Received a weird email from a purported lawyer saying that my site is hosting fake products of his client and asking me to take the site down as well as compensate. From what I see the site was registered by us a long time ago. The domain owner left for another hosting company but forgot to change the tech contact.

Should I even reply to that lawyer?

An email is not an official contact as far as I'm concerned. Ask the "lawyer" to send a DMCA along with proof of his claim.

Let them know you no longer host the website or manage the domain, try to be helpful and tell them to check other emails addresses and to go away as its nothing to do with your company any more.

Was it in an official (DMCA) format? To me it sounds like some random person pretending to be a lawyer.

Either way, ignore any request that doesn't follow the full legal procedures, IMO.

Was it in an official (DMCA) format? To me it sounds like some random person pretending to be a lawyer.

Either way, ignore any request that doesn't follow the full legal procedures, IMO.

Exactly what I was thinking...

Sounds a bit fishy :-/

as well as compensate

That is the part that makes it very suspicious.

As you are not hosting the site anymore, you are under no more obligation than to inform them of that fact.

As a matter of fact, if they have not sent a fully compliant DMCA notice, you can ignore the whole thing.

And, as you are not in the US, even then, you could just put it in the garbage.

An email is not an official contact as far as I'm concerned. Ask the "lawyer" to send a DMCA along with proof of his claim.

Needs to be in DMCA format along with proof of claim..i.e trademark or similar official certification. :agree:

An email's only proof that the person can use a pc and shows a basic aptitude of using outlook express. :)

owm

I wouldn't even respond. If it really is that important they will contact you the correct way. Responding will cause the possibility of unneeded back and forth emails.

I only got contacted by a lawyer once and that was a nice long letter in the mail(a client I was hosting was selling cracked Dish cards for free access). First thing my lawyer told me was not even to acknowledge it and let him take care of it.

could be complete BS. I used run and manage a store site for my parents and one day I received a similar email from a lawyer telling us we are selling his client's t-shirts. The store used to get shipment directly from the company - I told him to come to the store with paperwork and we'll settle it there, never showed up but responded with a "thank you for the info" email.

So you shouldn't pay too much mind to this - this is probably another form of scam - and again I am assuming because of my own experience.

That is the part that makes it very suspicious.

Anything asking for compensation related to (not even) hosting infringing content is pretty sketch.

-mike

Needs to be an official DMCA with sworn statements, signature, etc. otherwise its complete BS

OP's business is based in Singapore, hence DMCA doesn't apply, isn't it?

OP's business is based in Singapore, hence DMCA doesn't apply, isn't it?

That is correct.

An email's only proof that the person can use a pc and shows a basic aptitude of using outlook express. :)
Depending on the quality of the spelling, it may also prove he can use the built-in spell checker function, too :D

I just send the lawyer a nasty letter asking him to check carefully before he send and also forward the email to the copyright owners.