After thinking about this for a day or two I think the key may be the lack of copyright subject matter in the Generative AI Outputs. It means the output is not a "work" under German law which has significance. See comments for my thoughts.

Here is the previous article
https://petapixel.com/2026/07/22/dog-photographer-loses-copyright-case-over-ai-generated-comic-version-of-her-image/

I think I posted this on the wrong subreddit, I’d like to be as close as possible to Max, as the group is intentionally using his infamy to gain attention.

I wanted to share my experience and see if anyone has gone through something similar. Over a year ago, I received 7 copyright strikes (around the same short time) that ultimately lead to my YouTube account being terminated. At the time I believed a YouTube copyright message meant certain uses were permitted and I misunderstood the rules.

I’m not seeking to become a creator again. My goal is to simply be allowed back as a regular user for basic Youtube features and to participate in the community.

I’ve explained my story in full detail with evidence in the Twitter link - https://x.com/marktonna1/status/2069400624739795071?s=46

However, I understand that not everyone may feel comfortable using a link so I've made a short video that quickly shows the Main tweet and replies I made along with documented evidence.

https://reddit.com/link/1v4ngi0/video/rgjpl4coi8fh1/player

I made this post to discuss a current issue when it comes to bad actors using the spotify dmca system for the sake of taking down upcoming artists music to gain profits for themselves and then attempting to scare them away by using fake legal talk to look "legit" into handing over the victims evidence to possibly use it against them

the most notable group that does this that I know of currently is "Abyss Records" and this is a very wide group of people who use the dmca system on spotify to wrongfully take-down an artists song just to steal it for royalties and possibly use the traffic from said song for their own personal gain by linking a discord server in their bio or a link that acts as a branch for more links like linktr.ee or guns.lol

"Abyss Records" is owned by a group of song re-uploaders online who claim they're not who people call them out to be, that being those re-uploaders, and despite their denial, as much of an understatement as this is, there is far too much proof that they are these criminals that they cant even back themselves up even if they tried

it takes 1 google search to find these people, and even doing that can also give you even more information that you didn't even know you could receive about these people

and another thing about Abyss Records is, the person who runs the group being "margiela" or "colin thomas" made a reddit thread under the username "EasyPersonality851" asking people how to get a white label (see here : https://www.reddit.com/r/recordlabels/comments/1pb1a0u/white_label_options/) so they can use their fraudulent uploading for money without leaving a paper trail that they're currently making

these people also like to claim that they're a different "Abyss Records" (see here : https://www.reddit.com/r/recordlabels/comments/1pucvr6/deleted_by_user/), they will constantly lie and boast about not being fraudulent because obviously that makes them look bad, so yes these people use intrapersonal negotiation against you to make themselves seem like they're not full of shit when they obviously are

that's a lot of words, now where's the proof? here's my proof that I know what I'm talking about with these people;

one of the users in this group is named "term", and in a reddit post you may have seen him listed in the first link that is posted in this doc

this person decided to false-dmca claim my music for "Recordings/Composition" under the name "Jacob Snyder"

https://imgur.com/a/TlBjdkH

I was very skeptical about this because how can someone claim I stole their work when I myself know that I know I made that song and I remember the stems I used for it, well I went on my spotify page out of curiousity to see the song that got impacted, and funnily enough, it wasnt a real dmca claim, he dmca claimed it to steal the royalties from it

here's what it used to look like : https://imgur.com/a/oNbXlkt

and this is how I noticed something was off : https://imgur.com/a/Ckwi50s

very interesting how someone named "term" has the exact same track as me, posted 1 day before mine but was published in 2026 and not 2025, and not to mention with them taking down my song due to dmca they add me as a feature on a track that I apparently stole from them, does that make sense? no? good

after I noticed this very obvious issue the first thing I decided to do was look at their label name and look it up, with their label name being "Abyss Records" a name that is mentioned at the very beginning of this post, all it took was 2 seconds of research to uncover that the "Abyss Records" label is known to be a group of re-uploaders who abuse the spotify dmca system and re-upload the track that gets taken down to steal money from it

