Business The rapid rise of false DMCA complaints

[FreeOnes]

The rapid rise of false DMCA complaints is getting insane.
In my opinion these are mostly DMCA companies profiting of every DMCA complaints and secondly performers without any knowledge about IP / contracts and sometimes everything else in life.
All these complaints fuck up your SEO listings and cost a lot of time and money to counter fight, if possible.

At first the system was working. Now it's totally broke. The amount of false claims is way higher than 50% now, something like 95% false for us!

What's your experience and how do you fight this back?

A few articles about this topic:

Fighting the Fakers: A Guide to Dealing With Bogus Copyright Complaints on Google
https://medium.com/occrp-unreported/...e-fbcbf24d40a6

DMCA takedown Notice removed high ranking URLs from Google
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5065695.htm

Google Play: False DMCA Complaints ruin lives of developers
https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidQues..._of/?rdt=48838

How do I handle false DMCA notices
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-handl...er-DMCA-notice

[mopek1]

I hear you. One of my sites is a user submitted site and I got a dmca complaint to take down multiple images over many pages.

It was time consuming. Only to find out months later that it was fake. The owners of the content emailed me asking why I took their stuff down, as they had never requested I do so. They didn't even know what a dmca was!

I have no idea why someone would take the time to mess with another website(s) that has no real basis in reality.

But I am getting tired of it.

[V_RocKs]

I've been getting quite a few lately.

Some dumb bitch from only fans flat said the homepage of one of our sites was infringing on her. It had zero of her works. She's not a webcam model. I figured out who she was and appealed to her to do the right thing and rescind the complaint. She told me to GFY. So I let her know, I have a lawyer, and if I have to go that route I'm not stopping. She would be sued for filing a false dmca and we'd get our lost revenue $xx,xxx over the 10 business days to get it reinstated via Google's route, plus lawyers fees, and court costs. Either rescind or it's going to happen and we will post about it all over forums, Reddit, GFY, etc. She quickly rescinded the complaint and we were back in Google an hour later.

It's pretty fucking lame because her example of works stolen and her example of where it was on our site didn't add up to shit. Any ass hat could have noticed, this content isn't on this site or it's homepage.

[V_RocKs]

Originally Posted by mopek1

I hear you. One of my sites is a user submitted site and I got a dmca complaint to take down multiple images over many pages.

It was time consuming. Only to find out months later that it was fake. The owners of the content emailed me asking why I took their stuff down, as they had never requested I do so. They didn't even know what a dmca was!

I have no idea why someone would take the time to mess with another website(s) that has no real basis in reality.

But I am getting tired of it.

Most likely it was your competition that ranked behind you in Google.

[Major Tom Thanks Duke]

Literally many are sent by save a ho’s

[mopek1]

Originally Posted by V_RocKs

Most likely it was your competition that ranked behind you in Google.

That's what I initially thought too.

[femdomdestiny]

My experience is that I do not care. Sites paying for those services that are attacking legitimate webmasters don't deserve to be promoted. It is frustrating and irritating but that's only me.

[pornlaw]

Until people start filing suits against models/creators this will not change.

White labeling works for a time but often falls off and is forgotten.

[daviking]

I am spending 6h a month sending counter dmcas to google. Annoying, but everything gets reinstated.

[LouiseLloyd]

Originally Posted by pornlaw

Until people start filing suits against models/creators this will not change.

White labeling works for a time but often falls off and is forgotten.

How would an affiliate go about this? The agent is the point of contact but undoubtedly the model will have never provided a real name or valid address.

Say I was to issue a small claims for losses to a model that I knew resided in my jurisdiction, but didn't know real name or address, only DMCA agent as point of contact?

[adtrafic]

https://marefeat.com/

These idiots are sending a lot of reports in the name of javhd.com to empty domains that have been parked for years.

[Wautier]

Originally Posted by adtrafic

https://marefeat.com/

These idiots are sending a lot of reports in the name of javhd.com to empty domains that have been parked for years.

Marefeat is owned by JavHD.

