Transcript Details
The Frauditor DMA Lawsuit is FINISHED
Summary
Frauditor Troll announces settlement of the DMA lawsuit, stating it was dismissed with prejudice after he agreed to pay reasonable attorney fees for DMA's anti-SLAPP motion, with his former attorney covering most of that cost. He claims the total legal bill reached $88,000, of which $58,000 was out-of-pocket, and that he avoided DMA's demands for $30,000, a public admission of guilt, and deletion of all critical content. The creator frames the settlement as protecting free speech principles and keeping a promise to viewers not to give DMA money, while describing DMA as "a broken man" who destroyed his own reputation by suing critics.
Why it may matter: This video illustrates the high financial stakes of copyright and anti-SLAPP litigation faced by First Amendment auditors and critics, showing a content creator who reports paying $88,000 in legal fees to settle a lawsuit over critical commentary, which matters for understanding the chilling effect of such lawsuits and the real costs of defending speech.
Full Transcript
What's up everyone? I hope you guys are doing fantastic. The DMA lawsuit is officially over. It has been dismissed with prejudice and that is because we agreed to a settlement. Now, hold on a minute. I'm going to ask you to put down your torch and your pitchfork just for a second and watch the entire video. I'm confident that by the end of the video, you will understand why we took this deal and that it was the best decision. And let me just clarify that this deal is not a resounding win for us by any stretch of the imagination, but my wife and I are extremely happy with the outcome. In just a moment, I'm going to give you guys a lot of context on the lawsuit and you guys can decide for yourself who you feel won or got what they wanted out of the situation. Now, Really Cool News posted a video a few days ago and he was really spot-on. And here's a short clip. Take a look at this. >> Hudo continued to do videos until recently and had promised his fans that he would never settle with Cordova in a way where Cordova would get any of his money. >> Really Cool News was really accurate in that reporting and let me just say that I honor my promises. Now, one thing that was very important to me is that you guys would not be kept in the dark on this case and that's why I'm delivering this joint statement. I don't know if DMA is going to post it, but here it is. Parties have amicably settled their respective claims and differences. Complaint and counterclaim have been dismissed with prejudice with each party agreeing to bear its own costs and fees. Defendants paid reasonable attorney fees and costs to plaintiff's counsel for plaintiff's anti-SLAPP motion and defendants were largely made whole by their former attorney. Donations received by the defendants only went towards legal fees already incurred. Now, I think it's very important to understand DMA's objective in his lawsuits. We don't really have to speculate because he emailed Dr. Dave exactly what he was demanding in exchange for the lawsuits to go away. This is public information because both DMA and Dr. Dave talked about it on their videos. And this is what he said to Dave, "You also falsely claimed to my attorney that you would not make any further content about me. Yet, since that statement you've published at least one additional video in which you use AI to replicate my voice and image portraying me doing and saying things I never said or did. Not only is that a violation of my likeness and a further abuse of my identity, it also clearly violates YouTube's terms of service regarding deceptive content and synthetic media impersonation. That alone could warrant platform-wide consequences regardless of the copyright issues. Let me be clear, I'm not interested in vague promises, partial compliance, or performative gestures. If you're serious about resolving this, these are my non-negotiable terms for lifting the copyright strikes. Permanent removal. You must permanently delete every video, short, post, or live stream that includes my likeness, name, voice, or copyrighted footage across all platforms and backup channels. Written agreement. You must provide a signed, legally binding agreement stating that you will never again create, publish, or distribute any content featuring me in any form, whether real, edited, AI-generated, or satirical. Three, full financial disclosure. You must send detailed records showing every dollar earned from my content, including ad revenue, super chats, memberships, sponsorships, and affiliate links. Restitution, you must reimburse me the full amount earned from content involving my work along with reasonable attorney fees to be determined after disclosure. Five, public acknowledgement, you must create and publish a permanent video to be made public on every channel in which my videos appeared admitting that your use of my content was not fair use, that your legal claims were false, and that the copyright strikes were valid. I reserve the right to upload and distribute