Claims against "Rendezvous in Tornado Alley" creator Christophe Asselin's YouTube channel

[James Hammett]

I know many of you have enjoyed the high quality original content that veteran French storm chaser and Stormtrack member Christophe Asselin's YouTube channel Chroniques Chaotiques has produced highlighting his many storm chasing trips to the US over the years. For example: Rendezvous in Tornado Alley - Season 3

He's been on hiatus for the past year as he receives treatment for cancer and recently posted that he's expecting to be able to chase again soon. But apparently now his channel is getting shut down today from the 5 takedowns he received in one day unless the copyright holders agree to negotiate. Here is his post with more context and a translation:

This YouTube channel could disappear permanently in the next 48 hours (that's a shame, I was preparing my comeback). Explanations below.

On YouTube, if you infringe copyright by reposting content that doesn't belong to you, you can receive a warning. After 3 warnings, the channel is suspended for 7 days and then simply deleted if no agreement has been reached with the rights holders.

However, last Friday I simultaneously received 5 warnings for excerpts from videos of American storm chasers that I sometimes shared during my live streams during tornado situations in the United States. The excerpts in question are on average 20 seconds long, within streams of 4 to 7 hours. They are always credited, and I comment on them, explaining what's happening. In this case, in the US – at least in my opinion – this would be considered "fair use," somewhat equivalent to our French right of quotation.

There's also a 5-second excerpt in episode 3 of "Pris Pour Cibles," the one where I literally encourage you to discover the storm chaser in question.

I contacted the agency ViralDRM, which manages the rights of these American storm chasers, to explain my point of view and confirm the deletion of the replays in question, as well as their non-monetization at the time.

In response, they are asking me for "approximately $3000" to "pay their fees and withdraw the claims." They are boasting about their "great leniency" and their desire to "support the storm chasing community."

$3000 is more than the channel earned in 2025. And in 2024 too.

For excerpts of a few seconds in the middle of hours of original content... and whose distribution is legal under American law, based on the "fair use" principle I mentioned. Hence these few words in English below. Hey @ReedTimmerWx @PecosHank @StormChaserAaronRigsby @StormChaserJordanHall, my 15-year-old YouTube channel (90k subs) is scheduled to be terminated in 2 days. Your rights management agency (@ViralDRM) suddenly claimed several videos where I used short clips to educate my French audience and promote your work. I genuinely believe this is Fair Use and meant no harm to your business. Could you please help with this urgent matter?

We'll see what happens between now and Friday. More info on Twitter or Insta if this channel disappears and/or if they sue me...

Thank you for always being there!

Chris.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I have always been a big fan of Christophe’s work. But this phenomenon of thinking “everything is fair use” when it really isn’t is out of control right now, From the many documentary channels to live streamers, there seems to be no end to this stuff. It needs to stop. I’ve tried to get the word out about this, but the message isn’t being received.

I especially take issue with the practice of attempting to demonize and shame chasers protecting their rights. YouTube and Twitch steaming is big business, and the owners of valuable content have a legal right to object to a dubious fair use claim.

All streamers know they can’t use copyrighted material without a risk of this happening, even with music playing in the background. But for some reason, chaser video is seen differently.

I hope this can be worked out amicably, but this approach is essentially saying that all of the chasers in question are wrong for taking this action. There is in fact a valid copyright issue here. What *should* they do? Just expecting to let every one of the thousands of infringement instances slide when this reaction happens isn’t fair. There is a huge cost and workload to deal with all of this.

 

[Warren Faidley]

He should pray the people mentioned don't take legal action for copyright violations, a much more serious matter than YouTube banishment. In fact, I have seen some of the people he mentioned going right to the jugular vein when it comes to copyright violations.

 

[James Hammett]

this phenomenon of thinking “everything is fair use” when it really isn’t is out of control right now

100% Dan, and your fair use video should be required material for anyone in the content creation business.

While the fair use criteria and legal protections for content don't change, there's of course a huge range of circumstances around both the intent and scale of each violation that most content owners would like to take into account. Just as I've provided very different licensing quotes to a Youtuber with 22M subscribers vs non-profit public museums, content owners have a lot of leeway in how they choose to enforce their legal rights for each violation. And I think that's the purpose underlying the public appeal here.

Unfortunately YouTube's 3 strikes rule assumes you're irredeemable as a channel owner if you receive multiple takedowns even if they're all coordinated to come in at the same time. I've had to pursue hundreds of violations against my own content especially since the Laramie 2018 tornado. But I'd hate to see a storm chaser's channel get wiped out in this instance because they didn't have the social pull that a more popular YouTuber has to create a massive PR backlash from content owners enforcing their rights.