If you run a website for long enough, you get used to receiving strange emails.

We certainly do at Brighton Savoy. Between guest post requests, SEO pitches, offers to “improve our Google rankings” and various other unsolicited messages, there’s usually plenty sitting in the inbox that can safely be ignored.

But every now and then, an email arrives that makes you look twice.

That’s exactly what happened to us in August 2026 when we received an email with the subject line: DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice

At first glance, it looked reasonably serious.

The email claimed to come from James Harris, Trademark Attorney at Citi Legal Services, supposedly based at 1 Beacon Street in Boston.

It identified a specific page on the Brighton Savoy website, pointed to an image that we were allegedly using without permission, gave us a case file number and told us that we had five business days to resolve the matter.

There was even a reference to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, better known as the DMCA.

If you’re a website owner and receive something like this, your first reaction might understandably be: What have we done wrong?

Ours was slightly different.

We started looking at what they actually wanted us to do.

And that’s when things became interesting.

They Didn’t Really Want the Image Removed

Normally, if someone believes you’re using their copyrighted photograph without permission, you’d expect them to ask you to remove it.

That’s not what happened here.

Instead, we were told that to resolve the issue we needed to place a visible hyperlink on our website pointing to another website.

They even specified the exact anchor text they wanted us to use:

DJ T-Shirts

The link was supposed to appear underneath the image or, even more remarkably, in our website footer.

Then came the sentence that really caught our attention:

“Please understand that removing the image alone will not resolve the situation.”

Hang on.

If the problem is that we’re supposedly using your copyrighted image, wouldn’t removing the image stop the infringement?

Why would we still need to give another website a permanent backlink?

That’s when we started digging.

It Turns Out We Aren’t the Only Ones

A quick search revealed something interesting.

Other bloggers and website owners have reported receiving remarkably similar emails.

Different websites have been targeted. Different images have been involved. Different businesses supposedly own the copyright.

But the basic formula is often remarkably similar.

You receive a legal-looking email telling you that an image on your website infringes someone’s copyright.

There’s usually a lawyer or legal firm attached to the complaint.

There’s a case number.

There’s a deadline.

There’s some intimidating legal language.

And then comes the solution.

Give this website a backlink.

Sometimes you’re even told exactly what anchor text to use.

That should immediately make anyone who understands SEO curious.

Why Would Someone Want a Backlink So Badly?

Anyone who has spent time working on SEO knows how valuable good backlinks can be.

When an established website links to another website, that link can potentially help the destination website with search visibility, authority and referral traffic.

That’s one of the reasons legitimate SEO agencies spend so much time trying to earn links.

The problem is that earning good backlinks isn’t easy.

You need useful content, good public relations, research, relationships, genuinely helpful resources or something else that gives another website a reason to link to you.

But what if you could frighten website owners into giving you backlinks instead?

That’s essentially how this particular scheme appears to work.

Instead of sending an email saying:

“Hi, would you mind linking to our website?”

you send something that looks like a legal notice saying:

“You’re infringing our client’s copyright. Give us this backlink within five days or we’ll take further action.”

The second email is certainly more likely to get someone’s attention.

The Exact Anchor Text Is Another Big Clue

The request for specific anchor text was particularly interesting to us.

They didn’t simply ask for attribution.

They wanted a link to a particular commercial webpage using the words:

DJ T-Shirts

That’s a commercially useful search phrase.

From an SEO perspective, that’s quite different from simply crediting a photographer by name.

And when a supposed copyright complaint starts sounding remarkably similar to an SEO link-building instruction, it’s worth investigating before doing anything.

The Image Was Hosted on Imgur

Another interesting part of the email was the supposed evidence of the image.

Rather than directing us to an original photograph on the client’s website, a photography portfolio or some other obvious source, the image reference pointed to Imgur.

That doesn’t prove anything by itself. There are perfectly legitimate reasons someone might host an image on Imgur.

But an image appearing on an image-hosting website doesn’t prove who created it.

It doesn’t prove who owns the copyright.