[CaptainHowdy]

Originally Posted by Wautier

Marefeat is owned by JavHD.

[jscott]

Thanks for sharing the articles Freeones. For now I think we need to continue sending counter notifications, and hopefully someday the false DMCA senders will get penalized for it.

[pornlaw]

Originally Posted by LouiseLloyd

How would an affiliate go about this? The agent is the point of contact but undoubtedly the model will have never provided a real name or valid address.

Say I was to issue a small claims for losses to a model that I knew resided in my jurisdiction, but didn't know real name or address, only DMCA agent as point of contact?

It's not a small claims case. Its US federal law so it should be filed in US federal court.

The best way would be for a group of interested plaintiffs (affiliates, program owners ect) to join together, chose a lead plaintiff, split the costs and hire an attorney to file the lawsuit. It's not a class action so to speak since there would be no class but merely a sharing of costs.

I believe there is an attorney fee provision in the DMCA so that if you win you can recover any attorneys fees spent.

However, be careful who you chose as a defendant so that they have deep enough pockets that you can actually collect.

There's no penalty provision in the law for companies that file false DMCAs. This is why they act with complete disregard for the law. The person or company that caused the false DMCA to be filed is the responsible party.

The plaintiffs would subpoena the information on the models name from the DMCA takedown company and they would have to provide all the information they have on their client.

You could try to name the DMCA company as a defendant but they would probably be quickly dismissed from the case but you might be able to cost them the attorneys fees to file the dismissal which might motivate them to change their policies.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...earch-results/

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/202...-dmca-notices/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultas...ny-2-youtuber/

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/30/2...wn-competitors

https://torrentfreak.com/shopify-fil...ssment-231128/

https://torrentfreak.com/ytmp3-sues-...otices-230801/

[FreeOnes]

This is also very annoying to this story.
https://lumendatabase.org/notices/15...request_access
When you like to get more information you can only do 1 request per 24 hours per email address. I have asked for a researcher account and got this answer:

"Thank you for your letter and your interest in working with the Lumen database.
At this time we generally issue Lumen researcher credentials only to people or non-profit organizations planning journalistic, academic, or legislative policy-focused public written research outputs.
Lumen is an academic research project, not a service, and should not be part of any business model. Businesses interested in takedown notices referencing their sites that have been sent to other OSPs should investigate webmaster and/or Search Console tools, or contact those OSPs directly.
We offer limited access to notices to individual members of the public - 1 notice per email address per 24 hours. In order to manage Lumen resources and mitigate misuse of the site, we also block historically problematic IP addresses and email domains.
Sincerely,
The Lumen Team
"

[adtrafic]

Originally Posted by Wautier

Marefeat is owned by JavHD.

So this is a new way of SPAM promotion? Since I receive reports to cloudfare of domains that do not have a website and that there has been a 301 redirect for years, or of websites that do not have the content they report.

They have another website in the contact email for the reports.

https://takedown.company/

Several years ago the same thing happened with Mareafeat, at that time I investigated them and they had not even paid the company renewal fee in Belize at that time, so they where sending the reports from an inactive company and the reports are always in the name of a girl from Kyrgyzstan or something like that.

[geirlur]

It's shitty how some models get paid to do a scene and then they dmca every promo attempt of said scene afterwards.. xD

[jscott]

Another shitty unfair thing is when they send a DMCA they can have a lot of urls listed in one claim, when you counterclaim there is a limit to how many urls we can counter, which means some of them won't be countered (haven't tried yet, maybe can send multiple counterclaims each to fit in all the urls). For reference, another thread on this topic.