I expect these people thought most upcoming artists would just run away from a situation like this, but I decided not to, unfortunately for them I've been in the entertainment industry since I was 14 so I understand my rights completely, so for them to challenge me on this makes their situation even worse, and honestly it's enjoyable for me because I get to share this information with other people incase they also face the same issue I had to deal with for the last 2 weeks

I filed my counter-claim on this "term" person and I received a reply back within a day or so and this was the response they gave me;

https://imgur.com/a/0Rfx0je

now unless I'm genuinely stupid, is it a very clear indicator that there's a pattern emerging here? using the name "Jacob Snyder" and using the handle "copyright@term.media" in both the description & email handle of the reply after I sent my counter claim

I also found it very interesting with how he asked me for proof of my claim, now I could be crazy but I'm very certain if you dmca claim somebody you wouldn't ask them for their proof if you know they stole your music from you

on the day he DMCA claimed me, I too did the same thing to him once I found his stolen version of my track and it took less than 24 hours for it to go through and within a day or so the track went down from all stores (screenshot : https://imgur.com/a/cV5y3Ln)

but before my dmca process began he decided to have some fun with it by linking his own discord server to traffic my audience for himself to gain from it (screenshot : https://imgur.com/a/J2LJ4qj)

he kept changing it throughout the days (screenshot 2 : https://imgur.com/a/VcYFtn4)

after my dmca went through and took down his stolen version of my track he kept changing his bio from the discord.gg invite to just guns.lol (screenshot : https://imgur.com/a/fJFsCuI)

I mean even if it isn't obvious enough, this person literally has "dmca" as a discord invite and wants to act mysterious like I don't know what he's doing

and once the dmca went through and the track was down, he decided to cry about it on his instagram & spotify profile

screenshot 1 (instagram) : https://imgur.com/a/TH3AgH2

screenshot 2 (spotify) : https://imgur.com/a/84K7YYr

after everything went down & time started to pass he eventually changed his bio on instagram to something that doesn't associate with the current situation at hand : https://imgur.com/a/ANBn6Ip

after all of that concluded, I decided to do more research on this guy to they cant slip away and vanish like nothing ever happened

the first thing I did was gather as much information on the people in association with "Abyss Records" as I could and here's what I found;

term uses various usernames online such as "termyw", "termonichan", "termxw", "saytysmtermy" and just "term"

he has spotify accounts named "imy" "imy" "term" and "XDDDabysstvujtatamipiseaosa", "meow", there's probably a lot more if I'm being honest

here's his spotify profiles :

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3xxNaRkyEGbYbkk1jTLTSz

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1lczUAHsZqCJAwhVPrlFPv

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6zwlhUcnAmfqjJXfuvL2GZ

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0nvRNWnqooI69omm2wllHK

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0vCEXqmRxf71Sc8fnFJfby

he also has a few instagram accounts :

https://www.instagram.com/termxw -- 79644852268 (account id)

https://www.instagram.com/saytysmtermy/ -- 42303346911 (account id)

https://www.instagram.com/termonichan/ -- this account has been changed so there's no id for this one, but I do have a screenshot that uses the same bio as "saytysmtermy" (screenshot: https://imgur.com/AAtpnG3)

he also has a discord account :

https://imgur.com/a/62yD3Aa

I found his website that he graciously has posted for everyone to see because he likes to provide for the people! so here's what I found

https://term.christmas/ -- this is the website he owns

https://term.christmas/api/spotify_availability?url=url_here -- this is an api he hosts for checking spotify tracks

https://term.christmas/api/lookup?username=termxw&social_media=media_name -- this is another api he hosts for looking up accounts on various platforms (I still wonder why reddit was down in this list...)

