Molly WhiteAfter I refused a bribe to remove a @web3isgreat post about alleged crypto pyramid scheme co-founder Roman Ziemian, I’ve now received a fraudulent copyright claim aimed at forcing me to take it down
web3 is going just great (@[email protected])
Attached: 2 images FutureNet founder arrested for alleged crypto fraud August 19, 2024 https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=futurenet-founder-arrested
The BlogSpot website that is rehosting my post and claiming to be the original is full of other such posts from other websites, suggesting this is part of a wider campaign to scrub information about Ziemian.
This is another plus to hosting your own work, by the way. They can still take it up the chain to my service providers, but I don’t have to worry about filing a counterclaim with the webhost because I AM the webhost.
update: the “lawyer” is now offering me $100 less than the previous guy to delete the post
Keenan@molly0xfff I like the very official "legal.michaelwoods" gmail address!
D C Ross@keenan @molly0xfff
Funny thing is, not only does the California Bar not know about a "Michael Woods" operating out of the address he gave but his email didn't exist on any search engines this morning. By now it's showing up on Google but every hit is pointing to a copy of this thread.
I know it sounds crazy, but I'm beginning to suspect that he just might not be a real lawyer.
@deeseearr @molly0xfff Careful. You're about to receive a very sternly-worded letter asking you to delete this toot.
jelte
Salacious Crumb@deeseearr @keenan @molly0xfff I also noticed that the address doesn't seem to exist either. Maybe he works out of another office building, you wouldn't have heard about it.
Major Denis Bloodnok@keenan @molly0xfff He probably works with [email protected] who I'm to write to about all this Nigerian prince money.
adamrice@molly0xfff Ya know, you could turn this into a nice little moneymaker…
Steve Scott
FediThing 
They sound like very experienced negotiators 😆
Alex P. 👹@molly0xfff
"under penalty of perjury," he says 😈
"under penalty of perjury," he says 😈
John Robinson
Me 🐶@molly0xfff I'll give you $50 to leave it up
Sophie Schmieg@derrydavis @molly0xfff great idea, I'm in.
(Somehow assuming that the post is staying up)
Benjamin Braatz@molly0xfff What exactly is their game there? Do they make so much of advertising that the 100 USD for being the only ones hosting your content is realistic? Or do they never plan to actually pay you?
@HeptaSean they’re just trying to get the post taken down. i assume most people doing this kind of DMCA fraud delete the posts later on so they’re not adding to the pile of content this guy doesn’t want online, but this seems like a pretty budget bin operation lol
@molly0xfff Ah, so, they get paid by the subject of the article who wants it completely gone? That makes half sense.
RalfMaximusThey're never gonna pay. Also, that street address is fictitious. The phone number goes to a google voice virtual number, not any kind of law firm.
ClickyMcTicker@ralfmaximus @HeptaSean @molly0xfff Report the GVoice number for fraud and it’ll get eaten quickly. They’re always trying to claw numbers away.
Doridian@molly0xfff You can tell they're a real lawyer because of the "legal" prefix in their GMail /s
Geoff Simmons@molly0xfff I read that sentence at least 3 times thinking that he‘s offering you $100 to remove a 404 error.
I‘ll remove a 404 error for a hundred bucks! Please tell legal.michaelwoods that I want in on this racket.
hybrid havoc@molly0xfff Do you think if we all put up mirrors of the article he'd offer the same to each of us?
@hybridhavoc worth a shot 😅
The Animal and the Machine@molly0xfff
You rock Molly!
It was a kind choice to not point out that as you are the copyright owner, you here by confirm they do not have permission to replicate and not only is their claim fraudulent but if they follow the rules as laid out by them below, they now need to taken down their clone as identified by them.
Jamie McCarthy@molly0xfff (also, “permanently removed” should be a 410)
Chris@jamiemccarthy HTTP 451 would technically be the most appropriate for this specific case, in my opinion.
Billy O'Neal@molly0xfff *insert obligatory Mecha Streisand photo here*
Mike Johnston@molly0xfff They were so lazy with that blogger that there are still a ton of unmodified links that go back to the theme creators blog - like the contact us link. The irony here is that one of their videos is warning about fake blogger accounts.... Amazing, *chefs kiss*
Mark T. Tomczak@molly0xfff Seems legit
Darryl RammWholly crap, do not mess with Molly. She got this lawyer removed from the CA bar association, nuked his address from earth orbit, and deleted all public records he or that office ever existed.
@molly0xfff I love how Mr. Legal (if that even is his real name) thinks that an offer of $100 would be enough for a journalist to betray their principles.
Mostly because it implies that for him, this is worth considering.
Bret Carmichael@molly0xfff Counter offer for 1 Bitcoin. He’ll appreciate the irony.
Coach Pāṇini ®
Durandal@molly0xfff sell him an NFT of the post
vicash@molly0xfff why are they not offering bribes in BTC ?
coldclimate@molly0xfff so they are pathetic and cheapskates?
Daniel Terhorst-North@molly0xfff I am not a lawyer, but you might adopt the same response that satirical magazine Private Eye did in 1972*
"We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off."
taco, bird/cat 
@molly0xfff do you just run it off of your home network? I've also been thinking about migrating due to stuff like that
@chirpbirb no, I use a VPS. there are a lot of risks to running off a home network that i don’t care to take on.
Awk & sha@molly0xfff @chirpbirb does the VPS expose you to the same risk that you’ll have to submit a counterclaim to your VPS provider if the troll figures out who they are and tries the DMCA notice with them?
@mmcknett @chirpbirb there’s always some risk that DMCAs can be escalated, even if you use your home network (they’d just go to the ISP)
Fazal Majid@mmcknett @molly0xfff @chirpbirb yes. I received a spurious DMCA notice on my blog once, and Joyent (my VPS provider at the time) fought my corner. I seriously doubt AWS would (I now run it on Hugo + Clodfront).
Tor Iver Wilhelmsen@chirpbirb Yes, if you check her site there is a long article about self-hosting Ghost for your site. (Instead of using at times problematic services like Substack or Medium.)
happyborg@molly0xfff you can also move service providers if necessary. 👍
M 🥂 🍾
RoxanneG@molly0xfff you inspired me a few months ago with your post about activity pub integration on your site. Now after much tinkering i am hosting my own content on my own site and pushing out to the socials such as they are, from me. Thanks for the inspiration. Sorry you have to deal with these lawyer letters.
Kirby@molly0xfff Ah ha! Got it. Neat. Later.
Timothy Clark@molly0xfff "I AM the manager."
Timothy Wolodzko@molly0xfff so to summarize, Web3 is going great, ain't it?
Alex Rock@molly0xfff Are all these fake posts supposedly posted one day before the "infringing" one? That would be very funny 😅
Henryk Plötz@pierstoval @molly0xfff They also list "Last modified". This one in particular claims to be published 2024-08-18T00:52:00-07:00 and last modified on 2024-10-24T00:53:20-07:00.
L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ
njsg@Mabande @henryk @pierstoval @molly0xfff if it is their site, they could well fabricate an entire version control history. Would be interesting indeed.
(But quite a few sites I've seen also just indicate the current time as the time of last modification, at least in metadata.)
DrYak@njsg ...and would be even.funnier t .compare the "pretend" revision history with what web.archive.org actually saw in tge past.
chebra@pierstoval @molly0xfff Not only that, they somehow knew it one day before the police directorate of Podgorica announced the arrest