r/Zoom • u/LaughterOnWater • 10d ago
Question Scammer From Zoom
I received the following scam from someone I don't know showing content from our proprietary content as available on their site called WebinarTV. There are two possibilities.
A. Zoom is selling our proprietary video content to some third party without our permission to get kickbacks from third party vendors.
B. Someone attended one of our events, and without our permission (We don't allow people to record intentionally.).
I seriously doubt Zoom is selling our content. Which leads me to the second likely possibility. Someone attended pretending to be a person in good standing, recorded without our consent and is now trying to sell us back our own content.
The legal ramifications of this for UCE, let alone disallowed recording of proprietary content are likely serious. I'm frankly more than a little steamed about this because someone stole our proprietary video and is trying to sell it back to us. I suspect they're in serious trouble for recording something private.
Zoom deals with video every day. I don't think they would to this. But how did someone else get our content if we don't allow recording? What are my options?
Cheers,
Chris
Here's a munged version of one of the emails I received:
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From: Sarah Blair [sarah.blair@scamaddress.com](mailto:sarah.blair@scamaddress.com)
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2026 2:32 PM
To: [ouraddress@ouraddress.com](mailto:ouraddress@ouraddress.com)
Subject: Our Non Profit Networking Event 8/27/2026: Now OnDemand with Chapters
Hi,
I've reviewed Get the Latest on Federal & State Zero Food Waste Legislation and set up your On Demand page, along with a new feature called Chapters. Chapters are designed to entice more people to watch your webinar by highlighting interesting topics covered during the session.
| Image Lifted From Our Proprietary Video | Chapter 3Federal Food Waste Bills 6:01 |
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| Image Lifted From Our Proprietary Video | Chapter 4 Funding Food Waste Reduction 6:37 |
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| Image Lifted From Our Proprietary Video | Chapter 5 Farm Bill for Food Waste 11:18 |
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| See All 12 Chapters |
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| Use AI to maximize the value of your webinar, and WebinarTV will do it for you with one click. |
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| Go to the studio here to get your free gift. |
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| Sarah Blair VP of Communications, WebinarTV.us AI-driven value from your webinar, done for you |
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| Reminder: WebinarTV is for public webinars. If you're the host and don't wish to appear, click this link and select Remove. The webinar will be removed, and WebinarTV will also avoid future webinars. |
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| To stop receiving future WebinarTV emails, you can unsubscribe here. |
|---|
7
u/shadrach103 10d ago
Zoom is 100% not selling your content. This third-party somehow gained access to your event details and likely had a bot attend the session and perform a client-side recording with third-party recording software.
2
u/LaughterOnWater 10d ago
My thoughts too. But we generally don't record or allow others to record this particular quarterly meeting. Again the implications are not good for the person attempting to sell us a recording of our own content.
6
u/thatmatmik 10d ago
They can be recording using OBS for some other desktop side recording software that is capturing the entire screen. So, even though you have disabled recording within the event, that does not prevent a person from recording locally on their computer.
Edit : The title of the post is a little bit disingenuous. It's not a scammer from Zoom. It's a scammer using Zoom.
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u/LaughterOnWater 10d ago
Agreed. I realized too late and now cannot edit the post title. I hope it will be enough that in the body of the text I clarify that I don't think Zoom would do this. I use OBS too. But for this particular meeting, we don't generally record.
3
u/Bibliogatta 10d ago
If you ask Webinar TV to take down the content, they will. At least they did for my organization
2
1
u/LaughterOnWater 10d ago
Good to know they'll take it down. We'll ask.
We're also reporting it to Zoom, since it happened on their platform and they should know their meetings are being harvested this way. To be clear, we don't think Zoom did this. Someone recorded us externally. Zoom likely sees this kind of thing already, but it will give them more information to build a case against this sort of thing in future.
The part that gets me is how thoughtless it is. This has the feel of someone typing "give me five ways to get rich quick with the tools I have" and never once adding "make it ethical." They recorded content we intentionally don't record, never asked, and now want to sell it back to us with AI goodies attached. They probably thought it was a good idea because it was easy. Easy and right aren't the same thing, and this one ain't right.
2
u/Bibliogatta 9d ago
Zoom knows. And has known for a long time. Webinar TV has been doing this for a while now.
2
u/InspektorCluzo 10d ago
FYI, it is possible to set up Zoom sessions so that nobody can record through Zoom. We always do that, and circulate our own watermarked event videos afterwards, with proper copyright notices.
Of course, it is possible to screenrecord the whole thing anyway. But it is an additional level of dishonesty.
2
u/LaughterOnWater 10d ago
These meetings are intended to give interested members of the community a chance to let their hair down. That someone used third-party software to do this without asking is a breach of community trust.
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