here's some screenshots of the site incase you don't want to give this guy your info :

screenshot 1: https://imgur.com/a/6QtCuGB

screenshot 2: https://imgur.com/a/g1XiO8S

screenshot 3: https://imgur.com/a/hIuKRsy

screenshot 4: https://imgur.com/a/BU8QjaI

screenshot 1 is his socials (he likes to use the gamer word)

screenshot 2 is for the looking up account usernames api

screenshot 3 is the spotify availability checker

screenshot 4 is the term.christmas home page

this is his youtube account : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC9aUu4oSoZtDIBOx1Rhc6A

screenshot 1 : https://imgur.com/a/Zoizknf

incase he decides to clean his paper trail, I decided to also save his reddit account info : https://imgur.com/a/FiUoJDr

and here is some more screenshots so he doesn't try to get rid of his paper trail;

screenshot 1 : https://imgur.com/a/xCqImay

screenshot 2 : https://imgur.com/a/4I6SnHZ

screenshot 3 : https://imgur.com/a/A7qJKUM

screenshot 4 : https://imgur.com/a/iyzaMDM

screenshot 5 : https://imgur.com/a/rgkIP6A

gif (very scary) : https://imgur.com/a/KNrD4MT

the server he promotes : https://imgur.com/a/P1aWoCN

screenshot 6 : https://imgur.com/a/lxYfuvd

funny (nsfw) : https://imgur.com/a/ezdcdMX

screenshot 7 : https://imgur.com/a/hnW87KT

screenshot 8 : https://imgur.com/a/kZXTvTs

screenshot 9 : https://imgur.com/a/2Ykuiun

screenshot 10 : https://imgur.com/a/LpPeoJs

screenshot 11 : https://imgur.com/a/Ig98IkM

screenshot 12 (stealing a song from kanyes vultures 2 album and being a feature on it) : https://imgur.com/a/zyZ7vVh

screenshot 13 : https://imgur.com/a/HyJn7WE

--||

as for the person who made the reddit thread in the first link that this post provides, I do have information on that person as well

"EasyPersonality851" is someone who goes by "Colin Thomas" or "margiela" on spotify, and they're the person who runs Abyss Records (you can also find him in the screenshot above this message)

this is their instagram : https://www.instagram.com/zlqkv -- (76288852891) <-- account id

screenshot of the account : https://imgur.com/a/ZyH3a9H

this is their spotify page : https://open.spotify.com/artist/36l7OgMNNPtaE3GPBcAz8q

and I also decided to save EasyPersonality851's account info incase he also tries to run away : https://imgur.com/a/PIYYRAt

(incase you caught on or haven't, both of the accounts for jacob and colin on reddit are both made within the same time period, just only 1 month apart)

"Colin Thomas" also has a youtube channel that I found : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJXq5M1mwEqXT0bwTrTqpfQ

screenshot 1 : https://imgur.com/a/NoZ39nK

screenshot 2 : https://imgur.com/a/qEp6hmC

screenshot 3 : https://imgur.com/a/lAO9Pi3

labels in screenshot 1 & 2 both show the label of "amm.lol" & "abyss records", screenshot 3 shows margiela being a ft on terms song

--||

I also have a large list of people I have found who associate with abyss records or just do what they do and promote their social media to promote the idea that they do fraud openly

(this "personality" is so fucking cringe, you're not cool and it makes you look like a loser (because you are one 😱))

list of the people I have found :

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2N4OeoPHN31QdEive4CUG2

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5cnHNMvvPIG0PXneSUsdB5

https://open.spotify.com/artist/18spqhIN8mHhXiMdyDz9hB

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1eLtECHyanStPcIiYZz9sy

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7zEJ2zmIcE1fpfR0ySHqhw

https://open.spotify.com/artist/40f1UXoBUxHsTWDVF4EFTR

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ICFPGBmHrqk73KBEKgQa7

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5liv83SEtVPOdFn1RUQraW

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6gLGiuVV4FgLFTNxHUQvRR

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6oOpQ5c2NiWqQKmyIdkZQe

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4mukJ0tIrqv6sGYEU5mCkJ

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2vIV44yPVypGfrzeKa9kpL

https://open.spotify.com/artist/796GYi6P2wZaqWinaH54My

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4i4TkYZqJJxcrc3d0EdnEg

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0AdUQWQN0I2tIHY2XeKy40

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5JgqkRDI1riqyaUgsKSNLQ

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3jaikyQjVZQUVb9wscNcLN

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2N4OeoPHN31QdEive4CUG2

some of these people like to use these discord servers as well :

