It seems everyone is having their say about the WXM Fanzone account, so I thought I’d add my dealings with him/them.
At the end of the last promotion season, I was sent a drone video of the final minutes, with the crowd invasion. I stupidly posted the video without doing the relevant checks. I was a hypocrite because I too get content ‘borrowed’, and it was no surprise I was hit with a copyright claim. I am on a creator account, and the little income I received from Facebook was stopped.
I was gutted. I’d worked hard to build my account, and a stupid decision had brought this to an abrupt end. I sent messages apologising, and a friend of Fanzone spoke to me. He said his friend had a disabled son and was always having his work stolen. I asked him to pass on a message. A week later, I got a text from an unknown number informing me that the owner of Fanzone had decided to lift the copyright claim due to the fact that his mother and father knew me from the Wrexham Miners Project, and he was conscious of my work as a Trustee. It took a week to get the ban lifted. I was so grateful. I was back earning my £50 a month from Meta. I have been back to the text messages and if I'm honest, there are some discrepancies.
Well, actually, the hit was more than just a couple of £50 payouts.
The last game of the season was Wrexham’s game at Lincoln. A tradition with some football fans is to don fancy dress for the last away game. Wrexham fans did it. A promotion season brought out the big hitters. My camera was busy, and I was lucky enough to video five characters playing Kim Jong Un and his security. It was enhanced as it caught the Wrexham fans singing, “Kim Jong Un is a paedophile.” It was perfect. It took off. It went viral.
That video on my Facebook alone got 1.5 million views. I must be the only creator who had his first viral video just as he got his first copyright ban. I’d paid for my crime. I was guilty.
I checked on Google how much I lost.
“For 1.5 million views on Facebook, payouts typically range from $150 to $4,500+, depending entirely on ad format, audience location, and viewer engagement”.
Hey ho.
Am bothered. Not really, I got my account back. I got a slap on the wrist and I deserved it. I've reposted the video advertising this blog. Over 30k viewers on the repeat has put a little bit of the money back in my account.
One final thing. I'm pretty convinced Fanzone knows who I am personally, but that's as far as I'm going with it. I'm not interested in adding to the conspiracy theories or trying to work out who is behind the account. This is simply my experience of dealing with them.
Looking back, I was in the wrong. I paid the price, learned my lesson and moved on. They could have left the copyright claim in place, but they didn't, and I'll always appreciate that. The irony is that the very next video I posted became my first proper viral hit. So, rather fittingly, I'll finish with the video that cost me the money... and then changed my page forever. And if you drop me a subscription or buy me a coffee I'll be a little bit closer to getting my viral video money back 🤣