I received a email and youtube inbox message about a couple vids i've put on there.
One of newts displaying courtship behaviour, the other of Wild red deer..

Reading it will explain his reason for contacting me..

Is there any reason i should be wary?

His message:

Hello Sir,
I am Mr. Sakkeer Hussain, a zoology teacher in Kerala state in India.
Realising that our students and even teachers are not fully aware of the living world, for the last 5 years I have been engaged in preparation of a class room teaching aid in zoology, visualising all five kindoms of life (monera, protista, fungi, plantae, and animalia). Perhaps it will be first in the world itself and I hope such an aid is neccessary for biology students of my country and also, if possible , of other countries.It will enable the students to realise that we, the men, are only a small part of this living world, and being at the apex of evolution, we have the moral responsibility to protect and respect all living things around us.
I have filmed thousand of animals from protozoans to mammals(unedited shots more than 300 hrs duration, just see my channel, I have posted many in youtube) for my academic work. I have got support from various international organizations and persons worldwide in the form of footages to this work. I hope you too can support me by providing a few video shots. I saw nice videos of Newts and Red deers in your youtube channel. Filmed yourself? Do you have the original files of this in your computer?. If so could you please burn the original files of these to a DVD and send me?.If sending disc is not possible could you please upload them to http://www.filehosting.org and let me know the download link? .I will place credit to this support.

Your immediate reply will makes me glad. Don't hesitate to respond. Please add your e-mail id also in the reply. You may also send reply at skrhsnc@yahoo.com

With regards,

If it is dodgy it has to one of the worst scams of all time.

Can't he just use what you've already posted on Youtube? Sounds like a reasonable request, he's not offering to pay you, so no dodgy "please let me know your bank details" type requests, but why does he need you to send him original files etc. Only thing I can think of is that he'd try and pass your footage off as his own.

Or one of the cleverest…

You could always email him and ask about his school etc…

It sounds like he's grooming you.

Sounds above board – if you're happy to let other people use your work for free then go ahead.

http://www.esnips.com/user/skrhsnc

This chap?

Yes, I would carry on the dialogue.

My wife went to India on a school exchange and she was enchanted by the place. The schools are worth helping in any way you can. So many of the poorer kids are deprived of any sort of education.

Youtube footage is mashed, he probably wants decent quality footage to use in full screen demos. Sounds above board to me, I'd give him the files unless he wanted bank details – nice to help someone out.

I'm as suspicious as hell by nature but if you google his address, there are quite a few relevant hits going back a few years so he seems legitimate and there's nothing unusual or fishy.

I don't know how much trouble it is for you but I'd just send him the DVD: if it's legit, you'll have made someone with a mutual interest to you happy; and if it's not – what's the worst that could happen?

Edit to say: you might want to remove his name and email address from your original post so that he doesn't get spammed to death.

Whats the scope of the footage you're asking for, is it beautifully shot, broadcast quality work that wouldn't look out of place being narrated over by David Attenborough? Or some useful, competent, informative shots of educational / informative interest?.

If its the former then you'd be right to have reservations about sending full quality files out to a third party if you were worried that they might exploit it commercially. If its the latter (and given you've been happy up to this point the share the films freely and publicly anyway) then I expect they guy is pretty genuine.

Opps didn't think of the spamming thing and too late to edit he details ut of it…MODS!!!!!!!!!!!

I looked him up and as konabunny said, it looks all fine and legit.

I agree full res versions would be better for educational use than compressed youtube footage.

It's nothing to special quality wise, so i'm happy to let me have it for such a great use.

He'll have to wait though, as it's on my old PC and i'm not going back near it for the fore see able future.

Sharki