Imagine my surprise, I’m sat there running through emails one of which lets me know that our website swarmcatcher.co.uk site is no longer showing in google search results for a search term in the way we have learned to expect. Its quite an important page for us.
So what do I do first.
I search google using a broad search term to see if the page shows up, and to see where in the search results it lies.
It doesn’t show up at all.
But while I am scrolling looking for it I come across a notice from google at the bottom of the search page – something that I had never really taken a note of before
We write all our own content and take all our own photos, our site is about live honey bee removals so what could anyone be complaining about.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Initially I clicked the link titled Digital Millennium Copyright Act and it took me to googles page explaining how and why Google behave when they receive a complaint about a possible copyright infringement.
Seems fair enough, someone has copied your photo or information and posted it on their own website, you want it taken down and google has a system that allows for that to happen.
But we have taken our own photos and written our own content.
So what next?
DMCA (Copyright) Complaint to Google
I then look at the “complaint” links at the bottom of the search page.
Each of the 5 complaint links have a reference to swarmcatcher.co.uk.
Looking at one of these complaint notices we see there are 5 SwarmCatcher URLs that are being complained about, along with 27 other sites for a total of 86 URLs that are allegedly infringing upon copyrighted material in the one notice.
At the top of the notice it tells us that the complaint has been made by “Takedowns AI“, on behalf of “Olivia”, and that the complaint was made on the 18th April 2025. I’ll come back to that in more detail later.
It also shows that the complaint was made to Google LLC, and that google were good enough to submit the complaint to Lumen who in turn where good enough to include it on a database that they maintain and to allow us to view – which I really do appreciate..
It then tells us that the notice is a “DMCA”
What is a “DMCA” notice
So what’s a DMCA – Google kindly summarises Wikipedia’s explanation
Basically it is a USA law that means that google on receipt of a DMCA notice, has to remove the URL’s complained about from the search results.
They really have no option, it is the easiest thing they can do as there is no requirement or incentive for them to investigate the alleged infringement, it would cost them to do so.
Google explains in their “Google notice regarding copyright-related content” that
“It is Google’s policy to remove copyrighted content when the copyright holder or their authorized representative alleges that a use is infringing. Therefore we are in the process of removing the reported content from Google Search results for users globally.”
DMCA (Copyright) Complaint to Google – Copyright claim 1
On the complaint affecting swarmcatcher.co.uk it does not state the “Kind of Work” that has allegedly infringed some copyright, but does go on to describe the alleged copyright infringement as
The urls below are hosting and sharing a direct, literal copy of my client, Olivia, copyrighted material (photographs, videos) from her premium content platform https://www.onlyfans.com/honeybeepott, without her permission. We request the immediate removal of her copyrighted material by a DMCA takedown.
You will see that it does not include any specific url that we have allegedly infringed the copyright of, although it does list 3 locations that the original urls can be found
- www.instagram.com – 1 URL
- www.tiktok.com – 1 URL
- www.onlyfans.com – 1 URL
Could you make it any less descriptive than that?
Alarm bells are ringing
By this point alarm bells were ringing. Do you remember the “description” it mentioned “https://www.onlyfans.com/honeybeepott”, a morning several weeks prior to this one, I had received an email from Lumen.
At the time I had never heard of and had no clue about the “lumen database“.
The email looked spammy and the link to “https://www.onlyfans.com/honeybeepott” certainly looked spammy.
So I marked the email as spam and deleted it along with any future emails from lumen.
WOW What a mistake
Marking emails from lumendatabase.org was a huge mistake; I should have received another 48 emails from Lumen advising me of further alleged copyright infringements listing 141 URLs many notices duplicating previous URL’s.
Unfortunately I deleted the original email after marking it as spam and because I marked @lumendatabase.org as spam I can not show what the email looked like.
So if you find this post and are trying to find out if a @lumendatabase.org email is spam, it most definitely is not. it’s giving you heads up on a problem that’s about to hit your website.
Also by deleting these emails there is no easy access to any record of which URLs are allegedly infringing copyright.
On removing the URL’s allegedly infringing copyright google does not send you an email.
To find out that the URL’s have been removed you have to actively be searching for information on why your URL has disappeared from google search results, unless you happen to spot and read “messages” in your Google Search Console.
Google Search Console DMCA Takedown – Notification
You can find any takedown notifications in your Google Search Console, under the bell icon in the top right corner near to your user icon.
On this notification at the bottom you will find details of the Original Claim, this information is identical to the information on the Lumen complaint notice.
This is included to help you better understand and respond to the claim against you.
