Ann Marie Conti aka Psychic Rose Claimed psychic decendent of Jesus harasses website with bogus DMCA complaints Ronkonkoma New York

I run a popular blog that takes a skeptical look at questionable claims in the media. In October 2013 and again this week, my web hosting company received a DMCA complaint regarding my site, Doubtful News.

I have redacted parts because the complainant is – how can I put this nicely – overly protective of her name and trademark. Only the bracketed parts have been changed in the quote below:

I, […] does not give this owner of website (s) permission to use my trademark name for any advertising on the internet or anywhere being that the words “Psychic” and “[R]” are not to  appear sequentially in any domain name, on any website including the description, content, and meta tags.  As the Federal Court Judge Ordered there should be words in between the word “Psychic”  and “[R]“

The post cited was this one, reporting on a news item of some note that was also covered by mainstream press. (I was quoting a major newspaper in this story.)

This person has trademarked her psychic name. She alleged that I am using that trademark. I contend that I did no such thing. The post in question had nothing to do with this person. It also did not “advertise” anything. I did not capitalize the word “Psychic” but was using that term colloquially, not specifically. It just so happens that the name in question was not uncommon, either. And I did not even use the words Psychic and Rose sequentially. It appears she just googles these words and issues DMCA takedown notices haphazardly. Before this, I did not even know she existed.

In the October complaint, my web hosting company did not even consider my defense, that this was a completely bogus claim, but caused me great distress as they took my entire website down! My site was offline (with even the backend inaccessible) from at least 5PM EST on October 29, 2013. In order to get the site back up and running, I was forced to acquiesce to this ridiculous request even though I did not infringe. I revised the post to remove the word “psychic” but admitted zero wrongdoing in my followup to the hosting company. I also sent an email to the complainant, Ms. Conti, to explain my position, hoping to resolve the matter. I did not received a reply.

She repeated the complaint with my new web host on Dec 19, 2013. The woman fails to understand the law and is doing this simply as harassment to bloggers because her reputation may be threatened by association with a convincted so-called psychic.

I advise you, reader, to have a look at her business yourself. You may have to pick your jaw up off the floor. The claim she made about my site was nothing compared to the incredible claims she makes for herself. Decendent of Jesus? The Holy Grail? I think mention of the DaVinci Code might be copyright infringment, don't you?

Ms Conti is a serial abuser of the DMCA regulations and I hope that posting this will show others that her claims should NOT be taken seriously.