DMCA Copyright Infringement Email Scam

As a blogger and reseller, I’ve heard of many claims of intellectual property infringement over the years. I’ve tried to steer clear of claims by using my own pictures, writing, and videos. So I was surprised when I received an email from Nationwide Legal claiming that I used one of their client's images without authorization.

I figured out it was a scam within a matter of minutes, but that didn’t stop my heart from skipping a beat as I worked to confirm it. Here’s a look at the Nationwide Legal DCMA copyright infringement email scam and how you can protect yourself from similar scams.

What is intellectual property infringement?

Intellectual property infringement is the infringement or violation of an intellectual property right. Intellectual property includes copyrights, trademarks, and patents.

Some examples I’ve seen or heard about:

A reseller wants to sell an item second-hand. She finds a stock photo of the item owned by the company that originally sold the item and uses it in her sales listing.
A blogger uses a picture found on the internet on her website without receiving permission to use it. The picture belongs to the person who took it or who has the rights to use the picture.
A YouTube video creator uses music or other people’s video clips in his video without authorization or proper attribution.

What happens if you commit intellectual property infringement?

Sometimes nothing happens to the person who infringes. The owner of the property may not know about it, may not do anything even if it’s known, or may decide to take action.

This is what I’ve usually seen happen:

Resellers who use copyrighted images may have those specific listings removed. If they continue to post copyrighted images, they may be banned from selling on a marketplace.
A blogger who uses copyrighted images will receive a request like the email I received asking him or her to remove the image or credit the owner. Some bloggers have faced legal action and have had to pay the owner for use.
A YouTube video creator in a copyright dispute will have that video demonetized. The video may eventually be removed.

The Nationwide Legal email stated that I used an image that someone else had created without the person’s permission. I was required to give credit to the image’s creator or face legal action.

Receiving this sort of email can cause a content creator to panic. It plays on a major fear of having their work removed and having to pay huge fines.

Thankfully I had heard about this sort of scam from other bloggers, so I was suspicious about the email and decided to look into it first.

What are signs the Nationwide Legal email was a scam?

The email

Addressed me by a specific blog post URL. It didn’t use my name, which is on my website.
The email states that removing the image is not enough, only giving credit to the owner of the photo. That’s ridiculous because removing the image would solve the problem. I also know how important backlinks are for building domain authority, so the fact that the owner would only accept credit, basically a backlink, was fishy.
The email states it is from Nationwide Legal Trademark Department. Copyright is for a piece of work like a piece of music, a book, or an image. Trademark is for the protection of a brand such as its logo. The use of an unauthorized image here would be considered a copyright issue, not a trademark issue.
The email was signed by Lydia Houston, a trademark attorney. This would be incorrect as it is a copyright issue. I’d also expect her title to be intellectual property attorney to cover those two areas and more.

The company

When I entered the address of the company into Google, the first result was from the Better Business Bureau. The BBB has an alert on the company page stating the company may be fraudulent. It has a BBB rating of F and is not BBB accredited.
The photos of the attorneys all look sort of the same. The headshots look odd. Some of the people are looking off to the side away from the camera. That’s not the typical headshot of law firms.
The names of the attorneys are so generic like Harry Sanders and Jack Moore. I’m sure many people have those common names, but all of them working together at one law firm?

I did not find an attorney named Lydia Houston on Google or the State Bar of Texas.
The website lists Lydia Houston as a real estate specialist. That’s a different area of law than intellectual property.
The phone numbers listed on the website do not work.
The website has errors and oddities in word choice and phrasing that you wouldn’t expect from a law company. For example, it states that Lydia Houston is licensed to work as a lawyer in Austin. It should say she’s licensed to work in Texas as license is by state.

The image in question

I obtained the image from a free site such as Pexels, Pixabay, or Unsplash. Images from these sites can be used for free without giving credit or paying royalties.
It’s possible that a photo on one of those sites was provided without the owner’s permission, but that’s very rare. More likely what happened is that the scammers selected a photo from one of those sites, did a Google search to see what other websites it was on (like mine), and wrote an email to everyone who had used the image.
The aesthetic of the image I used didn’t match that of the website the email claimed it was from. The image looks polished whereas the website does not. The image is not on the page they said it was from (history of the rolling pin).
The website that supposedly owned the image is unrefined. I think the page layout and the placement of the ads make it look unpolished.
The writing reads like it was AI-generated. I’m not sure if the website is legitimate as it doesn’t load well for me when clicking around the site.

What did I do next?

I ignored the email and only kept it so that I could write this post to let other bloggers know of it too.

I didn’t want to write back and engage with scammers on the other side. That may lead to them attempting to gather more information from me or getting me to place other backlinks. The less contact, the better.

I took this email as a good reminder to continue using content that I have the rights to. A new content creator or reseller may not know this. I didn’t when I started posting things online. That makes them targets for email scams such as this one.

This was also a good reminder to vet any company I hire. A website owner may have hired a company to help him or her get backlinks to boost rankings in Google search results.

But this was a terrible and shady way to go about that. Or the website may be part of the scam.

There’s no shortage of scammers out there in every walk of life. I hope this makes you more informed so that you can avoid them.