PSA: Be cautious of fraudulent DMCA requests

Chris D

Chris D

XenForo developer
Staff member
When you run a hosted service like we do, receiving DMCA and other abuse requests are not uncommon. Someone might have copy and pasted someone's article, or reposted pictures from some other website. For XenForo Cloud customers, we receive those requests, assess their accuracy and, if needed, let the customer know so they can resolve.

What is extremely uncommon, however, is for us (XenForo Limited) to receive a DMCA request from XenForo Limited (us).

Reporter's Name: Mira Legal
Reporter's Email Address: sc-noreply@abusedmca.com
Reporter's Title: Urgent Legal Notice: Unlicensed Use of XenForo Software on <snip>
Reporter's Company Name: Xenforo Limited
Reporter's Telephone Number: 016153076472
Reported URLs:
<snip>
Original Work: Trademarked Symbol: XF
Registration Number: 07294282
Registration Office: International House, 101 King&#39;s Cross Road, London, England, WC1X 9LP
Logs or Evidence of Abuse: Notice: To the Owners and Administrators of <snip>
We have identified that this domain is hosted by your company. Therefore, as a service provider, we are initiating steps to claim damages. The use of XenForo-supported software without a license is legally prohibited. We request the information of the user who is conducting illegal activities through your services. Additionally, we demand the immediate shutdown and deletion of the hosting account associated with this domain. We also request that you prevent the user from creating backups and continuing the illegal use of XenForo software. Otherwise, XenForo will cooperate with our attorneys in Turkey to claim 100,000 USD in damages..
As the legal protector and attorney for XenForo licensed software, it has come to our attention that an unlicensed version of XenForo software is being used on the domain <snip>. The use of unlicensed software is a serious legal violation under both national and international laws. Therefore, we issue the following legal notice:
Legal Notice:
Detection of Infringement: It has been identified that XenForo software is being used on the domain <snip> without the necessary licensing. This constitutes a violation of the software license agreement and the Intellectual Property Law (Law No. 5846).
Legal Obligations:
Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works: Under this law, it is illegal in Turkey to copy, distribute, or use software without authorization. Such violations are subject to both criminal and civil penalties.
International Copyright Laws: Under international agreements, the use of unlicensed software can lead to severe penalties and claims for damages.
Our Demands:
The immediate removal of all unlicensed XenForo software from the <snip> domain.
The deactivation of all systems (hosting, servers, etc.) where unlicensed software is used.
Sanctions: If this notice is not responded to positively within 10 business days, legal proceedings will be initiated through our attorneys in Turkey. The claim for damages in this process will be 100,000 USD. Additionally, if the use of unlicensed software continues, further claims for damages will be assessed on a daily basis.
Conclusion: This letter serves as a final warning. We urge you to comply with the law by using licensed XenForo software, or you will face legal consequences.
If you have any questions or proposals for resolution, please contact us immediately.
Sincerely,
Rashid Khan
Legal Representative for XenForo Licensed Software
Click to expand...
To be absolutely clear, this DMCA request is entirely fraudulent. We have not instructed any legal representatives to act on our behalf in order to request the shutdown of any websites - least of all those belonging to our actual customers - and we especially haven't sought monetary compensation in the process.

We are posting this as a point of reference for anyone that may receive such a notice, or who may stumble across this thread via Google search after receiving such a claim.

The claim is entirely fraudulent and has not been requested by XenForo Limited or any legal representative working on our behalf. If you receive a DMCA takedown request similar to this you should respond to the request that you believe it is fraudulent. You may also forward the email to contact@xenforo.com. We may not reply to such emails, but we will keep the details of the request for future reference.
 
I've had numerous fake dmca requests over the years. One was sent to FB in which shut my page with over 350,000 likes. They refused my appeal. It is an annoyance when providers do not validate the request.
 
I wonder if this is an auto generated spam? Seems worded like a human wrote it but to idiotic to be made by a human.
I also dont know art actually are the steps to a DMCA request and how much of it can be automated
 
Chris D said:
If you receive a DMCA takedown request similar to this you should respond to the request that you believe it is fraudulent.
Click to expand...
I think there's some typos in here near the end so I'm just pointing out because unclear on the message. Thanks
 
"...you should respond to the request that you believe it is fraudulent" sounds like you mistyped something so not sure if we should or should not.
 
Nope. That is not mistyped.

If you receive a takedown request similar to this and you believe it is fraudulent then you should respond as such.

If the takedown request has come via Cloudflare or your host, they will be expecting a response. Your response should be that the takedown request should be rejected because you believe it is fraudulent.

I don’t understand what is unclear about that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom