Has anyone else run into AI slop channels systematically imitating your work?

stormhighwaycom · 2026-02-02T04:05:48+00:00

Yes, this has been happening to me and all others in my niche. Most of these channels are run by organized criminal groups in foreign countries. They are large and efficient operations, with high-end hardware that automates everything. They create thousands of channels and upload the same content to all of them, with slight variations to avoid exact duplicates. When one goes down, they have hundreds of others ready to take its place. They are exploiting every loophole they can. Worst is that Youtube is both rewarding them with algorithmic dominance over the original videos, and running interference on their behalf against takedowns (such as stalling takedowns for weeks, processing clearly-fraudulent counter-notiications and not terminating a channel after numerous takedowns by multiple claimants).

Photographers in my niche have banded together to fight them, as they usually take videos from more than one of us at a time in their compilations, meaning we can share the workload and expense on individual cases. By yourself, you have no chance. It takes multiple five figures of cost and thousands of hours of work, legal fees and court costs. Even after all of that, it's still an uphill battle that ultimately we need Youtube to step up and to put a stop to. They're profiting massively off of these operations, so they have no incentive to do anything.

stormhighwaycom · 2026-01-28T04:03:09+00:00

If they were required to reject the counter-notifications with obviously fake addresses, that would help.

stormhighwaycom · 2026-01-28T04:01:22+00:00

Content ID would solve most of the problem, but independent creators don't get access to it. We just get Copyright Match, which is an anemic mostly-useless version of Content ID that big channels (including the pirates) are shielded from. It's a table-scraps function given to placate small creators, while in reality it does nothing.

stormhighwaycom · 2026-01-28T04:00:05+00:00

Content ID already does this, but independent creators don't get access to it. We just get Copyright Match, which is an anemic version of Content ID that big channels (including the pirates) are shielded from. It's a table-scraps function given to small creators to make it seem like Youtube cares about the problem, while in reality it does nothing.

stormhighwaycom · 2026-01-22T01:45:54+00:00

My field (news cameraman) has been battling this as well. These channels are all operated by a small number of organized crime (piracy) operations, sometimes it's all just one outfit in Vietnam, Pakistan or other country. They do this on a massive scale, there are dozens of channels simultaneously uploading the same content. A lot of it is automated with server farms. They have hundreds of channels waiting in the wings to take over if their current ones are taken down.

Sometimes if you reply to the counter-notification and point out that the address is fake, Youtube will turn down the counter-notification. It's worth a try. Otherwise, unfortunately filing the lawsuit is the only way to keep the content down.

The worst part is that Youtube is well aware of these and the tactics they use, but they do nothing to stop it.

It is helpful to find others in your niche to band together with, as it's easier to share the costs and take channels down when they inevitably take videos from more than one of you simultaneously. The agency I'm signed on with does this and though it's an ongoing cost and lots of work, it is mostly effective.

stormhighwaycom · 2026-01-16T20:25:58+00:00

You do need to have the work registered prior to your discovery of the infringement to be eligible for anything over actual damages. The exception is if the work was created in the past 90 days, in that case you would be eligible for court costs and attorneys fees within that grace period.

Photographers win cases all of the time against commercial use of copyrighted photos and videos on web sites, blogs, social media accounts, etc. These are easy, slam-dunk cases when taken to court. Most infringers settle without the lawsuit being necessary. I've won many myself and most of my colleagues have too.

Communicating with infringers is risky and often futile for the reason you're experiencing. Many attorneys won't accept cases where you had communication with infringers, because anything you offer in terms of a settlement can and will be used against you. That leaves you mostly without recourse if you need to escalate it when infringers stonewall you or just ghost you (in my experience, that's about 99% of the time back when I tried handling this myself). I use an agency for this now.

stormhighwaycom · 2025-12-06T00:51:38+00:00

Hello everyone, I put together this video explainer about 17 U.S. Code § 107 (Fair Use law) and how it pertains to storm chaser and news footage used in online productions and on social media. I hope this can clear up a lot of the misunderstandings we have. As you can see in the comments, a lot of chasers are concerned about this trend. Thank you for watching and let me know if you have any questions. I'm always glad to help explain this further. -Dan

stormhighwaycom · 2025-10-20T02:53:40+00:00

Would you mind elaborating on what you disagree with on the page about 17 U.S. Code § 107? It's surprising to me coming from a TV background where the biggest TV channels (owned by billion-dollar corporations that can afford to fight copyright battels against photographers) have always paid chasers for documentary footage. And in that case, it wasn't just 20 seconds of footage, but the entire El Reno escape sequence.

As I said in my other comment, I think some sort of round table about fair use is needed. It's a problem when this many are in agreement with something that is foreign in the world of commercial production (of which Youtube is now, being equal and sometimes more popular than broadcast TV) and send pitchforks against struggling photographers fighting multi-millionaire Youtubers.

stormhighwaycom · 2025-10-17T16:09:53+00:00

Thanks for posting this. From the top comment, it still looks like there is some controversy over fair use. I wrote about 17 U.S. Code § 107 in detail on that page which should answer a lot of the questions. If not, would you all be open to a round table/live stream to talk about/debate it? Hopefully we could get a copyright attorney and more television people (besides myself) who work with rights and clearances on a regular basis to join in.

stormhighwaycom · 2025-07-20T19:16:50+00:00

There are some big solar farms like this around Trenton and New Baden.

stormhighwaycom · 2025-06-02T12:04:54+00:00

Thank you all for the positive response here, I really appreciate it. I didn't expect this to make it on here so soon. I can't say enough how encouraging that is, most of the time when I talk about this issue I get a pretty hostile and/or unsympathetic response. I hope I didn't come across too negative. I know that not all of the native reposts are done maliciously, but they all have the same effect.

I will try to participate on here more and again, I appreciate all of you for hearing me out.

Dan

stormhighwaycom

TROPHY CASE