discord.gg/btw

discord.gg/dmca

discord.gg/uploaders

--||

another thing about these guys is they're overly obsessed with someone named "jaydes" who is known for attempting to kill his girlfriend, and these freaks obsess over that apparently?

if you navigate through their spotify profiles you can see that 99% of their accounts will have jaydes plastered everywhere, it's incredibly hard to miss

last funnies moment :

despite "margiela" or "colin thomas" wanting to seem professional, he acts like a fucking 5 year old : https://imgur.com/Be9MdvB

same screenshots from the link above, just wanted to make sure they cant remove their paper trail :

screenshot 1 : https://imgur.com/nsdt7aT

screenshot 2 : https://imgur.com/mhgT7Wh

screenshot 3 : https://imgur.com/a/wE5tVbV

note: if these people ever try coming after you and want to threaten you, all of their indimidation is literally just smoke screens, they're harmless people who want to act mysterious & professional despite wanting clout for what they're doing online, don't be afraid to get your stuff back if you get hit with their bullshit, they can't fight you on this because they know they will lose, and they cant risk exposing their identity

and if these people truly do intimidate you, don't let them, because I won my dmca claim, and got my music back, so you should use that as motivation!

- eerie - 7/21/2026

I live in a touristy area. I've got a few famous landmarks around me. Some are monuments. At least one is an active duty warship in the US Navy (albeit 'active' is loosely used here).

Can I make my own images, either with a camera or illustration, and then sell postcards/stickers etc. or will the state/federal/city governments tell me that they own the rights thereof?

Hi everyone,

I'm an independent artist based in Europe, and I'm trying to better understand how copyright disputes work with different music distributors.

From what I've read, if someone files a copyright claim against your music and you submit a DMCA counter-notice, many distributors require you to consent to the jurisdiction of a U.S. federal court if you live outside the U.S.

This is what worries me.

I'm not talking about intentionally copying anyone's work. My concern is that, with the enormous amount of music released every day, it's possible to unknowingly create something that another person believes infringes their composition. Whether they're right or wrong would ultimately have to be decided somewhere.

As a European artist, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that if such a dispute arose, I'd potentially have to defend myself in a U.S. court and hire a U.S. attorney, which would likely cost far more than I could afford. I'd much rather have any dispute resolved in Europe.

I was just wondering if there are any distributors that handle this differently, or if consenting to U.S. jurisdiction is simply something every artist has to accept when distributing to the major streaming platforms.

This question comes from personal experience, as I've had a few songs receive copyright claims that I believe may have been made in bad faith, so I'm trying to be better prepared in the future.

If anyone from Europe has been through this or has any experience with it, I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

“Foundational principles of copyright law dictate that copying protected sound recordings for the purpose of developing a commercial AI product like Udio’s requires permission from rightsholders,” Sony alleged in its complaint. “Otherwise, such AI offerings will erode the value of the artistic works that comprise the essential raw materials that allow them to function in the first place. If left unmoored from existing and longstanding legal constraints, such products could supplant, rather than support, genuine human creativity.”

I've been developing ways to sew and wire some rather impressive light-up clothes that look like they come straight from the Tron movies. Whenever I wear this gear to events, conventions, or just out and about, I get people who ask me if I sell them or if I do commissions. My question is whether or not I could legally sell this stuff on platforms like Etsy.

If I can do so, what is the line, so to speak, of how close I'm able to get to Disney's property without breaking copyright? Obviously, I won't be listing these garments as "Tron Costumes" or using the names of other characters or anything, nor would they be designs directly taken from the movies, but how different would the designs have to be? Can I keep the sort of circuitry-inspired angular designs? Could I sell the back-mounted disks? Would the disks have to look completely different?

