More Trouble For SecureTeam10
By Dave Scott
Youtube’s biggest UFO channel, SecureTeam10, is in hot water again. This time, it’s regarding the logo SecureTeam10 has been using since their inception. Brought out by YouTuber Lions Ground, it’s alleged that SecureTeam10 has been using a modified Dell Alienware logo that was designed by Chinese artist JJ Ying without permission from Ying or Dell. For years, Glockner has been using this logo on all his video and advertisements, including his for-profit store where people could purchase t-shirts, hats and other merchandise, as well as his Patreon donation collection page.
Controvery is nothing new to Glockner recently, who is the creator of the popular YouTube channel which has over 2.1-million subscribers. Over the years, Tyler has been accused of posting fake UFO videos to enhance his popularity, which his retort has always been that it’s up to the public to decide whether or not they believe the content. In the last few months, however, Glockner has been in trouble with the law in his home state of Ohio. In December he was accused and arrested for drinking and driving. A couple weeks later he was allegedly charged with domestic violence and arrested again. GUFON Radio Stream’s Richard Giordano was able to get a hold of the police video from Glockner’s arrest for drunk driving, and played it on his YouTube Channel, here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQhGtSRw044. Now, he’s dealing with another potential legal matter with using someone else’s logo without their permission.
Lions Ground, https://www.youtube.com/Lionsground, recently broke the story about the unlicensed usage of the logo, after contacting artist JJ Ying on Twitter, @JJYing. The artist had no idea his work was being used for a popular channel that was making thousands a month in donations along with profits from YouTube and the SecureTeam10 store. Ying confirmed with Lions Ground, Van Peters, that indeed the SecureTeam logo was his creation and he hadn’t given permission for it to be used by ST10, which is both a copyright and trademark infringement. Glockner tweeted to Ying to send him an email to talk. It’s not known at this time if that email exchange has taken place. Ying stated he designed the original logo for a Dell Alienware contest a dozen years ago in a public twitter conversation here: https://twitter.com/JJYing/status/1224290407573385217. Ying goes on to say that he designed, “this animated wallpaper to participate in a contest sponsored by Alienware and I’m pretty sure the alien avatar is directly from the logo vector files provided by Alienware.” What this means for SecureTeam10, and Tyler Glockner, in a worst case scenario, is he could be sued by both the artist, Ying and Dell for profiting off of their logo. Glockner has sold merchandise with the logo on it.
The logo was also reported to crowdfunding site, Patreon, by Van Peters. Patreon is a subscriber based company where start up artists and creators can get paid by their followers for their efforts. People set up accounts set to how much a person donates. This site is used by everyone from podcasters and YouTubers to writers, gamers, visual artists, educators, musicians and more. As of this writing, SecureTeam’s Patreon account has been suspended until further review. Glocker’s Patreon account had three levels of donation. One dollar a month to join his team of Patrons. Five dollars a month, which included special vlog posts about his journey on YouTube. Finally a ten dollar a month donation which included the vlogs as well as a signed ST10 sticker not available anywhere else. In 2018, Glockner’s crowdfunding page had 2,120 Patrons donating money. As of now, that number is down to 883. According to Lions Ground on their most recent video, Van Peters states Patreon put the SecrureTeam account under review after Patreon was made aware of the misused logo. Here’s the link to the explanation from Lions Ground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B2LlnkEV6Y
Currently, the logo is still being used on Glockner’s SecureTeam10 website, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts, as well has his ever popular YouTube Channel. We reached out to Tyler Glockner on Friday, February 7th, 2020 for response to this story. However, our email with questions regarding the logo was not given a response back. If the email is answered, we will follow up on this story, as it happens.
(Photo courtesy of JJ Ling/Dell Alienware)
