A scam email doing the rounds targets photography-site owners: a fake DMCA-style email claims one of your images infringes copyright and threatens legal action — but instead of a takedown or a fee, it demands you add a dofollow link to their product. It’s an SEO link-building scam dressed up as a legal threat. The redacted email and the tells are below.
I get a lot of spam and scams through my websites. It’s one of the delightful perks of having a long-running web presence and enough of an audience to catch the attention of a lot of spammers and scammers out there.
And I ignore nearly all of it. But every now and then I’ll see something new that catches my eye.
And that’s what’s happened recently. I was sent a scam email that made it past my spam filters and into my inbox.
It’s a new variation I haven’t seen before. Maybe it’s been around for a while and I just hadn’t noticed it. But it’s new to me, at least. And it seems like it might be particularly relevant to photographers with a website.
A not-so-official DMCA takedown notice
I’ve been on the sending end of too many legitimate DMCA takedown notices where people have been using my images without a license or permission. This particular scam tries to turn that around.
It’s not unusual for photographers to find their images on other website without them having given permission for it. And it’s also not unusual to send a “please add a link back to my website” request in lieu of a full DMCA takedown.
This scam builds on that.
The gist of this scam is accusing me of an unauthorized use of a copyrighted photo (definitely not the case). And to threaten legal action unless I do as they ask. [You can read a redacted version of the email I received further down this page.]
But this is where things get interesting and diverge a bit from the normal. It doesn’t try to shake down for a license fee. And they’re not asking that I take the image down. In fact, it explicitly says that that won’t solve it.
Instead, they want a dofollow link from website to their product. (A dofollow link is basically one that has some SEO weight, as compared with a nofollow link, which instructs the search engines to ignore it.)
Nevermind that their product has nothing to do with my website. It’s all about gaming Google’s ranking system in the belief that the more links they can get from high-authority websites pointing to their product, the higher their product will rank in Google search results and the more money they will make.
There’s something to that last part, of course; despite what Google spokespeople sometimes say, links do matter for ranking. But the way they’re trying to get the links here is entirely illegitimate.
Tell-tale signs it’s a scam
It’s nonsense, of course. How do I know? Several reasons. But reason number 1 is that the photos on the supposedly offending page are entirely my photos. As are over 99% of the photos and graphics on my website (I also register my images with the US Copyright Office).
And I’m no lawyer, but there are several other obvious problems with it.
They include:
- Although it claims to be an “official DMCA notice,” it’s missing specific language that the DMCA requires.
- The supposedly offending page on my site doesn’t include the image they say has been infringed upon (it’s not even remotely related to the subject matter).
They do, however, use a real lawyer’s name, their real law firm, and their real law firm’s address. But that lawyer is in a completely unrelated field of law.
The email
Here’s a real example of this scam.
Of course, if you receive something like this yourself and suspect it might be real, I recommend consulting with a lawyer.
But I’m including it here as a pretty obvious example of a scam email involving photography. This is the email I received, but I’ve redacted specific identifying information.
Dear owner of https://havecamerawilltravel.com/[redacted],
I represent the Intellectual Property division. We have identified an image belonging to our client on your website.
Image Details: https://i.imgur.com/[redacted].jpg
Location of Usage: https://havecamerawilltravel.com/[redacted]
We require that you credit [excised] for this image. Please add a direct and clickable hyperlink to https://www. [excised] either beneath the image or in the footer of the page. This must be completed within the next five business days.
Please understand the seriousness of this request. Simply removing the image will not suffice. If you do not comply within the given timeframe, we will have to start legal proceedings under case No. 72134, following the DMCA Section 512(c) guidelines.
For historical image usage, you can check the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org.
This is an official notice. We value your prompt response and cooperation. Please correspond in English.
Regards
[redacted: attorney name]
Trademark Attorney
[redacted: law firm name]
[redacted: lawn firm address]
[redacted: fake attorney email address and website]
I thought that this was an interesting spin on a pretty routine scam email. And with photographers dealing with images day in and day out, it’s especially relevant.
Thank you so much for this post. I received the same email and struggled to understand whether it was real or not. I have googled the case number and it is the same as yours, and after reading your post – it has just clarified this new scam for me – very much appreciated and good day to you!
Glad you found it helpful! And yes, it’s a sneaky one.