Curiosity Show presenters Rob Morrison and Deane Hutton challenge TikTok for violating their IP through ripoff channels

They entertained and educated SA kids for decades but now Rob and Deane say they’re locked in a game of “whack-a-mole” to save their income.

Clips about illusions from South Australia’s long-running Curiosity Show have gone viral in the most unlikely TikTok phenomenon.

But the former hosts of the children’s TV show, Professor Rob Morrison and Dr Deane Hutton, pictured, say it’s the last thing they wanted.

Despite the show, produced from 1972-’90, not airing on TV for years, the pair make money from the popularity of old episodes on their YouTube channel.

But now their content is being stolen and posted to TikTok channels, in a case of video piracy that’s costing them revenue and time spent chasing the thieves.

The rip-off channels gained traction when several overseas media outlets recently ran a story about a Curiosity Show segment on visual illusions.

South Australia's long-running Curiosity Show hosts Dr Deane Hutton and Dr Rob Morrison demonstrating illusions from their back catalogue. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Prof Morrison said TikTok was cited as the source, so “the parasites scored hundreds of thousands of hits that should have gone to our YouTube channel”.

“We have to hunt down the new channels and start protesting about them in order to demonstrate to TikTok legal that they have not done as they should,” Prof Morrison said.

He said patrolling for pirates and calling out bad behaviour could easily become “a full-time business, like whack-a-mole”.

More than a dozen complaints the pair made to TikTok were ignored until the Sunday Mail asked questions.

The offending TikTok channels tiktoktomb and Curiosityone1 were then taken down for violating policies on intellectual property.

Prof Morrison feared other rip-off channels would simply pick up where the others left off, under a different name.

He said tiktoktomb had amassed more followers than the 128,000 for the official Curiosity Show YouTube channel.

Curiosity Show hosts Deane Hutton and Rob Morrison present their show in the 1980s.

According to one online calculator tool, tiktoktomb, with 215,500 followers and 63 posts, had estimated earnings of $129-$216 per post, or $13,000.

Grant Hull of Enabled Solutions at Malvern manages Curiosity Show’s YouTube channel and set up an official Curiosity Show channel on TikTok to combat the parasites. But he said in another blow, TikTok has now mistakenly taken down the new channel in its purge of Curiosity Show content.

Dr Hutton said he was pleased that TikTok removed the offending material.

“We are delighted when science communicators build on our ideas,” he said. “But when they copy material, word-for-word, picture-for-picture, without permission, is it theft? Perhaps. But is it unfair and immoral? Certainly!”

A spokeswoman for TikTok said: “Content that infringes … intellectual property rights is prohibited and will be removed.”