Date of claim: 18 Apr 2025
Rightsholder represented: Takedowns AI
Description of claim: The urls below are hosting and sharing a direct, literal copy of my client, Olivia, copyrighted material (photographs, videos) from her premium content platform https://www.onlyfans.com/honeybeepott, without her permission. We request the immediate removal of her copyrighted material by a DMCA takedown.
At the top there is a link to the Lumen Database.
The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, may be found on the website of Lumen, a third-party aggregator of legal complaint notices, at https://lumendatabase.org/notices/51064552.
Usefully towards the bottom of the notice there is a list of affected URLs.
This list may not include all the URLs in the complaint. In one complaint against swarmcatcher.co.uk (all complaints have been by the same complainant), on the Lumen Database there were 24 URLs listed, but in the Google Search Console notice there were only 17 URLs listed.
So it looks as if google only takes down the URL once and that you only need to appeal it once.
I certainly hope this is the case, otherwise I will be having to repeat the appeal process a ridiculous amount of times.
The good news is that Google allows you to appeal all the URLs they have taken down under the one notice at the same time.
Google Search Console DMCA Takedown – Appeal link
The appeal has been made surprisingly easy by Google.
You just need to tap on the “File an Appeal” link button.
Filing the Google Search Console DMCA Takedown Appeal Counter Notice form
Again this part is fairly straightforward, but you need you need to tick 3 boxes at the bottom of the appeal.
Its not a question of selecting one you agree with, its necessary to tick all 3 to resolve the problem whether you like it or not.
I had not realised this when I first filled out the form and it would not submit.
At the time I was stressed enough seeing the pages and images being removed from Google Search Engine.
It was all new to me and there was a lot to find out about and a lot to take onboard, so I found myself pulling my hair out believing it all to be a conspiracy against me when I could not submit the DMCA Takedown Appeal Counter Notice form.
Luckily a couple of hours later whilst going through the problem with someone else, I realised that all three boxes needed to be ticked and that was all that prevented the form being submitted.
DMCA Takedown Appeal Counter Notice form – confirmation
On completion of the form Google sent me an email.
DMCA Takedown Appeal Counter Notice form – success
Then 3 1/2 days later I received the email I needed
DMCA Takedown Appeal Counter Notice form – further information required
Unfortunately not all of the Google Search Console DMCA Takedown Appeal Counter Notice forms had the same level of success. In fact the majority of them came back requesting additional information – I have no idea why as the same information was included for all forms.
These emails were received after a similar duration to that of the success email – 3 1/2 days. I was away working for a few days, and did not see these emails, so one week on and we are still waiting for success and hoping their will be no cause for additional delays for the relisting of our URLs in the google search engine.
Takedowns.ai and there corrupt/bogus algorithm
Who are Takedown AI
Seems to be very difficult to find out.
I could find no reputable linking websites.
They do not reply to emails.
Their chat box only replies
But I do know that they offer a basic plan for $199 per month which includes:
- Unlimited Google Removals
- 100 Link Submissions
- 3 Protected Keywords
- Reddit and Website Leak Removals
- Impersonating Social Media Account Takedowns
- Telegrams, Discords, Subreddits Removal
- Dedicated Manager & Monthly Reports?
I wonder which 3 protected and presumably copyrighted words Olivia is using – Honey, Bee, and Honeybee?
But that does not tie into several of the image URL’s which don’t include those words even, and the images are copyrighted by some of the organisations we belong to.
There is no sense to this at all – makes you wonder if this is a malicious site designed to take down successful businesses to allow other sites to step into place?
Maybe I’m overthinking it – maybe not. It would be nice to know.
Googles responsibility in all of this
Google should bear some of the responsibility in this.
Google themselves state on their page What is copyright? under their subheading Copyright infringement notification requirements that
Your complaint must contain the specific URL of the content you believe infringes your rights, or we’ll be unable to locate it. General information about the location of the content isn’t adequate. Please include the URL(s) of the exact content at issue.
From what I can see no specific URL’s have been used:
- https://www.onlyfans.com/honeybeepott – this is a general URL, it is not specific. It is behind a paywall with at least 1150 sub URL’s
- https://www.tiktok.com/@nothoneybeebby – which has no content
- https://www.instagram.com/honeyybee.bby – there are at least 470 sub URL’s
False Infringement Notification
According to Google you
will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights. Indeed, in a past case (please see
http://www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/for more information), a company that sent an infringement notification seeking removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine was ordered to pay such costs and attorneys fees. The company agreed to pay over $100,000.Googles link is a bad link Wikipedia’s link is active
Contacting Onlyfans.com
An email was sent to OnlyFans.com
The only thing I can find out about the alleged infringements made by Takedowns AI on behalf of Olivia @honeybeepott is from lumen ie https://lumendatabase.org/notices/50585690, along with another 48 notices, thankfully with not as many url’s per notice, but I do not have a list of the other url’s, because of the difficulty in gaining access to their website ie behind a paywall.
