DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice
Good morning/day/evening WA
I had to share this one since it kinda threw me off when I first looked at it!
It just boggles my mind how sophisticated scammers are (or think they are) these days.
I received the following email yesterday:
Dear owner of (URL of one of my article with a .jpg image)
You are receiving this legal infringement notice from Nationwide
Legal Trademark Department due to the unauthorized usage of our client's
image.
The use of this image : https://i.imgur dot com/jUJDUGE.jpg on this page
: (url of my article with the imge)
is fine, as long as our client (Brian D'Cruz Hypno Plus) is fully
credited.
The credit must appear under the image or the footer of the page and
be clickable to https://www.briandcruzhypnoplus dot com/ within 5 working
days. We await your response to confirm this has been completed, removing
the image does not resolve the case.
Failure to do so in this time frame, will result in legal case (No.
32484) proceeding under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's Section 512(c)
(" DMCA") for past and or current usage.
Past usage of the image can be seen in the records on Wayback Machine
(https://web.archive.org) - a permanent public archive of the web, which
will be called upon as evidence in this case.
This email serves as the required official notice.
Regards
Alicia Weber
Trademark Attorney
Nationwide Legal
401 Congress Ave. #1540,
Austin, TX 78701
aliciaw@nationwide-law.org
www.nationwide-law.org
Well, this is a new one to me...
I assume that they expected me to call them and tell them that the image is not copyright infringement or something? Then they will probably ask for some monetary compensation of some sort...
They even have a semblance of a lawyer's website in the signature. I clicked on the link and it brought me to a somewhat believable website of a lawyer's office.
I decided to investigate just for a minute (I knew that this was a scam since all my images are Free for commercial use and I don't use any images that would compromise anything on my website) and it was easy to find that they use stock images to represent the "lawyers" of the fake firm called Nationwide Legal Services and Alicia Weber is a stock photo!
They lead to believe that the image will be used against the website's owner even if they delete the image by using the Wayback Machine!
And the supposed client (https://www.briandcruzhypnoplus.com)has an address in the UK...unless of course that website is also fake, but I did not bother finding out if it is legit or not... It took me 30 seconds to find that the lawyer represented is a stock photo.
This goes to show how far these scammers are willing to go to squeeze money out of people that are gullible to their scam. I've seen and heard all kinds of scams but they seem to get a little more sophisticated and they probably catch untrained and uninformed people.
Just a heads up 😉
Stay safe and BEWARE.
Denis
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Recent Comments
57
Ha! Sneaky bastards.. .grin.
When in doubt, check your Free images at
http://tineye.com
to see a true history of where that image has been, all the way back to the original posting online.
And remember, when using the free images, make sure you find out if attribution is needed.
In glad that you realized this email was fake, and your post is a great publis service announcement (PSA).
Rudy
Literally just got one in my inbox from a high profile company that I neither apply for nor knew existed! The link look legit but I did not click on the link. I google the company first and saw who they were and asked why are you in my inbox offering me $50 as compensation for a job I never applied for? 😂😂😂😂 SPAMBOX you go!!
There you go! We must be consistently vigilant. Scammers are everywhere. I have over 500 blocked numbers on my cell phone from these weasels 🙄
Your count is a lot higher than mines. Lol 😂 I blocks everyone faithfully. They call, I watch the phone ring. 😂
Thank you for sharing. This is just unbelievable. As a newbie I would have thought. This claim was real. In one of my other online adventures, I did get in trouble with a photo and a guy actually called me and ask me to take it down. After that I was uncomfortable posting images.
If you use WA's image search you will never be in trouble because they are copyright free! Or use a website like Pixabay. Rob wrote a blog a few years ago with a ton of free images website Public Domain Images Copyright Free
Thank you for the heads up on this. Just today I had 6 emails basically the same saying that my Facebook account was being shut down for wrongful ads or something like that. The funny part is I have no Facebook account associated with the email they sent these emails to!!
Thanks again.
Karin 😎🤨
I usually try to play with them a little bit... Maybe I can keep them thinking they have a fish on the line and can keep them from someone else for a few minutes!
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I received something like this before, and the photo was mine. I took it myself while traveling. I noticed someone else tried to claim it as theirs through copyright. It was a beautiful picture of changing fall leaves while sleeting, and I have noticed my picture being used on many sites and Facebook posts. I kept this picture on my disc file, showing the date and time the picture was taken. If something comes of it, I have proof it's my original picture. This is another reason why I am skeptical of using my travel pictures on my blog. Need to check and see about copyright laws.