Creator Spotlight with Storm Chaser & Videographer Brandon Clement
The Copyright Alliance team had the opportunity to speak with storm chaser and videographer Brandon Clement to learn more about his exciting career and the immense amount of copyright infringement he’s had to deal with over the years. This spotlight blog is a summary of what we discussed during our video interview with Brandon, which is now available on our YouTube channel.
Brandon Clement is a professional storm chaser and videographer. He’s been a full-time storm chaser for almost a decade but has a total of 30 years of experience under his belt. He has worked with news outlets throughout the US, and has been working on building his own brand, WxChasing, where he works diligently to document volcano eruptions, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and more. For each natural disaster that he records, he and his team actively try to help the people who have been impacted.
After reading Brandon’s Creator Spotlight blog, be sure to subscribe to his YouTube Channel and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X.
What has been your experience with copyright infringement?
I had a couple of big moments in 2018. One was the volcano in Kilauea, Hawaii. I recorded lava that came over the top of the road, and it consumed a Mustang and R2D2 mailbox. That video went absolutely viral, but that’s when I also became a target for pirates. The more success I have, the more money I make for pirates. I’ve been hit by a ceiling where I can’t financially move to the next level. I can’t build my business. I’m now losing over 90% of my revenue to piracy. There are systems in place that recognize when content is going viral, and that’s when the stealing starts.
Every day I wake up, it’s like walking into my shop full of thieves. It consumes my life. I’ve submitted more than 400,000 DMCA takedown requests. I have filed hundreds of lawsuits on three different continents. I go after these people who pirate me repeatedly, in any way I can. I am being handcuffed by current legislation, and we’re running into some major roadblocks with the social media and giant tech companies that have their thumb on the scale and are making tens of billions of dollars per quarter from copyright infringement.
These tech giants are constantly shifting the rules. They are changing what they consider to be a repeat infringer day-to-day, depending on the sizes of the channels. Some are delaying takedowns. Some claim fair use when they have no legal standing to do so. It’s been a constant fight and battle that leaves me with a tremendous amount of anxiety. The laws aren’t protecting me. There’s a lot of other U.S. businesses like mine, and we’re all targets of foreign bad actors that wake up every morning with the intention of stealing from us. No matter how many times you catch them, the scales are tipped so far one way that it’s impossible for us to continue to do business on a normal basis.
How has copyright infringement impacted your ability to take your business to the next level? What is the next level for WxChasing?
I’ll work 18 to 20 hours a day where I’m either out chasing storms, capturing weather, doing charity operations, or dealing with copyright infringement. There’s no break. I have four employees, and they all handle copyright. The amount of money that’s being stolen from me is preventing me from going to that next level, in a way that’s huge.
We work hard to give people real time information and real stories. The last hurricane, Beryl, was in Carriacou. We were the only media people on the island. This category four, almost a category five, hurricane devastated the island. We were the only people on the whole island that could talk to the outside world because all the towers collapsed. I was able to get loved ones in touch with their families for the first time since the disaster. It’s a special moment to be able to help people that way, but at the same time, it’s a problem. It’s traumatic seeing people deal with that. That’s the type of impact we’re having.
We want to be able to go in and rebuild a whole neighborhood that’s been hit by a hurricane, and at the same time capture views of the disaster. We want to use the money we get from what we captured to give back by rebuilding houses. But, we can’t do that when our work is pirated. The money is not coming to us, and it’s disgusting that we keep dealing with this problem.
What platforms or services do you primarily send takedown notices to? Is there a platform where you encounter infringement more than the others?
I really don’t want to use some platforms like X (Twitter). The monetization is horrible; the piracy is horrible. It’s the same thing with Telegram and Truth Social. I really don’t want my content on them. The problem is that if I don’t put my content on there myself, somebody else will and they’ll benefit more. It’s a constant battle. So even though I don’t want to publish my work on those social media platforms, I’ve got to do it just to limit the piracy and the thieves’ success on those platforms. You’ll have people like Elon Musk who will publicly come out and say “Hey, we’re not going to stand for copyright infringement,” and then encourage the people who submitted a false counter-notification to put the content behind a paywall on Twitter so he can make even more money off of it.
