Louis Rossmann supports Stefan Fischer, calls DCS ‘scumbags’ and issues fiery challenge

For those new to this saga, Deep Cycle Systems, maker and seller of lithium batteries are in the process of suing YouTuber Stefan Fisher over his reviews of their batteries. You may remember DCS from my blog post a while back explaining why their driving on K’gari was not acceptable.

Side note – in a bizarre coincidence, dCS audio systems threatened YouTuber Goldensound over his review. The two DCSes are not related other than a propensity for lawsuits.

Second side note – there is a third DCS, DCS Corp, which has an identical logo to Deep Cycle as you can see here:

I have written to DCS Corp and they said they had no connection whatsoever with Deep Cycle Systems. You can draw your own conclusions about the logo.

The case is due in Queensland’s courts on 30th July, and is of interest to everyone, whether you are a reviewer, company owner or consumer. This is why.

The media landscape has shifted. Back in the day reviews were written by journalists who had their work published by magazines and newspapers, relatively large companies who had money, resources, lawyers and a wide audience reach. Companies who could fight back. The journalist was, by and large, protected by the publisher.

Today, magazines and newspapers are dead. Most content is created by creators working alone, or in small teams, with few resources, often as a labour of love. These creators are much easier to scare into compliance with a lawsuit. Most companies who create products are much, much larger.

If companies who are not happy with a review are allowed to throw around lawsuits, even if the review is fair, then guess what, reviews won’t happen, even informal Facebook posts written by you. Everyone values reviews of products, so that’s why these matters affect you. The other option is non-independent sponsorship which is of little value to a consumer trying to decide which product to buy, but it is lucrative and you won’t get sued if you’re complying with the sponsor’s wishes.

Now there is no excuse for anyone to make a malicious, fundamentally incorrect video about a product, or not to correct errors which do crop up from time to time. If anyone does that, then I fully support action to remedy the wrong.

When the Stefan case is over, I will be producing a video aimed seeing what can be learned for reviewers, product manufacturers, and the consumer. Input from experts is welcome, please message this page.

One clear lesson right now is the Streisand Effect (or Rhinehart Effect); I’d never heard of dCS the audio gear manufacturers, but I have now, and for many, their first knowledge of DCS the battery maker will be via this lawsuit.

Now onto Louis Rossmann’s video. Louis owns Rossmann Repair Group, an electronics shop specialising in Mac repairs and data recovery from phones and disks, so he’s not new to electronics. He’s seen Stefan’s DCS review video, which at the time of initial post was taken down but is now back up, and he has done his own research. What he found is that DCS:

• changed the battery warranty terms to include a clause saying it is only defective if it fails to deliver less than 70% of charge installed in engine bays;
• did not change the ‘last updated date’, leading people to conclude the page was last changed on 14th June, 2021.

This was proven using Internet archive machines and he steps through it in the video.

The current DCS warranty page as of 24/07/2024 is below:

Louis also shows that one Internet archive machine has had its DCS pages deleted, but fortunately, there is another one that still has the data.

The video is linked below, worth a watch, and contains lines such as:

“I will factually and logically destroy you for lying about this person’s content and trying to remove honest and accurate reviews…”

“…these scumbags, and yes I will call them scumbags, it’s not defamation if it’s true…”

And Louis directly challenges DCS to try suing him.

Personally, I thank Louis for doing this research and using his resources to fight back against companies who attempt to terrify smaller content creators into submission. As I said, and as Goldensound had said, and now Louis has said…this affects everyone. And there’s also using copyright as a tool; my most recent video about the Goodwood Evija crash has been taken down due to a copyright hit, when in fact it’s fair-use critique and many other videos using the same footage have been allowed to remain. Why mine? I guess because I’m the only one who queried the car’s ‘software powertrain’.

Watch this space, this story is not over yet!

UPDATE: Stefan has re-published his original review. Now you can see why DCS was so upset. Or not.

UPDATE: The DCS Facebook page has been deleted, and it seems their website is crashing under the load of visitors. Will Prowse also made a video, but he’s since deleted it due to a tangent on how much he hates Australia.