[Mr.Fiction]

Originally Posted by FreeOnes

This is also very annoying to this story.
https://lumendatabase.org/notices/15...request_access
When you like to get more information you can only do 1 request per 24 hours per email address. I have asked for a researcher account and got this answer:

"Thank you for your letter and your interest in working with the Lumen database.
At this time we generally issue Lumen researcher credentials only to people or non-profit organizations planning journalistic, academic, or legislative policy-focused public written research outputs.
Lumen is an academic research project, not a service, and should not be part of any business model. Businesses interested in takedown notices referencing their sites that have been sent to other OSPs should investigate webmaster and/or Search Console tools, or contact those OSPs directly.
We offer limited access to notices to individual members of the public - 1 notice per email address per 24 hours. In order to manage Lumen resources and mitigate misuse of the site, we also block historically problematic IP addresses and email domains.
Sincerely,
The Lumen Team
"

Use a unique email address for each request using the number of the request at their database:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

As long as you have a catchall email address, you can make one for every request.

[FreeOnes]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...earch-results/

Google sues people who “weaponized” DMCA to remove rivals’ search results

There needs to come a new system.

[FreeOnes]

It is totally ridiculous that it's even possible to file a DMCA complaint about more than 1 domain at once. This one has 950 url's!!
https://lumendatabase.org/notices/39...HcVVWbdz6SgYow



http://www.hostones.com/temp/maurice/gfy/DMCA.txt

[Mr.Fiction]

Some of the fake complaints target text keywords without regard for what's on the URL. If the DMCA company represents a model named Jenna Jameson, they DMCA random pages with the word Jenna Jameson even if there are no pictures or videos on the page. Google often notices these reports are fake and refuses to remove the pages even though they are listed on Lumen.

[laouch]

I am the only one who cant send counter notice since few days ?
It always something like "Unable to submit your form at this time. Please correct the fields above." (https://support.google.com/legal/con..._counternotice)

[TheSenator]

Even though I am an affiliate and follow the rules, one of my tube sites got slammed by DMCA notices and removals.

It cost me thousands because I built up organic searches throughout the years and bought traffic from PlugRush, among others.

Google defaults to the claim owner and de-lists the page that is infringing.

I can handle a few DMCA notices, but when it comes to thousands, I give up because of the time and effort I need to put into it. The time is better spent elsewhere in my day to make money.

I think affiliate programs should have a whitelist of domains that are affiliates so that their lawyers and automated bots can stop DMCA notices.

All the money I invested into https://www.kernel-video-sharing.com/en/ sucks because of these DMCA notices where I am sending pure organic searches back to my affiliates.

[TheSenator]

Originally Posted by Mr.Fiction

Some of the fake complaints target text keywords without regard for what's on the URL. If the DMCA company represents a model named Jenna Jameson, they DMCA random pages with the word Jenna Jameson even if there are no pictures or videos on the page. Google often notices these reports are fake and refuses to remove the pages even though they are listed on Lumen.

If you have anything that says "OnlyFans," or "Leaked," plus porn star stage name, it gets flagged.

They are just keying on some target words and names.

You can't say, "The former OnlyFans star crossed over to the adult industry and is now gaping out her ass," because the DMCA bot will pick that up even though you are promoting the affiliate program.

If you want to block the IPs from DMCA notices and other bad bots, here is a fucking huge list. You will need a top-end VPS or dedicated server to add the list to your CSF deny list. The list is updated every two hours.

https://github.com/bitwire-it/ipbloc...readme-ov-file


If anyone else has a better solution please let us know.

[TheSenator]

OnlyFans model Alexis Tae gets her ass fucked and gaped. Brought to you by Brazzers.

https://www.redgifs.com/watch/unequaledlawfulinganue

You see, this is not a leaked photo or anything like that. Alexis Tae is an OnlyFans model but also does porn videos for Brazzers and other adult studios.

Brazzers is under the affiliate program Adult Force.

A DMCA bot will hit this post eventually unless there is a whitelist that affiliate webmasters don't know about.

[redwhiteandblue]

Originally Posted by TheSenator

If you have anything that says "OnlyFans," or "Leaked," plus porn star stage name, it gets flagged.

They are just keying on some target words and names.

You can't say, "The former OnlyFans star crossed over to the adult industry and is now gaping out her ass," because the DMCA bot will pick that up even though you are promoting the affiliate program.

