Hawk Attacks Quadcopter!

This morning, while out flying, a hawk attacked my quadcopter, while flying along the Charles River, in Cambridge.

You can see the video — one of my most popular ever — on YouTube:

Of course, because it’s popular, it also means you can see it in a lot of other places — LiveLeak being a ‘primary’ source of the copyright infringement. (I expect this is LiveLeak’s fault as much as it is YouTube’s fault when random people upload copyrighted crap.) I did find that on LiveLeak, the video claimed to have over 9000 views, compared to the 2000 or so on YouTube.

I’m getting a quick lesson in what happens when you create really popular content: People steal it left and right. ๐Ÿ™‚ I’ve already filed two copyright claims against people who reuploaded to YouTube and put ads on it — I guess I’ll also be learning about YouTube’s copyright infringement resolution process.

In the mean time, if you want to check it out, I encourage you to share, like or watch on YouTube, rather than on one of the many clones out there ๐Ÿ™‚ There’s only one real thing!

5 Responses to “Hawk Attacks Quadcopter!”

  1. John Cowan Says:

    When it comes to Internet content, people basically apply the rules they learned when they were two years old.

  2. Daniel Kastl Says:

    Hi Chris, your video can be seen on the website of a very popular German weekly news magazine “Der Spiegel”: http://www.spiegel.de/video/falke-greift-drohne-vom-himmel-ueber-boston-ab-video-1527366.html
    (… and the copyright is correct ๐Ÿ˜‰

  3. Kai 'wusel' Siering Says:

    You made it into Spiegel Online with it (http://spon.de/vgzu6) ๐Ÿ˜‰ Greetings from Gรผtersloh,
    -kai

  4. Deb Says:

    Hi Christopher,

    Very cool video, sorry about all the swiping going on. I shared on my blog here’s the entry in case your interested.

    http://sublimebirdy.blogspot.com/

  5. Hawk Knocks Out Photographer’s Drone! - Better Photography Says:

    […] As experienced by photographer Christopher Schmidt, when he was taking his drone for a spin, an unexpected visitor attacked the device. A hawk, perhaps confusing it for a smaller bird, swooped towards the drone and attacked it mid-air, which then proceeded to drop to the ground. Thankfully, the camera caught the action, and the drone survived it as well. Check out the video below, and you can read more about Schmidt’s experience here. […]