And it certainly doesn’t prove that the person emailing you has authority to enforce that copyright.

It’s simply an image hosted online.

When you combine that with the backlink demand, legal threats and five-day deadline, there are plenty of reasons to investigate further.

Then There’s the Wayback Machine

The email also told us that historic use of the image could be confirmed through the Wayback Machine.

We actually use the Wayback Machine ourselves. It’s an incredibly useful resource.

But there’s an important distinction here.

The Wayback Machine might help demonstrate that an image appeared on a particular webpage at a particular time.

What it doesn’t automatically tell you is who owns the copyright in that image.

Those are two very different questions.

Showing that Brighton Savoy used an image doesn’t prove that the person emailing us owns it.

The person making the copyright claim still needs to have the rights they’re claiming to enforce.

We Started Searching for the Sender

This is something I’d recommend to any website owner who receives a legal-looking email out of the blue.

Don’t just click the links in the email.

Open Google or your preferred search engine and start investigating independently.

Search the supposed lawyer.

Search the law firm.

Search the email address.

Search the domain name.

Then take a distinctive sentence from the email, put it inside quotation marks and search for that as well.

That last trick can be particularly revealing.

Scam and spam campaigns frequently rely on templates. If the same unusual sentence appears in reports from completely unrelated website owners, that’s useful information.

In our case, we discovered that the broader fake DMCA backlink technique has already been documented publicly.

Other website owners have described receiving very similar copyright threats where the requested remedy wasn’t simply removal of an image.

It was a backlink.

Fake DMCA Backlink Scams Aren’t New

This type of scheme has been reported for several years.

SEO and technology publications have previously investigated fake copyright complaints where supposed law firms contact website owners and demand backlinks.

There have even been cases involving apparently fabricated lawyers and law firm websites designed to make the complaint appear more convincing.

That’s becoming increasingly relevant in the age of AI.

Creating a professional-looking website isn’t difficult anymore.

Neither is generating a photograph of a person who doesn’t exist.

You can create biographies, staff profiles, legal-looking correspondence, logos, office photographs and dozens of pages of website content remarkably quickly.

A professional-looking website therefore shouldn’t automatically be treated as proof that an organisation or person is legitimate.

AI Has Made Verification More Important

This is one of the bigger lessons we took from the experience.

A few years ago, you might have looked at a professional website, seen photographs of half a dozen lawyers, read their biographies and thought:

“Well, this certainly looks legitimate.”

That isn’t enough anymore.

AI-generated images can create convincing professional headshots.

AI can write lawyer biographies.

AI can produce hundreds of pages of reasonably convincing website content.

It can even generate the threatening copyright email itself.

Fortunately, AI can also be incredibly useful for investigating these emails.

You just need to ask the right questions.

How We Suggest Investigating a Suspicious Copyright Email

If you receive one of these emails, don’t immediately ask ChatGPT or another AI system:

“Is this a scam?”

That’s too broad.

Instead, use AI as an investigative assistant and break the email into individual pieces.

For example, you could paste the email into ChatGPT and ask:

“Investigate this copyright infringement email. Search for distinctive sentences from the email and determine whether substantially identical notices have been reported by other website owners. Independently investigate the sender, law firm, domain name, alleged copyright owner and requested backlink. Don’t assume the email is genuine or fraudulent. Provide independent sources supporting your conclusions.”

That’s a much more useful approach.

You’re asking the AI to investigate rather than simply give you an opinion.

Google the Lawyer

Start with something simple.

Search:

“James Harris” “Citi Legal Services”

Then try variations such as:

“James Harris” copyright

“James Harris” DMCA

“Citi Legal Services” copyright

“Citi Legal Services” scam

The important thing is to look for information that doesn’t originate from the supposed law firm’s own website.

A website saying that its own lawyers are legitimate isn’t particularly useful independent verification.

Search the Email Address and Domain

Put the complete email address into Google inside quotation marks.

Do the same with the domain name.

You may find previous complaints, scam reports, Reddit discussions or other website owners describing similar experiences.

