We're Being Threatened by an Imaginary Law Firm: The Fake DMCA Backlink Scam

Waking up to a new email

Alarm goes off, I get out of bed, make a coffee, sit in front of my laptop, check my emails, and am instantly intrigued by the following headline: DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice.

As I take a sip of my coffee, I click on the email and start reading:

Dear owner of https://www.databending.ca/services/seo/,

We're reaching out on behalf of the Intellectual Property division of
a notable entity, in relation to an image connected to our client Best
Online Casinos Canada.

Image Reference: https://i.imgur.com/W7CKP7Q.png
Image Placement: https://www.databending.ca/services/seo/

We've observed the display of the image on your site. We need you to
add a credit to our client immediately. A visible and clickable link to
https://unscr.com/best-online-casino-canada/ is required, placed either
below the image or in the page's footer. The anchor text should be "Best
Online Casinos Canada". This should be addressed in the next five business
days.

We're sure you realize the urgency of this request. Kindly understand
that simply removing the image does not conclude the matter. Should we not
see appropriate action within the given timeframe, we nned to activate
the case No. 74332 and take action as outlined in DMCA Section 512(c).

For your convenience, past usage records can be reviewed using the
Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org, a recognized digital archive.

Think of this as formal communication. We value your swift action and
your cooperation.

Regards

Liam Clark
Trademark Attorney

Commonwealth Legal Services
3909 N 16th St, 4th Floor
Phoenix, AZ 85016

[email protected]
www.cwlglobalexperts.life

--
Avast antivirusni softver je proverio ovu e-poštu na viruse.
www.avast.com

Let’s go through it piece by piece.

Dear owner of https://www.databending.ca/services/seo/

Come on Liam, you sent the email to [email protected]. You could’ve probably figured out my first name.

We're reaching out on behalf of the Intellectual Property division of a
notable entity, in relation to an image connected to our client Best
Online Casinos Canada.

Image Reference: https://i.imgur.com/W7CKP7Q.png
Image Placement: https://www.databending.ca/services/seo/

Clicking on the image reference, they seem to be referring to the Toronto skyline picture on our SEO services page. They grabbed the same image, posted it on Imgur 15 days earlier, and are relying on the crazy legal loophole that once you upload an image to Imgur, you own it across all space and time. Never mind that we got the photo from Pexels (which is clearly visible with a quick inspect element) and that it had been on our page for months before their upload. We clearly don’t have the fake legal know-how to claim ownership of an image.

We need you to add a credit to our client immediately. A visible and
clickable link to https://unscr.com/best-online-casino-canada/ is
required ... The anchor text should be "Best Online Casinos Canada".

Kindly understand that simply removing the image does not conclude the
matter. Should we not see appropriate action within the given timeframe,
we nned to activate the case No. 74332 and take action as outlined in
DMCA Section 512(c).

Reading this, I realized I was really in trouble. I’m dealing with the big dogs now. They must be pulling section 67 out of their legal textbooks: “If a website uses an image which we recently uploaded to Imgur, we now retain full control of their site and can request changes at will.” Let’s hope they don’t really “nned to activate case No. 74332”.

--
Avast antivirusni softver je proverio ovu e-poštu na viruse.
www.avast.com

At least I knew the email had been checked for viruses by the Bosnian version of Avast Antivirus. Nice fellas.

Digging into the law firm

If I was going to court with Liam, I needed to prepare. So I looked into the firm to see who I was up against.

Their .life website (cool TLD) actually looks like a proper law firm site. Nothing suspicious at first, until I find my good friend Liam Clark on the team page. His photo gave me the strong feeling I’d seen him somewhere before. Tip: if you ever get one of these emails, run the “attorney’s” headshot through a reverse image search like TinEye or Google Lens. Fake firms lean on stock photos and AI-generated faces.

Next I checked out their law offices in Phoenix. I was thinking I might pay a visit and negotiate a deal in person. On Google Maps, the address points to a single-storey building that looks like an insurance office or a silver dealer. I panned the camera upwards looking for the 4th floor, but these guys must be really good, because all I could find was sky.

