Censoring the Reptile Hobby: Beating a Falsely Filed YouTube Copyright Strike Over Ball Python Terminology
I got a YouTube copyright strike! The video itself is about terminology used by ball python keepers and breeders. It has since been resolved and the video continues to be available on YouTube.
Many people complain that this system is highly abusable, from extorting content creators to censoring messages, and this specific instance included someone trolling the YouTube copyright claim system to remove a video because they did not like the message.
Having people attempt to abuse the legal system to censor content should raise a very big red flag in communities where free speech is a popular topic.
This isn’t the only time that someone has attempted legal-ese saber rattling to try to intimidate and frighten people from being able to tell truths. Often the words slander and libel are misused across the internet incorrectly with no actual legal outcome. Similarly the censorship of a YouTube video by claiming copyright to it is rampant.
What is a YouTube Copyright Strike?
YouTube, as part of complying with copyright law, allows users to submit a copyright takedown by using a webform. This webform requires the user to state that they are complying with relevant laws and are submitting a truthful complaint about copyright in good faith.
When you have racked up 3 strikes you will lose all of your YouTube channels. Additional YouTube features may become unavailable to you, such as live streaming, and you’re at the mercy of YouTube to facilitate the interactions between the person complaining and the owner of the YouTube video.
This is often used by trolls. In some cases they are trying to extort money.
In other cases they are trying to gain a competitive advantage, or to censor a message they do not like.
The second part is exactly what we’ll be talking about today.
Censorship
Why would you need to censor messages?
Over and over again we hear the concept that the truth will always win the marketplace of ideas. This is, unfortunately, completely false. The internet, much like any community prior to it, is full of false meritocracies and echo chambers. People like to defend people rather than explore ideas. False dichotomies are intentionally created to form sides as if we were all part of some competitive sports team with answers that can only ever be binary — there are not competing ideas but instead everything is treated as conflict.
Copyright law includes a concept of fair use.
There will never be a unified “herp hobby” or community of reptile keepers.
With all the offshoot “communities” (note the quotes) and the ease at which these communities are made, it is human nature for those in power to repeat exactly the problematic behavior they experienced as they entered the community. It’s a cycle of nonsense far removed in many communities. Those communities enforce things like “There are no experts on the internet” where you have to prove an idea rather than simply demand your own ideas be believed because you consider yourself an expert. This type of leadership within communities is not upheld by reptile-related communities. Instead people want to be celebrities and king makers.
Justin Smith of Palmetto Coast Exotics at one point claimed that the creation of Herpetoculture Magazine was to, direct quote, “leave the hobby in a better place than it was the day before” Port City Pythons, Creating a Reptile Magazine w/ Justin Smith and Billy Hunt. It is certainly an admirable goal: or it would be if that didn’t involve vindictiveness and censorship because he made a mistake and would rather cover it up than acknowledge it.
On April 14th, 2022 I received a Copyright Strike on YouTube as a result of a takedown request issued by Justin Smith.
I, of course, immediately filed a counter claim to YouTube with an explanation.
Fair Use
Copyright law includes a concept of fair use. From Copyright.gov:
[…] the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
My Video
Herpetoculture Magazine is a relatively young, yet somehow ancient in reptile hobby terms, publication along with its parent The Herpetoculture Network. On January 26th, 2022 a YouTube video named 5 Questions with Dr. Travis Wyman was published to YouTube. In the video, Travis claims to be redefining the correctness of terminology used in reptile keeping. The example is ball python keepers and others using the terms co-dominant trait where incomplete dominant is more correct.
While it is nice that Dr. Travis Wyman is trying to help people, this change in language would have happened naturally. As people move into snake keeping we get new generations of keepers who are able to take courses on Kahn Academy or do similar self-lead-learning to understand the difference. In the video Dr. Travis Wyman is nearly antagonistic toward anyone using incorrect terminology.
At the end of the video Dr. Travis Wyman uses polygenetic where the more correct term is polygenic. Dr. Travis Wyman had done exactly what he complained about.
I cut this video into what should have been a YouTube Short for my channel, Reptile Information Review. The name of the channel itself includes review which should already be setting off the understanding that it would include criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, and research from above. The edited video, which was under a minute, included written commentary right in the video explaining that Dr. Travis Wyman had made a funny mistake. For the punchline it included a song clip and video effects.
Dr. Travis Wyman and Herpetoculture Magazine failed to review their material and fix the mistake before the video was uploaded. The comments in my video provided criticism and education into what the more correct term would have been.
This did not have an intent to be mean spirited or antagonistic. It was meant to be funny. It was a commentary on the irony of Travis using the wrong terminology. It was informative as to what the correct terminology was.
May 2nd, 2022 my video returend to YouTube and the copyright strike was removed.
The Aftermath
When Justin Smith demanded the takedown of my video it was obvious that he was not concerned with actual copyright law. This was petty. This was vindictive. This was an illegal misuse of copyright law. This was going to the proverbial manager to demand content you do not like be removed from the store shelf.
This is, unfortunately, par for course with the actors involved. Dr. Travis Wyman himself made a statement of (direct quote):
[…] my initial statement stands as absolutely correct […] it is absolutely possible to prevent spread/transmission [of viruses] using light.
This is a bizarre claim. Just prior there was also a claim that HEPA filters were required. These posts are now unavailable because they were hidden and removed from the public eye.
None of it makes any sense and I’ll gladly cover that in another video. Travis’s claim was so far fetched and ridiculous that they had to hide the thread from the public and ban users, including myself, from MorphMarket’s Community Forums to cover it up. Dr. Travis Wyman’s contraption was naive at best and certainly not “absolutely correct”. Readers can do their own research. Look into “deep UV”, the technology behind SODIS, and the fecal-oral route these viruses are thought to be transmitted by. A HEPA filter will not clean your feeding tongs better than bleach. No one is sanitizing their hands with UV instead of soap. It’s nonsense.
Justin Smith and Dr. Travis Wyman both create histories of censorship while trying to pose as king makers in a hobby that is splintered and divided. The average reptile YouTube content consumer doesn’t care if Dr. Travis Wyman got a word wrong — there is no reason for Justin Smith to react to it the way that he did. The average YouTube content consumer surely by now does not believe that light prevents all viral infections. There is no good explanations for why these two men are so fragile that these criticisms affected them to the point of having to vindictively censor, ban, and try to control individual reputations.
I certainly won’t be phased.
Where Do I Go From Here
Whether it’s Liam Sinclair misusing libel and slander, Justin Smith abusing copyright, or Dr. Travis Wyman trying to bully users on the MorphMarket Community Forums, it’s all the same to me. I will not change.
Justin Smith has misused a very powerful tool as a content creator. If anything, this simply allows me to sample and use even more Herpetoculture Network content since he was not able to win this takedown and YouTube will not tolerate him continuing to abuse copyright to censor other creators.
This is not a threat or revenge — this is simply the result of people in the reptile hobby being so adverse to any criticism that they cannot handle criticism when it happens. The reptile hobby relies on people with competing ideas to, and this next section is paraphrasing Justin Smith, move the hobby forward to a better place than it was yesterday.
Don’t forget to drop us a follow on YouTube at Reptile Information Review. Within the next month will be talking about molecular biology and genotyping snakes right at home.