It’s also worth investigating the history of the domain.

How long has it existed?

What did the website look like previously?

Does the organisation have a meaningful history?

Can its physical address be independently verified?

Can you find its lawyers listed anywhere other than its own website?

These are all reasonable questions.

Search an Exact Sentence From the Email

This is one of my favourite ways of investigating suspicious emails.

Find an unusual sentence and search it inside quotation marks.

For example, our email included:

“Please understand that removing the image alone will not resolve the situation.”

If substantially identical wording appears in copyright threats sent to dozens of unrelated websites, that’s worth knowing.

You can also give several distinctive sentences to an AI search tool and ask it to locate matching or near-matching examples online.

Reverse Image Search the Allegedly Copyrighted Image

Don’t just accept the sender’s claim that they own the image.

Investigate it.

Try:

Google Lens

TinEye

Bing Visual Search

See where else the image appears.

Can you find an earlier version?

Does it appear on a stock photography website?

Is it Creative Commons material?

Does another photographer claim authorship?

Does the image actually belong to your own organisation?

This doesn’t always give you a definitive answer about copyright ownership, but it can provide valuable clues.

Reverse Search the Lawyer’s Photograph Too

If the supposed law firm’s website contains photographs of its lawyers, investigate those as well.

Try Google Lens or another reverse-image search tool.

You might discover that the same photograph appears somewhere else under another person’s name.

You can also ask AI tools to look for signs that an image may have been artificially generated.

Just be careful here.

An unusual-looking photograph isn’t proof that it’s AI generated, and an AI detector certainly shouldn’t be treated as conclusive evidence.

Think of it as another clue rather than proof.

Investigate the Website They Want You to Link To

This is something that’s easy to overlook.

Don’t spend all your time investigating the supposed law firm.

Investigate the website that benefits from the backlink.

That’s potentially much more interesting.

Search the destination URL.

Search the business.

Search the exact anchor text they’ve asked you to use.

Then see whether other unrelated websites are linking to the same destination using suspiciously similar wording.

You can even ask an AI search engine:

“Find websites linking to this URL using the anchor text ‘DJ T-Shirts’. Identify whether any of those links appear to have been added as copyright attribution following DMCA or image infringement claims.”

Now you’re investigating the potential SEO footprint of the campaign.

Not Every Copyright Email Is a Scam

There’s an important point we want to make here.

Real copyright infringement happens.

Photographers, publishers, image libraries, artists and businesses genuinely enforce their copyright.

Website owners shouldn’t read this article and assume that every copyright complaint can safely be ignored.

If someone identifies an image on your website that you can’t establish you have permission to use, investigate it properly.

Ask yourself:

Where did we get this image?

Do we have a licence?

Did a guest contributor supply it?

Did we purchase it?

Is it Creative Commons?

Did we create it ourselves?

Can the person complaining demonstrate that they own it?

These questions matter regardless of whether the email itself looks suspicious.

What Should You Do If You Receive One?

The first thing I’d suggest is simple.

Don’t panic.

And don’t immediately give them the backlink they’re asking for.

Keep the original email.

Take screenshots.

Check where the image on your website came from.

Investigate the image.

Investigate the sender.

Search the wording of the email.

Check the domain.

Search for other people who have received similar notices.

If you aren’t confident that you have permission to use the image, you can remove it while you investigate.

Removing questionable material doesn’t mean you’re admitting that the person emailing you owns the copyright.

And if you think the claim might actually be genuine or involves a potentially significant amount of money, speak to an appropriately qualified intellectual property lawyer.

Why We’re Writing About Our Experience

We’re publishing this because Brighton Savoy has been online for many years and receives a lot of unsolicited email.

Most of it is obvious spam.

This was considerably more sophisticated.

It had a supposed lawyer.

It had a law firm.

It had a Boston street address.

It had a case file number.

It identified an exact page on our website.

It identified an exact image.

It gave us a five-business-day deadline.

It referenced US copyright legislation.

If you’re busy running a business or managing a website, it would be very easy to think:

“I’ll just add the link and make the problem go away.”