If you want to block the IPs from DMCA notices and other bad bots, here is a fucking huge list. You will need a top-end VPS or dedicated server to add the list to your CSF deny list. The list is updated every two hours.

https://github.com/bitwire-it/ipbloc...readme-ov-file


If anyone else has a better solution please let us know.

Those need someone to convert them to CIDR address ranges and then put in the htaccess deny list, it's a bit daft trying to block so many individual IP addresses.

[laouch]

Originally Posted by laouch

I am the only one who cant send counter notice since few days ?
It always something like "Unable to submit your form at this time. Please correct the fields above." (https://support.google.com/legal/con..._counternotice)

No one ?

[SecretEmpire]

Originally Posted by TheSenator

If you have anything that says "OnlyFans," or "Leaked," plus porn star stage name, it gets flagged.

They are just keying on some target words and names.

You can't say, "The former OnlyFans star crossed over to the adult industry and is now gaping out her ass," because the DMCA bot will pick that up even though you are promoting the affiliate program.

If you want to block the IPs from DMCA notices and other bad bots, here is a fucking huge list. You will need a top-end VPS or dedicated server to add the list to your CSF deny list. The list is updated every two hours.


If anyone else has a better solution please let us know.

Can blocking dmca bots actually help? I figured they just scraped Google results without paying any attention to the actual website. And you can't block them from search results.

[laouch]

Originally Posted by laouch

No one ?

Sorry wrong link : https://support.google.com/legal/con...duct=websearch

So no one ?

[SecretEmpire]

Fdsmfdmkfadkf v. A zccd v df

[jinashi]

Marefeat appears to be blindly targeting our affiliates on behalf of JavHD (JHDV Ltd).
If you are one of our affiliates and they send you a notice please kindly file a counter notice.

[jscott]

Originally Posted by jinashi

Marefeat appears to be blindly targeting our affiliates on behalf of JavHD (JHDV Ltd).
If you are one of our affiliates and they send you a notice please kindly file a counter notice.

Bump. Great advice Jinashi, Yes everyone please counter notice all the fraudulent DMCA's.

[femdomdestiny]

zero fucks given, I won't waste my time fixing someone else decisions. I just stopped promoting them. Those stupid agencies are ruining business

[mechanicvirus]

What happens if you send a DMCA notice to the offending DMCA website that falsely claims content they don't own.

[brassmonkey]

they try to destroy your rank... you must have some good ones. a few days is good money!!

[celandina]

Make your own content and you will get "0" notices. Rely on " dodgy" sources and you get what you deserve. Our DMCA service took down over 1,000 our pirated videos ( in about 3 months) and it did not get a single counterclaim.

... and to Freeones: if you pay less attention if the model is named, and more attention to where the stuff comes from you would save yourself a lot of agro. Here is a simple advice: If it is watermarked ( a picture) or a video clip ( also watermarked) lets say 5 min or less, nobody will complain ( hey, we all like free adverts). But, if it is NOT watermarked, its likely stolen. I had my own experience with Freeones some time ago. To make a point: Somebody posted a bunch of our watermarked pictures ( we thought great ;) free adds) , but your Mods took them down as spam. So, a few days later same bunch of the same pictures got posted, but cropped to delete the watermark, and these were not removed. So we got pissed off and fired of DMCA take down.

[femdomdestiny]

Originally Posted by celandina

Make your own content and you will get "0" notices. Rely on " dodgy" sources and you get what you deserve. Our DMCA service took down over 1,000 our pirated videos ( in about 3 months) and it did not get a single counterclaim.

I didn't do any counterclaim because I didn't want to waste my time with such sponsors. All pages had a clear link to their affiliate program, still, I've got a DMCA.

[GoCastaway]

Today again a couple of complaints... Now for 5 days the wave continues

All from CB.

[celandina]

Originally Posted by femdomdestiny

I didn't do any counterclaim because I didn't want to waste my time with such sponsors. All pages had a clear link to their affiliate program, still, I've got a DMCA.

As I have said " dodgy sources".