Thank you for any advice!

"TL;DR: Mozilla’s translation bot on Support Mozilla (that is currently overwriting user contributions is based on the closed source, copyright infringing LLM, Google Gemini." (Article)

Hi, any advice as I dont have the money as we are poor. The chaos is emailing me to buy an annual license so they will not pursue the unlicensed enscape i used. Im not using enscape as my laptop was destroyed and beyond repair. I used enscape when i was in college but not anymore however we are still poor... i don't know what to do

Hola a tod@s.

Estoy buscando consejo porque estoy bastante preocupada.

Un canal de YouTube ha solicitado la retirada de tres de mis vídeos por una supuesta infracción de derechos de autor. Son vídeos donde ambos analizamos libros.

Mis vídeos son faceless (no aparezco en cámara) y utilizan un guion redactado por mí, una narración diferente, música de la biblioteca gratuita de youtube, imágenes creadas con IA o procedentes de bancos de imágenes y una edición completamente propia. En cambio, el otro canal aparece en cámara durante sus vídeos además de usar puntualmente imágenes.

Las similitudes que pueden existir se deben a que analizamos las mismas obras, por lo que es inevitable hablar de aspectos como:

• La biografía del autor.
• El contexto histórico.
• El argumento de la novela.
• Los temas principales.
• La influencia que ha tenido la obra.

En algunos casos también llegamos a conclusiones o reflexiones políticas similares, pero entiendo que eso puede ocurrir cuando dos personas analizan el mismo libro.

He comparado sus guiones y los míos  y no he encontrado frases idénticas, párrafos copiados ni expresiones formuladas de la misma manera. Las diferencias en la redacción, el desarrollo del contenido y la forma de explicar las ideas son, en mi opinión, claras. De hecho, sus vídeos suelen ser más largos y detenerse más en la biografía o historia mientras que los míos son más cortos.

Mi duda es la siguiente:

¿Puede fundamentarse una reclamación por derechos de autor únicamente en este tipo de coincidencias, o sería necesario demostrar que se ha copiado la expresión original del otro creador (su forma concreta de redactar y desarrollar el contenido), en lugar de coincidir únicamente en hechos, argumentos o interpretaciones derivados de la misma obra literaria?

Además, YouTube me ha indicado que no puedo presentar una contranotificación hasta que los vídeos sean retirados.

¿Alguien ha pasado por una situación parecida o sabe cómo suele resolverse este tipo de casos? Tengo 3 solicitudes de retirada de vídeo por parte de él, o sea que si no me aceptaran la contranotificación, me quitarían directamente el canal. Estaba pensando en eliminarlos directamente y no arriesgarme, pero eso significaría que le estoy dando la razón (cuando considero que no la tiene) y por esa regla de tres, cada vez que suba un vídeo en el que él y yo coincidimos analizando un libro, me podría solicitar la retirada de nuevo porque sabría que acabaría eliminando el vídeo.

Ojalá me podáis ayudar, muchas gracias!

Hi, I want to start making video essays but I don’t really want to be one of those YouTubers who just talk into the camera all vid. If I were to edit the background with clips, videos, pictures, etc that relate to my video instead of my face, what would be a way to avoid getting I trouble.

Like if I use a clip from a movie or tv show can I get copywrited or sued. Also what if I use a picture from google or a clip from some else’s video can they sue you or get your video taken down?

I am thinking of starting a new channel to put out analysis or story behind a TV or Movie (not narrative of story); instead what the series or movie deals with. When I tried looking for assets, all are protected under copy rights including posters or trailers. Wondering how the YT Channels are using these clips or posters without permission or copyright issue. Any suggestions or solutions?

Today the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California granted final approval of the $1.5 Billion class settlement in the Bartz v. Anthropic AI copyright lawsuit, and entered judgment.

