A few days ago BehindMLM published its Meta Utopia review.
Meta Utopia itself is an unremarkable “metaverse” MLM crypto Ponzi scheme.
As part of our research into it however, we tied Nicholas Coppola to the Ponzi scheme’s founder.
Or rather he did, through a since-deleted Instagram story:
Turns out Coppola wasn’t happy with being publicly tied to Meta Utopia. He only wants to be a crypto bro Ponzi scammer in secret.
Today we welcome Nicholas Coppola to BehindMLM’s DMCA Wall of Shame.
Over the past 24 hours BehindMLM has received two emails from “Dincer Odabasi” from “Copyright Support”. The emails were sent on behalf of Nicholas Coppola.
On its poorly designed website, Copyright Support promises to
permanently and decisively remove negative/reputation-damaging news found on the Internet and in the Google search engine.
In his first email, Odabasi attempts to pull the old “right to be forgotten” grift.
Dear Madam,
Because of the right to be forgotten and We supply and demand that the content be blocked according to the privacy clause.
We contacted the website that shared the content, but no response was received. Therefore, we supply and request you to disable the content.
As it is known, according to the first paragraph of article 9 of the Law No. 5651 on the Regulation of Broadcasts Made on the Internet and Combating Crimes Committed Through These Broadcasts, If they cannot reach it, they may apply to the hosting provider and request that the content be removed by warning method.
Again, the second paragraph of the same article has the provision that “the requests of people who claim that their personal rights have been violated due to the content of the broadcast on the internet are answered by the content and/or hosting provider within twenty-four hours at the latest”.
We request that the matter filed on behalf of our representative be removed. We have the right to restrict access to content on the grounds of the European right to be forgotten and the privacy of private life.
Please note that we ask you to remove the content because the content owner has been contacted and has not returned to us. That is why we ask and demand that you remove it.
This is a boilerplate notice these scammers send out. I know that because Odabasi copied another unrelated email containing the same notice to Amazon, referencing another website and client (ruhroh GDPR fail), into the body of the email Odabasi sent me.
In any event, whatever noble ideas lawmakers might have initially had, Europe’s Right to be Forgotten legislation is, in practice, a tool scammers use to hide their past.
BehindMLM doesn’t recognize Right to be Forgotten because it doesn’t operate under EU law. Furthermore the time period here is four days from publication to receipt of a Right to be Forgotten takedown notice.
Perhaps preempting pushback, Odabasi went on to misrepresent Turkish law as having any bearing in the US.
As stated in the Constitution, we refuse to remove the content we have notified you due to the Right to be Forgotten and the USA Legal Content Removal Request Pursuant to Law No. 5651.
Putting aside that sentence doesn’t even make sense, “the Right to be Forgotten and the USA Legal Content Removal Request” isn’t a thing. It’s entirely made up.
Law No. 5651 is some law Turkey passed in 2020. It is localized to Turkey and again has nothing to do with the US.
Odabasi followed up his original email a few hours later, this time threatening copyright related action.
We ask you to remove your content that violates the privacy of our representative’s private life.
Unfortunately for you if you don’t remove the news content ,We will contact your hosting company, Google, and file a copyright claim.
I’m asking you, please, to put the story away.
Regards,
COPYRİGHT SUPPORT TEAM
As stated in BehindMLM’s DMCA Policy, we routinely use “third-party logos and images, (and) under US copyright law this is permitted through Fair Use.”
BehindMLM doesn’t need permission from copyright holders to include copyrighted images in our MLM news reporting and reviews. Period.
Failing to consider Fair Use and filing a bogus DMCA is an abuse of the DMCA takedown process. Not only will it not work, it constitutes perjury on behalf of the submitter.
Obviously Copyright Support don’t actually care about the law but it’s still worth pointing out the hypocrisy.
Scam outfits like Copyright Support have a business model that relies on ignorance on behalf of the targeted publisher, and/or associated service providers.
Nicholas Coppola publicly tied himself to Meta Utopia and is involved, such that he’s within close proximity of the Ponzi scheme’s yet-to-be-confirmed founder.
Publishing this information with attached evidence is not a violation of any US law.