You will see that our website was started in 2011, in contrast to yours which has only been registered since 2016, presumably her account is more recent, so it’s a struggle to believe she has produced anything similar to ourselves prior to us.
All the photos on swarmcatcher.co.uk are our own, other than a few provided by potential customers who have given authorisation for us to use them (mainly photos of swarms, solitary bee closeups etc), so there is definitely no infringement by us.
Clearly we are struggling to understand how @honeybeepott can be alleging infringement of copyrighted material:
“urls below are hosting and sharing a direct, literal copy of my client, Olivia, copyrighted material (photographs, videos) from her premium content platform https://www.onlyfans.com/honeybeepott, without her permission. We request the immediate removal of her copyrighted material by a DMCA takedown”
other than if she has lifted our images and is using them on her premium content site without our consent or permission.
So as part of our request for further information we also request the immediate removal of any material she is suggesting we are infringing upon.
In reply we heard from their legal team
Thank you for reaching out.
To resolve this matter, we recommend that you contact the original sender of the DMCA notice—Takedowns AI. The notice was submitted by Takedowns AI on behalf of an OnlyFans content creator and not by OnlyFans itself.
As such, we advise you to direct any inquiries or requests regarding the claim to Takedowns AI, who represent the copyright holder in this case – https://takedowns.ai/about.
Contacting Takedowns AI
We have up to now only tried emailing and using the the online chat (leaving messages) but had not used the online contact form. So as Onlyfans.com suggest I have just left the following message on it to contact “Takedowns AI”.
You have made 49 DMCA (Copyright) Complaints to Google (that I am aware of, possibly more depending on how up to date the Lumen website is) on behalf of https://lumendatabase.org/faceted_search?principal_name=Olivia / https://onlyfans.com/honeybeepott about my website swarmcatcher.co.uk .
I can not find any similarity in content – could you explain it?Could you provide me with a complete list of the web pages and images you have made a complaint about, with the details of the corresponding URLs that you allege we have infringed the copyright of.
Google has at this time removed the following pages and files from search results.
webpages
https://swarmcatcher.co.uk/13-common-questions-about-honey-bees-in-walls/
https://swarmcatcher.co.uk/honey-bee-surveys/
https://swarmcatcher.co.uk/honey-bee-trapouts/
images
https://swarmcatcher.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/trap-out-by-Honey-bee-removal-specialists-SwarmCatcher-London-Columbus_20SC5WM-1024×576.jpg
https://swarmcatcher.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Honey-bee-wall-in-cavity-of-timber-frame-structure-external-Rhayader-Powys.jpg
https://swarmcatcher.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/honey-bees-in-ceiling-beneath-lead-roof-Windsor-Eton.jpg
https://swarmcatcher.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/20230621_161545.mp4-1024×404.jpgWhat concerns me is that these are the first couple of complaints you have made to Google and I see that you have made a total of 49 and quite possibly more.
Clearly to me there is no DMCA (Copyright) Complaint to be made, unless you can advise differently. The photos have been taken by ourselves and the content written by myself.
Has anyone at your end actually checked that the reasons for the complaint are valid?On the presumption that you agree that the complaints are not valid, can you advise google that they are not valid and have them reindex the pages and images that they have removed from their search engine so far, and put a stop on any others that they may be in the process of removing?
Could you also let us know how quickly this will be rectified – we are a small family business and this is the middle of our busiest part of the year, and somehow your AI tool has got things very badly wrong – which is affecting us currently and could be disastrous if it continues.
WE will wait and see if this is replied to – I’m not expecting much.
More to come
There is more to this story yet – but time is too short right now.
Hopefully any one else who finds themselves in a similar situation to this will find this a suitable explanation of the situation and now have a plan for immediate action.
Clearly its an unfair system that can be used by malicious entities to take out false DMCA notices that will have an adverse effect on genuine businesses, and similarly, poorly run AI businesses not carrying out appropriate due diligence and issuing false DMCA notices will also have an adverse effect on genuine businesses.
It would be great to be able to file a class action against “Takedown AI”, or to be able to have the site taken down: you can clearly see how many genuine sites they are having an affect on by looking at all the notices listed on the Lumen database.