And that may be exactly what these types of campaigns are relying on.

The Biggest Warning Sign for Us

For us, everything really comes back to one sentence:

“Removing the image alone will not resolve the situation.”

If the problem is copyright infringement caused by displaying an image, it’s reasonable to ask why removing that image wouldn’t resolve the ongoing use.

Then look at what they want instead.

A permanent backlink.

To a commercial webpage.

Using specific anchor text.

From an established website.

When you look at it from an SEO perspective, the motivation starts to look very different.

Google Search and AI Search Are Making These Scams Easier to Investigate

There’s also some good news for website owners.

These emails are becoming easier to investigate.

Google can help you search exact phrases, email addresses, names and domains.

Google Lens can help identify images.

The Wayback Machine can show you how websites have changed.

WHOIS information can sometimes provide useful information about domain history.

Reddit and webmaster communities can reveal whether other people have received the same message.

And AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity can help bring all of those pieces together.

The trick is not to ask AI to decide whether something is a scam.

Ask it to find evidence.

Ask:

Who is this person?

Can you independently verify this law firm?

Who owns this domain?

When did the domain first appear?

Where else does this image appear?

Find other people who received this wording.

Find independent evidence that the supposed client owns this photograph.

Who benefits from the backlink?

Are other websites being asked to link to the same domain?

Those are much better questions.

A Final Word for Other Website Owners

If you receive an intimidating copyright email, take it seriously enough to investigate it.

But don’t be frightened into immediately doing whatever the sender demands.

Legal terminology doesn’t automatically make an email legitimate.

A professional website doesn’t automatically make a law firm legitimate.

A case number doesn’t automatically mean there’s a real legal case.

An image uploaded to Imgur doesn’t establish copyright ownership.

And someone telling you that they’re a lawyer doesn’t necessarily mean that they are.

Most importantly, if someone tells you that you’ve infringed their copyright but then says removing the allegedly infringing material isn’t good enough and they need a keyword-rich backlink instead, start asking questions.

Search the sender.

Search the wording.

Search the image.

Search the supposed client.

Search the destination website.

And use AI to help connect the dots.

You might discover that the frightening legal notice sitting in your inbox has much more to do with SEO than copyright law.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a fake DMCA backlink scam?

A fake DMCA backlink scam involves someone sending a copyright infringement notice to a website owner and using the threat of legal action to encourage them to create a backlink to another website.

Why do they ask for a backlink?

Backlinks from established websites can potentially help with search engine visibility and referral traffic. That makes backlinks commercially valuable and also makes established websites attractive targets.

Is every DMCA email asking for attribution fake?

No. Legitimate copyright owners may request attribution in some circumstances. What should raise questions is a combination of factors, particularly a demand for exact SEO anchor text and a statement that removing the allegedly infringing image won’t resolve the issue.

Does an Imgur image prove copyright ownership?

No. An image being hosted on Imgur or another image-sharing service doesn’t, by itself, establish who created the image or owns its copyright.

Can the Wayback Machine prove who owns an image?

Not necessarily. It can provide useful historical evidence showing that an image appeared on a webpage, but that isn’t automatically proof of copyright ownership.

Should I remove an image if I receive a copyright complaint?

If you can’t establish that you have permission to use the image, removing it while you investigate may be sensible. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re accepting the complainant’s claim of ownership.

Can ChatGPT tell me whether a DMCA notice is a scam?

AI can help investigate a notice, search for matching language, research the sender and identify similar reports. It shouldn’t be treated as a substitute for legal advice or independent verification.

What should I search for if I receive one of these emails?

Search the lawyer’s name, law firm, email address, domain, exact sentences from the notice, the alleged copyright owner, the image itself and, importantly, the website they’re asking you to link to.

Disclaimer

This article is based on our own experience and information publicly available at the time of publication. It is intended to help website owners recognise and investigate suspicious copyright and backlink requests and isn’t legal advice.

We are happy to update or correct this article if new, additional or verifiable information becomes available.