[Infringement is] definitely a problem on all platforms, but on YouTube we’ve identified channels that are using AI and deal in misinformation. We’ve notified YouTube’s legal counsel and have submitted DMCA takedowns. They’ll take 300 to 400 clips and put it into an AI editing program and tell the AI, “We want a 48-minute video, and we want 35 different variations of it.” Then every day they’ll post one of the variations. It’s the same exact clips, and with every video, they use headlines claiming there are massive natural disasters happening to major metro cities all around the world and claiming that they happened two minutes ago. The reality is that some of this content is 20 years old. This can generate hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per channel, and there are hundreds of them. The problem is that YouTube keeps changing the goalposts and requiring more and more from copyright owners (including receiving takedowns from multiple accounts). We’ve encountered similar problems with Meta.
TikTok takes weeks to respond to our DMCA takedown requests. It’s very easy to upload pirated content to TikTok, but if you want to send a DMCA takedown for it, they impose many more requirements than those established by the DMCA. Even after you provide all the information for the takedown request, they still come back and ask you to take a picture of you logging in to make [their rules] as complicated as possible. Again, by the time the takedown happens, you’ve lost all of the revenue. The people stealing your content, they get to keep the revenue and so does the social media platform. The only person who doesn’t make any money off the content is a person who owns it.
What is your opinion of the DMCA? Do you find that it helps creators combat infringement?
The DMCA is outdated, and it does need to be revised. The premise of the DMCA is quite simple, but the problem is that there are a few gray areas that are being exploited and undermined by giant tech platforms. Creators are being exploited and undermined in a way that makes the DMCA almost useless.
There are some very easy fixes: (1) Once a DMCA takedown has been submitted, that content cannot be altered. It can’t be deleted, made private, removed, or edited until that takedown is addressed; and (2) an effective repeat infringer policy needs to be identified. It needs to be clearly laid out in a way that everybody knows the rules so that everybody is playing by a fair system. Unfortunately, tech platforms are creating their own rules that make absolutely no sense. In fact, they aren’t even rules, but loopholes. Those loopholes need to be closed.
However, if there wasn’t the DMCA and if there wasn’t the capability of federal lawsuits, I wouldn’t exist. My business wouldn’t exist, no photographer would exist, no videographer would exist, it would be impossible.
What has been your experience with Google’s DMCA System?
Google says that their DMCA system is transparent, and Google’s Search Feature, this year alone, had a billion DMCA takedowns. They say they are so overwhelmed and struggle to keep up with it, but it’s their own policies that are allowing issues to happen. Like most platforms and social media companies, content is king. And it is in their interest to keep material, including infringing material, up so that they can get advertising revenue.
It’s not just Google; it’s everyone. And small-time creators have it the worst because they aren’t offered the same tools that are offered to some large copyright owner organizations. All I’m asking is for these platforms to help support me. My content would not exist for them to make money from if they put me out of business, but these tech giants are so worried about their short-term profits that they’re unable to see the long-term vision.
How has the media been impacted by AI and misinformation?
Media is being replaced in real time by AI and misinformation. People no longer want the news, they want to confirm their beliefs with confirmational bias, and social media gives that to them. With algorithms, AI is going to amplify that to extremes that we can’t possibly fathom. So, right now AI is killing the media, it’s killing real journalism. Now these major media outlets are suffering financially and can’t afford to send their crews out like they used to, it’s disappearing because they don’t get the payout.
What is the best piece of advice that you would give other creators or those who are up and coming in your field about copyright and how to protect themselves?
Watermark your material. It won’t stop infringement from happening and it may not even slow it down, but at least it gives you a little bit extra protection and some evidence for potential litigation. Also, document, document, document. Register, register, register. I spend 30% of my gross revenue for my company registering content. Each registration is 65 bucks, and it takes about 20 minutes to do each one. I spend $80,000 a year on registrations, but it’s the cost of doing business. I have one employee that does nothing but register my works all day, but it’s one of the most important ways to protect your works.
Watch the Full Interview with Brandon Clement
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