DMCA as a vector for pornographic spam?
By @edent
· copyright DMCA firefox google · 8 comments · 300 words · read ~484 times.
There's a law in the USA called the DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Amongst its myriad provisions is the ability for copyright holders to send takedown notices to service providers. If someone has ripped off your content, you can send them a legal letter saying "take that down".
People often send DMCA requests to Google saying "this site has stolen my copyrighted content - please remove that page from Google."
Google, to their credit, let me know that they'd recently received a complaint about me 😢
Ah, dammit! What photo had I inadvertently copied?1 Here's what Google said:
Huh? Back in 2020, I wrote a blog post called "This blog strips off for CSS Naked Day". It contains a single image:
That's a screenshot that I took of Firefox. My use of my image on my site isn't a copyright infringement.
WTAF?
Scrolling through the legal complaint I found I was in illustrious company.
After accessing the full report, I discovered that the complaint was made on behalf of an OnlyFans user called "firefoxs" who has - to quote her bio - the "#1 Nicest Tits On OF"2.
Needless to say, I dispute the allegation and I've filed a DMCA Counter Notification.
Perhaps this is just a case of an overzealous lawyer hitting every website which contains an image called "Firefox"? Or perhaps it is a ploy to get a bunch of irate webmasters to visit an OnlyFans page to assess the evidence?
Either way, I think the biggest pair of tits on the Internet are firefoxs' copyright lawyers!
@Edent Wow, I remember referer porn spam from like 20 years ago… we’ve come a long way, and yet we’re still in the same place.
@Edent
Not sure this is actually a spam vector. More likely the service she is using, Leak Cleaner, are trying to justify their cost. Problem is that Googles automated systems will derank sites without any human taking a look and realising Leak Cleaner are grifting.
#seo seo
@simoncox sorry, I should have been clearer. By sending those emails, she bypasses spam filters and gets to send a link to her OF to hundreds of inboxes.
@Edent
😃 That was clear but I was presuming that this wasn't her trying to drive traffic. Most of the domains are, unlike yours of course, less than salubrious so could well be a target market - in which case it is very clever. But Leak Cleaner adding your site to the list means they are not checking their findings suggesting they are just trying to look like she is getting her monies worth from them. I don't know though. 🤷♂️
@blog 99.99% sure that's an intentional marketing play
@Edent I've heard some of these folks have been hiring companies to protect their content, and some of those companies have realized that they can "spray-and-pray" DMCA complaints without consequence... so they do.
@Edent I think if you send three DMCA takedown notices that prove to be false, you should never be allowed to send another one ever again.
I wonder what a catchy name for that policy would be?
@Edent I'm pretty sure they send these things out without any human review, it's just a bot.
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