This week, the multi hour a day work to review, verify and then take down video pirates on Youtube and META (Facebook and Instagram) continues to consume a huge part of my working day. So much so that we just created a standard reply form letter to send to everyone but is more focused on the international video pirates who never thought they would get caught and outside of just shutting them down, their is not much legal action we can take against them.
The form letter is a legal version to reply to them saying you f’d up, go f yourself and f off, you ripped us off, for pretty much everyone outside of the United States that cries that we took our content. For those inside the United States, I’m putting together a list for the attorney to start to go after to sue them. The piracy just for the hurricane footage is so bad, we even caught an attorney using our footage in their advertising campaigns and when we confronted them, they said they had no idea… Yeah sure… they are talking to our attorney now.
Don’t get me started on all of the Middle Eastern accounts that are ripping off Bryan Snider and Mike Oblinski’s time lapse work of the clouds and deserts to remake some religious video. The ironic part is that they are stealing video to promote their religion that has very strict rules about stealing. I know, I can’t make this up. Well, we just shut them down, several dozen a day just from about three of their videos alone.
It is funny when people have lost their Facebook or Instagram channels and have threatened to sue us but when we ask them for the license to use our work and to have their lawyer contact us, they just storm off mad and pissed that they got caught and their free ride is now done. We have had a couple of American based Youtubers that we caught using material and they have come back and paid a retroactive license to get their productions back into compliance and back on line. It is not cheap but they did want their channels back on line and where willing to pay.
Pay? How much? When you consider a video for something these days ranges from $75.00 to $150.00 PER SECOND with a 15 second base for long format usage which is anything over ten minutes long, that is a $2,250.00 in footage that someone is using if they lift top shelf hurricane footage. Now if you consider advertising rates for the top shelf footage at $250.00 per second with a ten second base for a limited time and area usage (local TV market and 3-6 months or longer) because the usage of our material could be also considered an endorsement of your product or service, that is $2,500.00 in footage. Factor in a settlement of three times the original rate for being caught being stupid, that is $7,500.00 to settle before you get dragged into court. Stealing video is not worth it with all of the tools now to scan the internet.
Then their are those who say “Those prices are insane, we can get footage much cheaper from the royalty free websites.” Yes you can but is the footage that is on those sites actually legit? We have had to go after many different royalty free websites over the years because others have taken our footage and uploaded it as their own footage. They stole our work, resold it as their own, pocketed the money and when caught, they just vanished and left the royalty free site, and their clients who we caught using the footage in a lot of trouble. It has happened and probably will happen again.
And for the fans that just want to share something, you see, it is so easy to share a video on your social media page or even your website like this, but not host the video. Below is a funny video but it is only an embed link, I’m not sharing it.
The above video is hosted on Youtube, the view count is logged on Funny Or Die Youtube channel stats and any and all advertising revenue goes back to their channel. It is a win win for everyone. I get to share the video here but I’m not hosting it and they have ultimate control over the video so they can shut it down today or tomorrow and limit it’s usage or the other owners of the footage that Funny or Die used can also limit or remove the video from Youtube. Share the link, don’t re-upload!!!
So how many people have the copyright take downs impacted? We have received dozens of emails from people in the last few weeks that have lost their Instagram or Facebook channels and are begging to have them restored. Since SCV was late to the game to get on board with the META copyright verification system unlike our system we have had with Youtube / Google for the last 15 years that pretty much takes away all the Advertising Revenue from someone and gives that to use for our crews. We have to go through hundreds of videos per day and submitting at least one hundred or more a day to be deleted on META alone.
For just this one video from Simon Brewer and Juston Drake of them playing in Hurricane Irma, we have had to submit several thousands of take down request just for this video.
Big or Small, where taking down them all… The latest take down freakout was someone in the Caribbean who lost their social media channel that had about a million followers but now META just did the Thanso “Snap Of Disintegration” then and “POOF” their channel is gone. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here is the clip from Marvels Youtube channel. The character Thanso just snapped his finger and deleted half the population of the universe.
Marvel Universe Entertainment Avengers: Infinity War (2018) – “Snap Of Disintegration”| Movie Clip HDSo if you are reading this and thinking, I won’t get caught, yes, yes you will. A.I. and the copyright verification’s are getting better everyday.
Some day I will be back out in the field chasing. Last year it was my back and neck injuries that kept me from chasing, this year is working in the office and a weather pattern that is keeping the northern plains in a perfect weather setup for summer time fun where we are on the verge of a drought.