that video myself. Only after all of these terms are met will I consider lifting the active copyright strikes. You have 48 hours to respond. After that, I will consider my offer rejected. If you decline, I will continue to pursue all available legal remedies, including reporting your use of AI-generated impersonations and deceptive content to YouTube's for terms of service violations. This is your opportunity to settle the matter cleanly. I suggest you take it seriously. Christopher Cordova. So, Dave didn't take him on his offer, so he sent another email and he said the true dollar amount that he was after. Let's take a look. He said, "So, here are the terms, non-negotiable. The amount is now $30,000 to settle this matter and have the copyright strikes lifted. This figure reflects the value of the content you took, the revenue you withheld, the damage caused to my brand, and your continued dishonesty. If payment is made in full, I'll consider lifting the strikes. If not, they remain, and I'll continue pursuing every legal remedy available to me under copyright law, including damages and potential court action. I'm not playing games, and I don't trust vague promises of good faith from someone who built their channel on stolen work and misrepresentation. Your attempts to shift blame, minimize wrongdoing, and feign civility while dodging accountability don't work on me. This is your final opportunity. Take it or leave it. So, this is what he wanted: $30,000, an admission of guilt that he was going to publish on his channels, attorney fees, all videos about him deleted, and he wanted Dave to stop using satire against him. Now, Demis' lawsuits had a chilling effect on critics or potential critics, but indirectly, it actually brought more attention to him, and we are very grateful for Louis Rossmann making his video about this lawsuit and bringing attention to the significant implications of the case for free speech and other YouTubers going forward. Now, let's talk about how much it cost me to get to this point, and let me just clarify that from the jump, this was a David versus Goliath situation. Dema had representation on a contingency basis, as he publicized previously. While we, on the other hand, had to spend real money to defend ourselves. In these situations, sometimes it may be less expensive to just roll over and default, but that would indirectly affect the next person who is a subject of such a lawsuit. I already showed you guys the receipts in previous videos, and it cost us $46,000 to the point of hiring Simon Lin. We raised $30,000 from you guys, so it wasn't the biggest deal at the time, but this is what happened after. For the month of February, we got a bill for 6,400, which was actually 12,400, but the $6,000 retainer was deducted. At that point, my body cam channel started blowing up and making very decent money, so I stopped mentioning the GoFundMe. I only wanted to ask you guys for help if it was absolutely necessary, and at that point, we could continue paying the roughly $12,000 per month without issues. Now, things changed in March because when we filed our motion for forum non conveniens, DMA's lawyers started raising a bunch of discovery issues about videos that were removed, and here's the thing about discovery. It's an expensive process to defend. For the month of March, we got a bill of $24,000, and I don't care who you are, even if you are a millionaire, if you get a bill for $24,000 for 1 month of being in a lawsuit, you are going to flinch. Still, even at this point, we did not ask for money or mention the fundraiser, and we just paid it. In April, a golden opportunity arose. A deal came across that would be too good to pass on it as it allowed us to keep our promise to our viewers, and it would finally end the tens of thousands of dollars a month in lawyer fees. There was the situation of the anti-slap. We filed three counterclaims a few months prior, and Steve included a counterclaim that ended up getting anti-slapped, and the irony was not lost on us. In our opinion, the lawsuit we were facing had a chilling effect on free speech, but we were the ones who ended up getting anti-slapped. Life can be hilarious sometimes. Now, with the anti-slapp came potential attorney fees for DMA's lawyer. Since it was not my fault, Vondran had agreed to pay the potential attorney fees to DMA's lawyer. Now, to make this deal happen and make the lawsuit go away, I had to pay reasonable attorney fees and costs to plaintiff's counsel for the plaintiff's anti-slapp motion, and we would be made largely whole by Vondran. And that was an absolutely incredible deal for us. There is no finding of guilt or liability, and I'm able to keep my promise to my viewers. It's pretty incredible, to be honest. For my viewers and other YouTubers, we could not let the matter default at the outset and affect other YouTubers down the road. It has been a costly fight, but in our view, it was necessary to uphold our principles and free speech. So, the bill for April was roughly $12,000. So, in total, we were already out $88,000 with 58 