Google/Bing/Yahoo/whatever, the infringing copy sometimes shows up first - then that link gets re-shared, boosting the infringing copy even more.

Furthermore, a competing copy on social media takes engagement (likes, shares, comments, favorites, retweets, new followers) away from my account and diverts it to the thief's. Their copy could go viral in the future, and leave me with nothing. Again, people are generally not inclined to go searching for the original copy of an image, they'll just do what is easiest and re-share the first one they see. I already covered that above.

Really? I mean come on now. You don't need to look much farther than this argument to see that anti-copyright activists don't think about what they're saying. I don't know if you've noticed, but the word copy is the first part of the word copyright. The word literally means "the right to copy", copy is half of the word. Copying is the reason the law, and the word itself, exists. Copyright was conceived of in the early 1700s to address the harm done by unauthorized copying of books in the era of the first printing presses.

As I've described in detail already, my primary income from photography and video comes from selling copies of my work to be used by third parties. Most of a musician's income comes from selling copies of a song or album. A copy does have value, it is the cornerstone of how artists, photographers and content creators make a living. Society has understood this for the past 300 years - why don't you?

This is like telling a store owner that if he can't make money because of shoplifters, then he should find another career instead of doing loss prevention and prosecuting the thieves. It's interesting that those who say this are acknowledging that the work is desirable enough to steal and use for their benefit and profit, but somehow not worth paying me for so I can make a living. It's a double standard.

And you think that is a viable business strategy - why, exactly? Take my primary business product off of the very medium that generates my income? Sure, great idea. To borrow from the previous entry, that's like telling the store owner that has a problem with shoplifters to just stop advertising and just keep his doors locked. If no one knows about his store and no one can get in, he won't have any shoplifters, right? Yes, but he also won't have any customers either.

Sometimes I don't know if these type of objections are real or just the work of a provocateur. They're so self-evidently absurd that just a few seconds of critical thinking should keep them from being levied.

The person making this statement is really saying that there should be no such thing as a professional artist, photographer, writer or any type of content creator. When they say 'no, I'm not saying that', my next question then is how does the professional content creator make a living? The answer is usually along the lines of 'he should freely give and let the money situation work itself out'.

"Be passionate about your work, and the money will follow" is a utopian fantasy that does not work in the real world. I know it because like many photographers, I did just that back when I was starting out. It would be nice if I could freely give everything away, then have all of my needs just magically taken care of as a result. I always ask someone who says that if they could suggest a scenario or plan on where all this magical money is going to come from. So far, I've never received an answer.

I'm sure society would benefit if Wal-Mart gave away all of their products for free, carpenters and plumbers gave their services away for free, and Dairy Queen gave away free ice cream cones. That sure would enrich a lot of people's lives! That is, until all of those companies and people went out of business because they weren't bringing in revenue. Then there would be nobody making free stuff to give away.

If you believe that free creative works are so essential, so vital to an enriched society - then why don't you do something to help out the content creators that are producing them? Why is that burden on us 100 percent? We have to pay full price for all of our costs of producing content - cameras, travel, etc. And you can't see fit to pay us anything? You call us 'evil' for expecting to get paid and protecting our copyright? This absolutely boggles my mind that so many people think this way, and I have yet to hear a rational basis for it.

Anti-copyright activists care infinitely about "creative expression" in using others' works without paying for them, but zero about the creative expression of the person producing the original material. They feel the former should have unlimited profit potential, while the latter has to settle for some arbitrary limit on their income.

In practice, this means I'm only entitled to a pittance from a video that took me three 24-hour days of work during a winter storm, while they can slap their face on a copy of a video with "commentary" like "wow bro, look at this!", upload it to their Facebook/Tiktok page, make five figures competing with me for viewers and call it all "creative expression".

Anti-copyright activists believe there are all of these mythically-lucrative secondary and tertiary income sources that creators could use to earn a living if all of their primary income (licensing and online ad revenue) was taken away. These include things like merch, sponsorships and donations.

Most of those secondary income streams (particularly merch and donations) are very small compared to the primary streams, unless you're a popular personality. I'm a behind-the-scenes cameraman, which has meant that my social media presences have not performed like my Youtube channel has. I have dabbled in merch sales a few times with products bearing my photos, of which I made absolutely *zero* sales.