[emmasexytime]

Originally Posted by femdomdestiny

I didn't do any counterclaim because I didn't want to waste my time with such sponsors. All pages had a clear link to their affiliate program, still, I've got a DMCA.

They don't check for affiliate link or even care. All just get paid for number of dmca's so send them based on search results.

[GoCastaway]

Originally Posted by emmasexytime

They don't check for affiliate link or even care. All just get paid for number of dmca's so send them based on search results.

It turns out that yes, the wave is still going on here, yesterday again a few, and always for the same domain

But i have a standard defence text, just change the userename, fill in the defence form on Google, past the text in it, and that's it. 3 minutes work and always positive response from Google

[JesseQuinn]

Originally Posted by emmasexytime

They don't check for affiliate link or even care. All just get paid for number of dmca's so send them based on search results.

thank you

usually it's not the performers on cam sites or OF sending these warrantless DMCAs


for example (I know you get it Emma), a cammer on cb or wherever or a porn performer opens an OF

they hire one of the several previously discussed shady DMCA co's, paying them to protect his/her content from pirates

these shady DMCA co's (there are a few good ones, sadly not the norm) use bots to search the net for any mention of the performer's name. completely absent context

two things happen as a result:

1) legit affs of porn/cam sites using legit affiliate images/film snippets (porn) or embeds of cam site chatrooms (camming) get warrantless DMCAs

2) the shady DMCA co's then turn to the performer that hired them and says "wow, look how much we found. pay us more for a higher scanning package so we can find even more than your current URL limit!"


pisses me off cuz it robs from performers, gives us a bad name and fucks with the income of legit affs using legit promo tools. I'm on both sides in terms of adult-oriented work so no foot in one camp


I hate piracy, I've been subject to it myself on the performer side of adult. never been served a DMCA as an aff...yet

some of these companies are total parasites. the performers are not to blame, these bullshit companies are

thanks Emma for bringing that up

Originally Posted by femdomdestiny

I didn't do any counterclaim because I didn't want to waste my time with such sponsors. All pages had a clear link to their affiliate program, still, I've got a DMCA.

if you were using legit sponsor material then counterclaim, even if you drop the program

DMCAs can potentially harm your rankings in goog

yeah it's a PITA but worth countering for that alone

[FreeOnes]

Anybody has experience aka complaints about these fuckers?
https://www.ceartas.io

[mopek1]

Originally Posted by GoCastaway

But i have a standard defence text,

Mind sharing it?

[adtrafic]

What company or person is behind BubbliX?

I've been getting reports every day for a week now about all the new Nubiles content coming in via feed and claiming to be from Onlyfans.

Reporter: BubbliX
Country: Austria

No data is listed, nor does it seem like there is any company by that name.

[JesseQuinn]

Originally Posted by FreeOnes

Anybody has experience aka complaints about these fuckers?
https://www.ceartas.io

well known for this with legit affs. there's a long azz list of companies that pull this crap and they're on it

(and also reread my post above and I meant 'unwarranted', not 'warrantless')

apparently with some of these shit co's, you can contact them and they'll 'whitelist you'

that's an incredible wtf kinda thing but if you're getting a lot from the same company, it may work to stop it going forward

[GoCastaway]

Originally Posted by mopek1

Mind sharing it?

Just replace the 4 words that i made caps and you are done.
DOMAIN, MODELNAME 2x and YOUR NAME (first and last name):

Dear Google,

My site DOMAIN.com is a site that only use the API from Chaturbate to promote the live model feeds from the main Chaturbate site. There are no other pictures or banners with content of this model (MODELNAME) or other models illegal taken on my site and have never been there before.

Since all models on Chaturbate have to agree with the TOS of Chaturbate, all the models have no right to claim a DMCA notice if the site only shows the live feed from the Chaturbate API, that also counts for complainer MODELNAME.

So I hereby ask you to declare this complaint unfounded and not to remove my site or this url from Google.

Kind regards,
YOUR NAME

[mechanicvirus]

What happens if you DMCA a DMCA website index?