ACCORDING to The Hacker News, a law firm—Dennemeyer & Associates—sent SuspectFile a DMCA takedown demand over a Ravie Lakshmanan article, asserting copyright infringement and threatening removal within 24 hours or further action. SuspectFile’s editor, Marco A. De Felice, responded with a new post detailing the emails exchanged, which purportedly showed the claims were inaccurate and without foundation.
The piece notes that Valéry Rieß-Marchive’s independent work on Black Basta was the basis for SuspectFile’s article and that SuspectFile did not copy from or use any original material by The Hacker News. The post describes the confrontation as a clearly unfounded legal threat that persisted until Rieß-Marchive issued a statement clarifying the situation, after which the law firm allegedly could no longer argue the case.
The incident is presented as part of a larger survey on legal and criminal threats faced by journalists and researchers, with the March 1, 2025 publication date for SuspectFile’s article highlighted in the chronology.