I'm not comfortable with asking for donations. I feel that it's online begging, and even if it wasn't, I don't produce viral videos at the consistency that donors would expect in return. Occasionally I'll go 8 to 12 months or more without a "big catch", that's just the nature of dealing with the weather. Would donors stay with me through times like that? Very unlikely. Getting sponsorships takes a lot of legwork I don't have time for, and is another thing made problematic with my variability/unpredictability in video publishing.

This idea is just another manifestation of the double standard of pirates, infringers and anti-copyright activitsts: they are happy to have their primary income from online ad views from my videos, but expect me to give that up and scrape a living together via these other unproven and unknown means. "What if I can't do that?", I've asked them. "Not our problem, you figure it out", they always reply: yes, that's perfectly on-brand for the type of people that act and advocate that way.

I genuinely appreciate that, but it doesn't make stealing my work OK.

If that's true, then so should my cameras, fuel, hotels, groceries, health care, rent, internet access, utilities, insurance, you name it. Figure out a way for me to drive thousands of miles a year, take weeks of unpaid time off of work, buy and maintain professional gear, keep gas in my car and take care of my living expenses for free while I capture my images and video, and I'll give a free license to use my work. Deal?

I can assure you it's not the way it is, unless you are reading a different copyright law than what is currently in force. And photographers absolutely can do something about it: the many infringers who have found themselves on the receiving end of (very deserved) strikes, terminated channels/accounts and lawsuits would also disagree with your statement.

As I've already explained multiple times, this is an issue of pragmatics that determines the very existence of my operation. "Just getting over it" would be the end of my career. It's really that simple.

I don't understand what is meant by that. Of course I'm concerned about money, because I have groceries, health care, rent, internet access, utilities, insurance, car payments to pay every month just like you do, on top of the costs of producing my content!

Just take a quick browse around my site and Youtube channel: it takes money to produce all of that. Not exposure, not credit lines, not likes on social media. More than 90 percent of what I've captured would not have been possible without license fees and ad revenue I earn from my content. And think about how much more I'd have been able to produce if it weren't for the huge amount of funds siphoned away from me by copyright infringers, preventing me from doing this full-time!

So the small-time photographer that bears all of the costs, risks & workload to capture valuable content is evil for wanting to be paid to cover his rent and groceries, but the multi-million dollar Youtuber or corporation getting rich from *using* the content without paying is perfectly virtuous. Way to stand up for the worker there, comrade.

As would you if up to half of your paycheck (after taxes!) was stolen every year.

Federal law, specifically 17 U.S.C. 506(a), states:

Any person who infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain shall be punished as provided in 18 U.S.C. § 2319. Section 2319 provides, in pertinent part, that a 5-year felony shall apply if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, with a retail value of more than $2,500.

A multi-million view stolen video can easily earn both the platform and the uploader well into five figures illegitimately.

In fact, much of the organized piracy operations, of which the social media platforms thenselves are party to, profit from and and run interference for, qualifies for RICO charges should the US Department of Justice ever choose to pursue them.

I'm not sure what else you would call systematic, deliberate, illegal diversions of income, reaching 7-figures at that, from an individual.

So, given everything I've just finished describing in great detail, exactly what do you think I should do in response? Please email me and explain what you feel I should do. I'm serious. I would like to hear your proposed solution to this problem.

Every time I've posed that question to someone who thinks I'm doing anything wrong, I get no answer. So maybe if you're one who holds that opinion, you can make history by giving me another workable pathway to fixing this problem that you think would be better. My inbox is always open.

I think I know the reason why I never get an answer to that question. It's because in every person's mind who uses the "copyright troll" pejorative, they think a photographer should do nothing about theft of his or her work. They're just afraid or unwilling to because of how absurd it would sound to actually say that out loud. The reality is, if any of these people (or their companies, friends or relatives) suffered even a fraction of the losses I have, they'd be on the phone with an attorney in five seconds, and everyone would be supportive of them. It's absolutely mind-boggling that these people place me in some other category that makes me the bad guy if I do anything to fight back.

