Earlier this year, we reported how scammers allegedly abused Meta’s Rights Manager to claim other creators’ videos and hit their accounts with copyright strikes.
Regular DMCA takedown notices can do similar damage. Meta’s takedown emails remind users that it terminates the accounts of repeat infringers “when appropriate,” which turns false notices into an effective weapon.
According to a lawsuit filed in Florida federal court last week, that weapon can be hired too. This lawsuit’s backstory involves two dog book publishers and a takedown contractor who tried to play both sides.
A Dog Eat Dog Playbook
The complaint was filed by The Everything Editions LLC, which sells photo books of various dog breeds for $120 each under the name The Dog Book.
Rival publisher Remus Collection is one of the defendants in this case. This company also sells dog breed books for $120, and in August it accused The Dog Book of infringing its copyrights. The Dog Book disputed this and, among other things, questioned whether Remus’s own website copy was written by a human or by an AI tool.
Interestingly, The Dog Book’s own Instagram features several posts of books and images that have an ‘AI content’ label, but that’s beside the point.
Remus never answered those questions, according to the complaint. Instead, a Remus principal and others asked their Instagram followers to report The Dog Book “for scam/fraud.” This apparently worked, as Instagram suspended The Dog Book’s account on September 7, citing its account integrity standards.
After a cease and desist letter, Remus’s lawyer agreed in writing that Remus would stop calling The Dog Book a scam or fraud, the complaint notes. However, that didn’t end the matter, and the complaint alleges that the attack continued underground.
Monetized Copyright Strikes
The Dog Book opened new Instagram accounts, but these were reported and disabled too, the complaint says. The first replacement went down on September 9, a day after Remus’s lawyer agreed to stop.
In early October, Meta received six copyright notices targeting The Dog Book’s Instagram posts. These included photos and videos of Yorkshire Terriers, Dachshunds, a Cocker Spaniel and a Jack Russell.
Interestingly, these notices were filed in the name of The Dog Book itself. They all listed “The dog book” as rightsholder, while claiming to own the bookseller’s posts.
Meta took action in response to these notices, adding to The Dog Book’s continued trouble. According to the complaint, the takedown actions were the work of a hired gun, who surprisingly tried to play both sides.
Takedown Vendor Plays Both Sides
In mid-October, a man using the name “Ashmit Ashmit” reached out to The Dog Book’s Facebook page, claiming responsibility for the copyright strikes on its accounts. He also came with a proposal.
“One guy need to ban your fb and ig both. He his paying me 1k doller. I also strike cpr on your accounts i will take all back and i have a good plan if you agree,” he wrote.
The conversation then moved to Telegram, where the contractor uses the handle “Fix My Brand.” His good plan required The Dog Book to take its own social media accounts offline.
In other words, if The Dog Book went dark for 30 hours, the contractor could collect the money from his client and then withdraw the strikes.
Playing Along
According to its own messages, The Dog Book played along at least once and took its pages offline during a weekend. That didn’t go as planned, however, as the contractor complained that the pages came back too soon. As a result, he didn’t get paid by his client.
“You do 18 hour i dont get my payment. Okay if you are not in a mood boss no issue. I will take down your ig now when you get in your mood let me know after your ig burn,” he wrote.
The bookseller, meanwhile, wanted names of those who requested the takedowns. When it listed Remus and its principals, the contractor answered “Yes.” Later, he wrote that if his clients found out, “they will cancle all my deals.”
To back up his story, he forwarded messages from the person who, according to the complaint, was directing the takedown spree. One of these messages clearly states what the payment was for.
“THE PAYEMNT IS FOR DEFINTIVE BAN,” it reads.
Still in Business
According to the complaint, “Fix My Brand” is a commercial vendor selling account suspensions, who also runs the Telegram channel “FMB Vault.” This channel is still online at the time of writing, with 199 subscribers and a biography that now describes the operator as a “Specialist in Account Ban + Unban.”
Meanwhile, The Dog Book says the campaign continues. According to the complaint, its Facebook accounts were reported more than four hundred times in recent weeks, with someone claiming that they showed sexually explicit content.
“Plaintiff’s accounts contain no sexually explicit content of any kind, and never have. Plaintiff’s accounts display photographs of dogs and of photographic books about dogs, together with product information and ordinary commercial marketing copy,” the complaint clarifies.
The Dog Book accuses the defendants of DMCA misrepresentation, false advertising and defamation, among other claims, and puts its losses at more than $600,000.
None of these allegations have been tested in court, and the defendants have yet to appear in the case.
False copyright claims and blackmail-esque schemes on social media are nothing new. However, as far as we know, this is the first U.S. lawsuit that targets a vendor who allegedly sells takedowns and suspensions as a service.
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A copy of The Dog Book’s complaint is available here (pdf). The exhibits with the copyright notices, Telegram messages and Instagram stories can be found here (pdf).
