DMCA Copyright Infringement Scam
We have recently become aware of a sophisticated phishing / link building scam based on a DMCA Copyright Infringement principal. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a US copy right law that “criminalize the production, dissemination of technology, devices or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyright works”. *Wikipedia
A real DMCA infringement notice is a notification direct from them where they outline the copyright infringement and ask you to remove the content.
FAKE DMCA NOTICE
How It Works
- You will receive an email that looks like its is coming from a US based law firm – the firm is also fake.
- They claim that you have infringed copyright and send you an IMGUR file (which is trackable by them) – instead of showing you an image of the what it looks on your website.
- The text above is automatically generated and doesn’t mention anything about a takedown.
- They want you to add a link on your website to a 3rd party website – this is for the purposed of spuriously increasing their SEO (called Blackhat SEO).
Tell Tale Signs Of A Scam
- DMCA only applies to the USA – not to any other countries.
- They include a link to a general part of your website like a blog – but not actually to the page where the image appears.
- They use the term “Trademark Attorney” but in fact this is an alleged copyright infringement – not the same thing.
- They include a random case number but no link to find out more about the case.
- The items highlighted in YELLOW above are suspicious or fake.
The Real Giveaway
When you look closer at the “Law Firm” listed in the email we noticed several suspicious items
- The website ends in .site instead of .com.
- The domain was only registered one week ago.
- The domain and website are hosted in Iceland.
- The website looks really overly generic.
- The images of the “people” on the website look suspiciously AI generated.
ACTION
- Ignore this email and block the sender.
- Educate your staff on this type of scam.