Every action I take is completely justified and in accordance with the law. And I haven't made, nor do I ever expect to make back all or even a majority of the losses I've suffered. I've always found this accusation like something you'd hear from a cartel. It's like a small mom and pop business being told "you're going to let us take as much of your inventory as we want, and you're going to be happy about it. And if you complain or fight back, we'll ruin your reputation". Infringers and their defenders say and do the exact same thing to me.

It's true that storm chaser video can be informative and help with public awareness during severe weather. But that doesn't change the fact that a.) chasers still have operating costs and bills to pay and b.) the media outlet or streamer is still earning large amounts of money on their storm coverage, either directly (ad revenue) or indirectly (viewership gained for non-storm-related programming).

If you hold that chaser video of storms is so valuable, why are you against the chaser being compensated for that value? You don't have a problem with the TV station, network, Youtube channel or streamer earning income to cover their costs and pay their salaries, but you're somehow aganst that for the chaser. Chasers are deemed a vital part of this process, yet for some reason we're the only ones who have to donate all of our efforts and operating costs.

It's true that some TV stations suspend advertising during "wall to wall" coverage and don't earn direct revenue during that time. But let's be real: most infringements aren't a part of wall-to-wall coverage events at all. Even when one is, everyone in the studio - even the janitors - are still getting a regular paycheck that ensures they can even be there to do all of that in the first place. Chasers receive no such support unless they fight and push for it, and when we do, we're the ones accused of being "all about the money". Stations spend lavishley on personnel and equipment for storm coverage (helicopters, live trucks, computers, etc) yet many conveniently leave chasers out of that budget, even though the chaser's contributions are often some of the most prominent and important aspects of that coverage.

All of that is beside the point that most of the alleged "public safety" intent claims of someone using a chaser's video are dubious. Most don't even have any connection to actual media coverage of storms. Just watch any incidents of this to judge for yourself whether it was really done "in the name of public safety". Even the pirate channels pull this scam, reuploading videos of the storm after it is over and claiming it's all for public awareness. It's another manipulative card that infringers play to make them sound noble insted of criminal, and unfortunately many viewers and followers believe it.

AMC paid to produce the hit TV series Breaking Bad. Could HBO, NBC, Showtime and other channels just take the show and air it, then say "our audiences are different, so it's all OK"? Of course not. AMC produced the show so that viewers would come and watch their channel instead of the competition's. Online videos are no different. I put the huge effort in time, money and "sweat of the brow" to produce my content so viewers will come to my channels to watch it. That's the only way I receive any benefit from what I do.

Every online viewer is easily capable of coming to Youtube to watch my originals. Even the most committed Facebook, Tiktok and Twitter users all spend at least some time on Youtube. Youtube is even installed on smart TVs! Someone watching a stolen copy of my video on those platforms means they'll never watch it on Youtube on my official channel. It is a demonstratable loss any way you look at it. The importance of where viewers watch content is a basic and foundational principle in the world of media, and that principle doesn't change on the interenet.

This is a common suggestion by those wanting to help me (thank you by the way, I do very much appreciate that). You'll notice that television, movie and streaming services don't watermark their content (beyond the little logo in the bottom corner like I do). This is because it detracts from the viewing experience. No one likes watching videos with huge or distracting watermarks, and videos with them do not perform well.

I've tried various types of watermarking schemes over the years. The more subtle ones don't do anything to discourage theft and they don't result in any viewers coming over to my channel (see my section on credit lines above). Static watermarks can easily be blurred, covered or just removed altogether with software. The only watermarks that are even partially effective at discouraging theft have to be so ostentatious and distracting (like ones that move around and change size) that they seriously affect the viewing experience and resulting performance of the content.

All professional chasers are dealing with the piracy and infringement issue (see the links at the end of this article), but some are able to survive in spite of it. There are various possible reasons that could explain why.

First of all, you'll notice that most full-time chasers today are still relatively young (under 40 years old). I don't know what their personal life choices are that result in them being able to continue. It could be that some are making huge sacrifices to pursue their passions, like living out of their cars to avoid paying rent or utilities or not making any contributions to a 401k or their savings. At least for me, I know that's what I'd need to do to keep operating. It's easier to do things like that when you are young and especially if you don't have a family to support. When you get married and/or retirement starts looming in a decade or two, you realize you need to start taking care of those things. Others are independently wealthy, without any need to worry about what revenue is coming in.