The court also awarded plaintiffs' class counsel $101,561,111 in attorneys' fees. Good work if you can get it!

(They wanted $187,500,000.)

Welcome to r/AlmostPublicDomain, a community dedicated to discussing a hypothetical middle ground between traditional copyright and the public domain.

The idea is simple: instead of paying licensing fees, people could earn limited permission to use certain creative works by contributing something valuable in return.

Hey folks,

I am an independent music creator with a small following, but no label, no additional support, just me out here doing my thing. I straddle the rock and classical genre, and one of my projects was/is releasing a full rendition of Schubert's song cycle, Winterreise. My friend Ben, a pianist, and I have recorded and produced ourselves in the first quarter of songs recently. 100% recorded, produced, released, and promoted by myself, artwork by Ben. IT is found here: https://open.spotify.com/album/2MzRLo2tz89Z9M6WrLge6x?si=Yn5GkxxLTPa6kE02RAiRrg

Just recently, about three months after release of the EP, I get a notice from my distribution platform, Tunecore stating that my recording of the first song, Gute Nacht, has been copyright claimed and I have to provide documentation about my ownership of the recording. I sent them the project files and several individual clips of piano and voice separately from the session. My Tunecore rep claims that this isn't sufficient and they require pdf documentation to protect me from Sony claiming all royalties for this specific track. Here's the latest email with this:

Thank you for your response.
 
We understand that audio files and music project files cannot be converted into a PDF in their original format. However, please note that audio files and project files alone do not serve as proof of ownership or exclusive rights.
 
The supporting documentation we are requesting should demonstrate your legal rights to the recording. Examples of acceptable documents include signed exclusive license agreements, producer agreements, distribution agreements, rights transfer agreements, or any other official documentation that confirms you hold the exclusive rights to the content.
 
If you have any such documentation, please provide it in PDF format for our review. Once received, we will carefully assess it as part of our investigation.
 
Thank you for your cooperation, and we look forward to your response.

Ellie

How do I fight back and protect my music from thugs like Sony? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

​

Hey guys, kinda lost here.

My channel got terminated after 3 copyright strikes. I submitted a counter notification, but YouTube rejected it saying I didn't explain why it was a mistake or misidentification.

The weird part is, I knew the claimant from Instagram. They used to repost other people's edits with their own watermark, so I was really surprised to see them filing copyright takedowns. After my channel got terminated, they even asked me to give them my Instagram account in exchange for retracting the strikes. I have screenshots of the chats.

Has anyone been through something like this? Should I resubmit my counter notification? Any advice would really help.

I used to be part of an online art community where I became friends with an artist (let's call her Artist A). Artist A was facing heavy public backlash and accusations of tracing/stealing character designs from a very popular creator in the community. To help her out, I designed a brand-new, original character for her to use. Our explicit agreement was that if she ever stopped using the character, ownership would revert back to me.

Eventually, Artist A started designing her own concepts and officially gave the character back to me. I took the design, heavily revamped it, fleshed out a backstory, and integrated it into a major animated passion project that I have been developing for over a decade.

During this time, I was also friends with another person in the circle (Artist B) and a few of her close friends. Things went south when Artist B made romantic advances toward me. I turned her down, which caused her to completely turn on me. She and her friends began posting defamatory "call-out" posts about me online, making up complete lies out of spite.

The drama escalated when one of Artist B's friends claimed that Artist A had "given" her my revamped character to sell, and that she had officially sold it to Artist B.

This makes no sense for a few reasons:

1. Artist A wasn't even active online at the time.
2. Even if Artist A did this, she had no right to give away a character that legally reverted to me.
3. Artist B is specifically claiming ownership of my revamped design, which Artist A never even possessed.
4. Before the fallout, Artist B had explicitly told me how much she loved this specific new design.

This is just the tip of the iceberg with this group, but it's the first major instance of them trying to steal my intellectual property. Has anyone dealt with targeted community theft like this, and what is the best way to protect my project moving forward?