UN resolutions by day, casino reviews by night

After checking out the law firm, I decided this might not be worth the battle, as I’ve never dealt with ghosts before. So I looked at what complying would actually mean. Clicking the link they wanted me to cite, I was very unsurprised to see a casino advertising page. What did surprise me was the site it lived on: UN Security Council Resolutions.

The homepage was even more surprising: a legitimate-looking website with real, useful content. Statistics, a timeline, trackers, the works. That’s a lot of effort for a casino review site, so out of genuine curiosity I threw it into Ahrefs.

The domain has a Domain Rating of about 70 and years of history. Then I looked at the backlinks and my eyes went wide. As of October 2026, Ahrefs shows live links from:

• un.org, the United Nations itself
• house.gov and senate.gov, the US Congress
• defense.gov and uscourts.gov
• nato.int and coe.int (the Council of Europe)
• international.gc.ca, Global Affairs Canada
• harvard.edu, princeton.edu, georgetown.edu and brookings.edu, among many other universities and think tanks

I was really confused. Why is the US government linking to a casino review website?

Our hypothesis

It isn’t, at least not on purpose. Those institutions are linking to a genuinely useful archive of UN Security Council resolutions, which is what the site was built to be. This is not your typical five-minute scam. Deliberate work, effort and planning went into it.

We’re almost certain the domain was bought for its authority. Expired or sold domains with strong backlink profiles are valuable to people selling casino, crypto and pharma links, because links from them pass a lot of ranking power. The existing content stays up to keep those backlinks alive, while new pages like the casino review get added quietly.

What we don’t understand is that they aren’t really leveraging it yet. The “best casinos” page isn’t in the sitemap or linked anywhere on the site, so Google can barely discover it. That’s exactly where our backlink would come in: every link they collect from legitimate small business sites helps Google find the page and trust it. No new resolutions appear to have been added since 2025, so our guess is the site changed hands recently.

If we had to bet, this is a phased rollout. They’ll keep building links to the review page from sites like ours, and maybe eventually redirect some of the old pages to it. That makes for a strange experience for anyone looking up UN resolutions who ends up reading why [redacted casino, we’re not promoting them] got a 9.7 rating.

How to spot a fake DMCA notice

Real DMCA takedown notices exist, and you should take a genuine one seriously. But the fake ones share some obvious tells:

• They ask for a link, not a removal. A real notice under DMCA Section 512 asks for infringing material to be taken down. No copyright law requires you to add a “credit link” with specific anchor text, and “removing the image does not conclude the matter” is a giveaway.
• The link points to a commercial page (casinos, loans, crypto, supplements) that has nothing to do with the image.
• The “evidence” is newer than your page. Check the upload date of their image against when yours went live. The Wayback Machine they so helpfully mentioned works in your favour here.
• The firm doesn’t check out. Unusual domains (.life, .online, .site), an address that doesn’t match a real office, and attorneys you can’t find on any state or provincial bar directory.
• Urgency and vague threats. “Five business days”, made-up case numbers, and spelling mistakes in the legal threats.
• It’s a template. Search a sentence from the email in quotes and you’ll usually find other site owners who got the same one.

What to do if you get one

1. Don’t add the link. Linking to a casino page from your service pages tells Google you’re part of a link scheme, which can hurt your own rankings.
2. Don’t reply. Replying confirms your address is monitored and invites follow-ups.
3. Check where your image came from. If it’s from Pexels, Unsplash or another free library, or you took it yourself, keep a note of the source. If you’re not sure, swapping the image costs nothing.
4. Keep the email. If you’re in Canada, you can report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
5. Talk to a lawyer if anything seems real, for example a notice that comes through your hosting provider or names a specific photographer or agency you recognize.

We didn’t add the link.

If you’d like a second opinion on a strange email, or want to know which links are actually helping your site, get in touch. It’s the kind of thing we look at every day as part of our SEO services in Windsor, and our guide to small business website security covers the other habits that keep your site safe.