• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Copyright owners threatened for issuing DMCA takedowns on pirated videos

Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
3,413
Location
St. Louis
I stumbled upon this today during my copyright infringement search routine. This is your garden-variety freebooting/pirate monetized Youtube channel that mass-reuploads videos from others in the form of compilations, without permission from the owners of the original videos. These channels pop up every other day. This channel has amassed 18,000 subscribers in a little over a month (not hard to do when you just steal everyone's content).

As is typical, the response to DMCA copyright complaints by owners of the stolen videos are met with contempt and even threats by the fans of the channel. I have experienced this myself several times.


Here is a screen capture of the threats by the channel's supporters on Youtube and Reddit:

oct12copyright.jpg

For the record, this particular channel did not take one of my videos (as of yet) but has ripped from hundreds of others. Many channels just like this one have stolen my videos in the past, and I have received the same type of hate from supporters and the channel owners.

I'm not aware of if anyone has made good on these threats, but clearly from the upvotes on the comments, the sentiment/motivation is strong and shared by many.

Both Youtube and the pirates directly profit from these types of channels, which is partly why Youtube is in no hurry to help the original creators police for these types of infringements. Content ID is not granted to smaller channel owners, only the larger ones as well as the big media corporations.
 
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In my experience the YouTube comments section is filled with empty threats from empty heads. The theoretical teenager in his parents' basement type of people.

The major issue I'm seeing is there's no good solution to the problem of people stealing content, especially if YouTube is reluctant or lazy with its help.

Moving to another service is an option, but with the sheer popularity of YouTube its hard to imagine being able to get the same amount of views, plus your video could just as easily be downloaded from there.

Joining together under one big umbrella would make us look bigger in YouTube's eyes, but we would lose individuality.

Obviously, YouTube needs to change their way of doing things to protect Copyright holders, but so far it appears the money they make off pirates is held in higher regard than the laws of Copyright as long as you're not a major company with a team of lawyers.
 
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