| I received an email from Brandon Clement. Like a lot of emails people send from businesses, it has a section about not reproducing it in whole or in part. (though it kind of specifically means estimates of work too, but I don't want to get into trouble) So I'll summarize. Basically, they go through a lot of copyright claims in a year and kind of implied that contacting people individually isn't practical. He wanted to know why Jim wouldn't license the video before using it. He mentioned two videos from Reed Timmer and one from him that claims were made about. (meaning clips from those two were in videos Jim had on Facebook) He also saw the donate buttons at HurricaneCity and considers that to mean the website is for profit. They have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to copyright and he didn't like being in this position. I sent the response below and we'll see if I get a reply back, but I don't think it's promising. While I understand that in most cases it is very difficult to contact people individually, I would have hoped that it would have been possible to handle this differently with someone who has been in this business for over 25 years. I'm sure many people know of Jim. He is a fellow storm chaser when he is able to do it. Jim was lucky not to have been killed in a traffic accident on the way to covering Hurricane Ian where he was going to deploy remote cameras. Pictures from that accident: https://twitter.com/HurricaneCity/status/1574801635909541890 I'm not asking to permanently allow him to use the videos from you both, just to have the opportunity to remove the ones that generated copyright claims. I don't understand why Facebook has taken a particularly aggressive stance in this case in regards to these claims. That will be the next step I want to investigate. If they are automatic claims, please simply provide him with the links of any other offending videos that contain content that needs to be removed. If they are videos you come across, then it wouldn't be a big issue in this particular case just to drop him an email with the links. This applies to past videos. He won't use your content in the future. You mention three particular video clips, two from Mr. Timmer and one from you. I don't know if that is from three different videos Jim posted or from two videos he posted. Perhaps there was an extra clip that he missed removing in the video he reposted after removing a clip. Maybe that is what made Facebook extra aggressive in this case, I don't know. That will have to be something I will talk to him about. Jim doesn't go looking for content to rip from people. He either streams live in a hurricane himself if he can or he will cover it from his home showing people data from the storm. Sometimes that involves content that I generate on my site for him to use freely. That also often involves going through social media live on the stream to play various clips from the storm as it is happening as a public service, along with providing lots of other information about the storm. If he is in the storm, he has another friend that helps him go over all of that in real time from their own home as he is in the storm. (and he would let that person know too not to pull up video from you two in the future in those live streams) Sometimes he may also edit that live video, which may be very long, many hours, into something shorter after the storm. The claims may have been from either a live stream or one of those videos he edited after the storm to be a shorter video of the live stream. He makes no money from any of that though, so there isn't money to pay any licensing fee for a short sample of content. But again, he won't do that for you two any longer. This hasn't been a problem that has come up for the first 25 years that I am aware of. He now knows that you two are not okay with this kind of use, even a brief use. People don't have to pay to watch or do anything on his site. If someone wants to donate to help fund costs, like helping to buy cameras to deploy in the field or cover travel costs, they can do that. No ads run on the videos. Payment is never required for anything. This is not a money making operation for him, there is never a net profit, it's just a passion he has to do this when he is able. He does not charge anyone, even news organizations, to use his content. He streamed Hurricane Michael live from his truck as it roared ashore: https://twitter.com/HurricaneCity/status/1050066619559567361 People can use that freely. I understand that obviously you guys must charge money in most cases, but for someone who truly isn't making money off the videos in question, I hope an exception can be made to simply lift the claims for a little while so that he can simply remove the videos, not to actually continue to use them in the future. I would hope that courtesy could be made to Jim in this particular case. If not, then he could be permanently banned in the future on Facebook if he can't find a way to work it out with them. (and they don't seem easy to contact about this) Christopher Hollis |