grand out of pocket. And I'm guessing it was going to cost another $80,000 to get to trial. There were still depositions to do. We had to refile our counterclaims. There's a motion for summary judgment. And if we got to trial and won, there would be an appeal. Some of you have been believing the lies that Merz has been spreading. I never said that I was going to take this to the Supreme Court. I simply said that I wanted to take it all the way, which meant the trial. But DMA made it clear that his goal was to create case law in the ninth circuit. Keep in mind, our lawyer was not on contingency, and we have to pick our battles accordingly. Also, keep in mind that if we won, and we won the appeal and I was awarded attorney fees, there's still the headache of collecting, which is easy if the person subject to the judgment has significant assets or at least stable employment. So, the options were pretty simple. Either go for another round of fundraising and spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight this or pay reasonable fees for the anti-slap and I would be largely made whole by my former attorney anyways. Obviously, we did what was best for our family. It was not my preferred option, but sometimes you got to put your ego aside and do what's right for your kids. Keep in mind we have two kids and a third one on the way and another hundred thousand dollars in lawyer fees would be way better spent on a college fund. Now, let's talk about who would have most likely won at trial or at summary judgment. This is pure speculation on my part. And at this point we will never know, but I think we would have most likely won because of the estoppel defense. I don't think DMA told his attorney that he gave me permission in 2022 and I don't think his attorney would have taken the case if he was aware of that video because the estoppel defense is pretty clear. You cannot encourage someone to do a certain thing and then sue them for the exact same thing. Most likely we would have won, but who knows. Keep in mind this was a bench trial and it was going to be one judge who decide the outcome of this case. So, there was no guarantees. Now, let's talk about DMA for a moment. Do you think that he got anything he wanted out of this settlement? I certainly don't think so. Even worse, his decision to sue critics destroyed his reputation even further. Two months ago, Louis Rossmann made three videos on DMA and they got over a million views. After getting completely annihilated by Rossman for being a First Amendment advocate that was suing critics, he deleted all his videos about the lawsuits in shame. Could we make videos on DMA moving forward? We totally could, but I most likely won't, and here's why. DMA is a broken man. He is a 40-year-old involuntary celibate who is living in poverty and is the black sheep of his community. What's even crazier is that if you watch his recent videos about his 16 days in the joint, he is posting online verbal arguments with his mommy. Let me make this clear. This is a 40-year-old man who is airing his dirty laundry and embarrassing his mother on YouTube. There is absolutely nothing that I can do to him that he hasn't done to himself, but I'm not bitter about this. I hope that he sees that the path he's on is going absolutely nowhere. It's not benefiting him, and it's certainly not benefiting society. It's not too late to get a job, get a girlfriend, and turn his life around, and I hope he does that. As for us, we are going to continue to expand our family with one last baby, and we are going to continue growing our businesses. Once my wife delivers, she has plans to start an e-commerce store that will mesh very well with our YouTube channels, and I have plans to do some IRL content with music, and of course continuing with the many channels I have in many genres. This future was going to happen regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, but now it will be a lot more stress-free, and we won't be pissing away money on lawyers for the years to come. Overall, this has been a very good outcome for us, and we are extremely happy with this deal. It certainly wasn't the best outcome. The best outcome would have been to win a trial, but we would still be hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red with no pathway to collect. So, I'm sure that any of you who is a true supporter and that watched the entire video and understands the facts will come to a similar conclusion that this was the best path forward. If you don't think so, that's perfectly fine. You're entitled to your opinion. I want to thank every single one of you, the viewers, who donated, who helped us with this, and I want to give a huge shout-out to Simon Lin from Evo Link Law. If you need a copyright lawyer, he is really good cuz he got us a very good outcome. So, shout-out to Simon. And thank you so much for everything you guys have done for us over the last 5 years. You've definitely changed our lives for the better. Thank you for the support, and I'll see you guys on the next video. >> Brothers strong. I love that.