Some pro chasers are wildly successful enough to survive despite all of the piracy, just like big movie studios and pop music stars do. I'm not a "superstar" pulling in numbers like that which would allow me to survive despite 95% of my income being taken away.

There are some revenue sources, like live streaming and social media popularity, that are only a good fit for a certain type of personality. I have never been able to duplicate the success of my Youtube channel on social media, where my followings have always grown very slowly. My view rates on social media aren't enough to reach those platforms' monetization thresholds, which would mean that most of my viral view revenue would go to the platforms instead of me. That's another twist of the knife from platforms like Facebook, they're fine to allow pirates to profit from my videos, but they've made it impossible for me to.

I've always been put off by the idea of live streaming, where I would have countless people watching my every move all day. Live streaming is also very difficult to do chasing solo: The few times I tried it, it pushed me over the limit into task saturation, making me miss shots and/or just feeling dangerous to drive at the same time. To put it simply, I'm a behind-the-scenes guy without a charismatic personality, which takes me out of the running for a lot of those other income sources.

Not really. As I mentioned in my previous entry, since I'm a rather boring "behind the scenes" personality, my social media followings grow very slowly and it would take me a long time to reach the required follower/watchtime thresholds on those platforms. My Twitter/X account only has 2,200 followers, and I've had it since 2009! That means that 100% of the revenue from any viral videos I post would be taken by the platforms themselves - it would be like giving them a blank check until I met their arbitrary thresholds. Not to mention, an official non-monetized video on those platforms would compete for viewers with my Youtube originals, just like all of the stolen copies do.

The bigger issue is that most of those same platforms have been a part of the million-dollar diversion of my income for many years, and I'm part of ongoing legal action against them for it. It's not a good idea to go and start posting my videos to those platforms voluntarily while all that is in progress. It's also a matter of principle: I'm not willing to do business with any company that has already knowingly and directly contributed to such huge financial losses. Until that is made right, you won't see me posting anything of value on any of those platforms.

No, I'll always enjoy storms and will chase whenever I can. What I had to quit was the professional cameraman side of chasing, which in practical terms means scaling back to being a "hobbyist" chaser. If you look at my chase logs section, you'll see how much I covered and how many miles I put in each year. The vast majority of that was enabled by the revenue that it was generating, allowing me to prioritize it just like any other job. I'm now transitioning my effort into building my I.T. career, which requires things like studying for certifications and giving up the low-paying, flexible I.T. jobs I've had for most of my life (that were required to be able to take days off on short notice for the weather).

This change also means I'll not be able to upgrade to the latest cameras and take multi-day expeditions, other than maybe a single weeklong Plains chase in the spring. It also means the end of most winter weather expeditions, which were the most difficult and dangerous and are no longer worth the risk, expense, the 24-hour days and rarely having a day off in the winter. The cameraman job was a grind, one I'd still be willing to do if the fruits of it would be coming to me instead of pirates and Big Tech oligarchs.

I am involved in legal cases against infringers and the platforms that may result in some of that lost income being recovered. Depending on how all of that goes, I may be able to make a return - but those cases take years to resolve, and may not be successful. I just can't count on them.

I know I have many viewers and supporters who understand what I've been going through. I am very thankful for all of you. I'm often asked what kind of help I could use in this battle. These are the most effective things you can do not only for me, but any creator you follow and want to support:

1. Let me know if you see an infringing copy of my videos or photos anywhere other than on my official Youtube channel, official social media account or this web site. You can email me here on my site or you can message me or post at me on Twitter/X @stormhighwaycom.
2. Don't follow or share content from accounts that appear to be stealing content. A social media account that constantly posts lots of viral videos and photos is almost never doing it with permission or a license from the owners. Again, If you see mine or any other creators' work on these accounts, the best thing to do is let the owner of the video or photo know so they can file a DMCA takedown. It usually only takes three DMCA takedowns to get the account shut down.

Copyright Alliance spotlight on chaser Hank Schyma - Accomplished chaser and musician "Pecos Hank" of Youtube fame has lost over a billion views to infringing reuploads of his videos. Hank suffers from the same type of infringements I do, but to an even greater, incomprehensible degree.

