Eugene Volokh: TRO Orders Removal of Allegations of DMCA Takedown Fraud and of Forged Court Order Submission—but …

The complaint in Goldstone Financial Group, LLC v. FinanceScam.com alleges that the defendant was "actively engaged in a targeted false and defamatory campaign against Plaintiffs, as well as other financial industry professionals." Under the guise of journalism, FinanceScam floods the internet with Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated defamatory content incorporating Plaintiffs' federally registered trademarks, which it then charges its victims to remove.

One part of the allegedly defamatory content was at issue in the case. On the strength of this complaint and the motion for a TRO, Judge Sunil Harjani (N.D. Ill.) ordered the removal of the allegations: Plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims for cybersquatting, trademark infringement, false advertising, defamation per se, false light, and trade libel; ...

Defendant FinanceScam.com, its officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and all persons acting for, with, by, through, under or in active concert with it be temporarily enjoined and restrained from:

1. registering and using any internet domain or social media channel that incorporates Plaintiffs' Marks or any reproductions, counterfeit copies or colorable imitations thereof;
2. publishing, republishing, maintaining, or operating any website, identified in [1-1], that contains statements falsely impugning Plaintiffs' professional integrity or character, or falsely implying or stating they have undertaken illegal, unlawful, unethical, immoral, or otherwise improper conduct;

Defendant shall, within 2 days of receiving notice of this Order:

1. Remove the identified infringing, false, and defamatory content and statements from any domain or website under its control, identified in [1- 1].
2. Refrain from re-posting or otherwise republishing such statements.

However, it appears that there have been many DMCA takedown requests submitted to Google seeking the deindexing of material about Goldstone Financial. These requests claim that a certain site infringes the copyright in a work owned by the submitter. But reviewing the specific requests suggests that in many of them there was no foundation for the copyright claim:

For instance, in some cases, the original URL contains text that seems entirely unrelated to the supposedly infringing text. For example, this DMCA notice claims that a FinanceScam page about the plaintiffs infringed a completely different page, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/federal-judge-orders-jury-trial-on-claim-that-kentucky-exoneree-who-was-threatened-with-death-penalty-was-framed-for-murder). In other cases, the targeted URL that the notice sought to vanish is a court filing on PacerMonitor.com or an article in the Cook County Record, a Chicago legal newspaper—also not likely to be infringements of the supposedly infringed items.

Regarding the alleged court order that was allegedly sent to FinanceScam's hosting company, I checked the relevant court records and it indeed does seem not to be a real order. The hosting company stated that they couldn't find any information on the query, while FinanceScam.com claimed that they had received the order and forwarded me details on it. However, I appreciate that this is just one litigant's statement.

I also emailed plaintiffs' lawyer twice about this, plus plaintiff Global Capital (cc'ing the lawyer) once, and got no response. The fact that someone was apparently submitting unfounded DMCA requests that seemed aimed at vanishing material that reflected negatively on the plaintiffs makes more credible that there was also a forged order sent aimed at doing the same.

FinanceScam people also sent me copies of what appeared to be their correspondence with plaintiffs' lawyer. As I understand it from that correspondence, the plaintiffs' position is that they weren't the ones who sent the DMCA takedown requests or the court order, and didn't authorize anyone to do so.

("Goldstone was not involved, associated, or aware of" the order, and "has no knowing affiliation with" any submitter of the DMCA requests.) And FinanceScam apparently isn't intending to spend the money, time, and effort needed to fight the case, so I don't expect there will be any discovery here that would yield further information.

Still, I think this highlights the potential dangers of courts quickly ordering the deletion of allegations that may well have some truth to them. Someone appears to have submitted (from 2023 to 2025) dozens of seemingly unfounded DMCA requests aimed at vanishing material seemingly critical of Goldstone Financial.

That someone might have been just some prankster, or perhaps even an enemy trying to frame plaintiffs (though this would have been a long campaign for that). But the submitter might also have been a "reputation management company" hired by plaintiffs, whether or not the plaintiffs were aware of the precise tactics the company was going to use.

At least that seems like a plausible opinion for defendants to have formed based on what they could see of the DMCA requests. Finally, I should note that plaintiffs' allegations that defendants have behaved badly in other ways may well be correct.

My concern here is simply about the order removing the DMCA / court order allegations.