Fake AI law firms are sending fake DMCA threats to generate fake SEO gains

This is the best summary I could come up with:

If you run a personal or hobby website, getting a copyright notice from a law firm about an image on your site can trigger some fast-acting panic.

Ernie Smith, the prolific, ever-curious writer behind the newsletter Tedium, received a "DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice" in late March from "Commonwealth Legal," representing the "Intellectual Property division" of Tech4Gods.

As Smith detailed in a Mastodon thread, the purported firm needed him to "add a credit to our client immediately" through a link to Tech4Gods, and said it should be "addressed in the next five business days."

The real tell is the site's list of attorneys, most of which, as 404 Media puts it, have "vacant, thousand-yard stares" common to AI-generated faces.

Why would someone go to the trouble of making a law firm out of NameCheap, stock art, and AI images (and seemingly copy) to send quasi-legal demands to site owners?

The owner of Tech4Gods told 404 Media's Jason Koebler that he did buy backlinks for his gadget review site (with "AI writing assistants").

The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

2 comments

DMCA takedowns need to through more red tape to prevent trolls like this. It's currently way too easy to censor something they don't like or to steal the money creators earned.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
If you run a personal or hobby website, getting a copyright notice from a law firm about an image on your site can trigger some fast-acting panic.
Ernie Smith, the prolific, ever-curious writer behind the newsletter Tedium, received a "DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice" in late March from "Commonwealth Legal," representing the "Intellectual Property division" of Tech4Gods.
As Smith detailed in a Mastodon thread, the purported firm needed him to "add a credit to our client immediately" through a link to Tech4Gods, and said it should be "addressed in the next five business days."
The real tell is the site's list of attorneys, most of which, as 404 Media puts it, have "vacant, thousand-yard stares" common to AI-generated faces.
Why would someone go to the trouble of making a law firm out of NameCheap, stock art, and AI images (and seemingly copy) to send quasi-legal demands to site owners?
The owner of Tech4Gods told 404 Media's Jason Koebler that he did buy backlinks for his gadget review site (with "AI writing assistants").
The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!