Copyright Alliance spotlight on chaser Brandon Clement - Brandon is a colleague of mine who chases full time and also suffers the same type of infringement problems on a massive scale.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day on video freebooting - Destin's wildly successful channel Smarter Every Day has also been impacted by the phenomenon if pirates and reuploaders copying his videos to social media platforms.

LegalEagle on pirate channels - Another good video from a popular channel detailing some of the obstructive tactics that platforms use to make it exceedingly difficult for a creator to take down pirate channels and uploads.

US Copyright Office - Contains a wealth of great information straight from the source.

Fair Use Index - A great resource on Fair Use from the Copyright Office, including a repository of real-world court case decisions.

Five Myths about Copyright from the University of Texas.

Reasons why pro photographers can't work for free

Sharing on Social Media vs Stealing - What constitutes a 'share' on social media versus infringement.

Can I legally use that photo?

Plagiarism Today - News and information about current copyright cases and issues.

If you are a photographer, writer, artist or any other type of content creator experiencing what I've described in this article, I wanted to pass along advice that has helped me in the fight against infringement:

1. Register your work with the US Copyright Office: This is a vital first step that puts you in the best and most powerful position possible to battle infringements. Our current copyright law requires that a work be registered in order for a lawsuit to be filed in an infringement case. More importantly, the work must have been registered before the infringement took place to be eligible for court costs, attorney's fees and statutory damages. If a work wasn't registered before an infringement, the most you can hope to recover in the legal system is the actual value of the license fee or other income you would have earned. Oftentimes, that amount will not cover the significant costs of hiring an attorney and paying for court costs and other fees, and contingency fee attorneys (more on that below) will be less likely to accept your case.

   You can register your works using the Copyright Offices's portal at copyright.gov. Be aware of the rules for registering certain types of content. Each video usually can only be registered separately. Photos, however can be bulk registered (up to 750 photos) together on one application as long as they were all shot in the same calendar year. Also pay attention to the rules for published versus unpublished works. You might also consider paying for an agency or attorney to do all of this for you. The biggest obstacle to registration is that there is a fee for each one. If you can't afford to register all of your work, start with your most popular or most commonly infringed works.

2. Sign on with a rights management agency and/or contingency fee law firm or attorney. A rights management agency is the best way for an individual creator to fight infringements. They can assist you with locating infringements that would be difficult for you to find on your own. They can help you file takedowns, deal with fraudulent counter-notifications and do all of the proper documentation for an attorney to take on the case. Look for an agency that can ingest your work into the automated content scanning tools on Facebook/Instagram (Rights Manager), Youtube (Content ID), Tiktok and others.

   Many rights management agencies also have relationships with law firms. If not, you can hire a contingency fee law firm or attorney on your own. Contingency fee attorneys do not charge you money up front to take on a case. They will take their fees and any other costs out of the final settlement or judgment if and when it is reached. This is where registration of your work is important. A non-timely-registered work means that an attorney can't include their fees and court costs in the total damages sought, making the case non-viable to pursue.

3. Don't contact infringers and try to deal with them yourself, send the cases to your attorneys or agents. Contacting infringers first is the wrong move in most cases. In my past experience, almost all of them just ignored me. Other times, you are literally dealing with organized, experienced criminal enterprises that know how to manipulate the situation into one where you end up out of options. For those reasons, many attorneys will not take on cases where you have communicated with infringers. Just send the cases to your attorney and let them handle it.
4. Do regular manual searches for infringements. Thanks to how rampant copyright infringement is in our world, many incidents can slip through the cracks even with a good rights management agency helping you. If you don't catch an infringement early, it can result in significant losses to you (like a reupload of your video that goes viral and replaces your originals in search results and algorithms). It's an unfortunate (and unjust) reality that the responsibility lies on the creator to find these. Search for your photos using keywords and keyphrases relating to the subject of your photo or video. Use a translator to do searches for those same keyphrases in other languages (as in Russian, Chinese or Arabic).

Unfortunately, the way the world is right now means that as a creator, you will have to fight these battles to maintain your income if you are producing anything of value. It might seem overwhelming, but the law is on your side.