My photographic work was uploaded and used without permission on a few YouTube channels. I exercised my rights under copyright law to have it removed. This was not about singling out any one channel, but about protecting my own work and the rights of artists in general.
Unfortunately, my name has since been mentioned on social media in a negative light and I have received messages telling me to ‘eat shit’. It is not uncommon for rights-holders to be mischaracterised when someone’s unauthorised use of material is called out and sending messages like this does not help the cause of the person who committed the copyright theft in the first place. It just buries them in a deeper hole.
I want to be clear that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. I have every right to protect my work, just as any artist does, and I will continue to do so.
It was never my intention to remove historic material or limit access to archival content. Any resulting channel removal was a side effect of repeated copyright infringements, not a targeted action by me against any archive.
Tags: Copyright
Leave a comment