Update · September 9, 2026
BAM’s chief operating officer swore it on September 8, to get this site’s reporting on BAM’s own store-damage study and its franchisee script taken down. The notice disputes no figure, certifies both documents as BAM’s own, asks the host for the names behind this site, and calls the site a repeat infringer based on a prior complaint it did not receive.
PRIMARY SOURCEthe notice, as forwarded to this site by its host on September 8, reproduced in full belowCONFIRMEDsworn under penalty of perjury by BAM’s chief operating officer: the store-by-store study and the franchisee script this site published are BAM’s own, described worksheet by worksheet; not one figure is disputedCONFIRMEDthe notice asks the host to treat this site as a repeat infringer on the strength of “Vercel Case No. 01391428”; no notice under that number, or any other, has ever reached this site from its hostCONFIRMEDthe U.S. Copyright Office public record shows no registration for either work the notice describes, or for any work under BAM’s name, as of September 9
On September 8, BAM Franchising, Inc. asked this site’s hosting company to take down its reporting on two of BAM’s own documents: the internal study that grades every store against “the incident,” and the script BAM wrote for its franchise owners to post as their own words. The instrument was a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, signed by the company’s chief operating officer. A host will act on such a notice without a court. The price of that route is an oath: the signer states, under penalty of perjury, that he is authorized to act for the owner of the copyright he says is being infringed. To ask for the removal, the company had to say what the documents are. It said: ours, thereby inexplicably confirming the provenance of both under oath. It is the first thing BAM has said about either document since they appeared, and it is sworn.
The notice names three pages, a downloadable file, and pages on a different website, and it asks for more than removal. It asks the host to preserve the records that would identify the people behind this site, and to treat the site as a repeat infringer.
For the second time in six weeks, a statement sworn to erase a document has certified it instead.
The notice is the latest entry in a sequence, and the sequence is the story. Every entry is BAM’s own act, on its own documents, in its own words.
The notice describes the first document as “an internal spreadsheet currently maintained in BAM’s Google Workspace under the title ‘Confidential Incident Impact Report.’” It lists the worksheets: “Summary,” “Visual Charts / dashboard,” “April Analysis,” “May Analysis,” “June Analysis.” It claims the categories as BAM’s own, “The Impacted,” “Consistent Struggles,” “Resilient Performers,” “The Turnarounds,” and “The Bounce-Backs,” “together with BAM’s written definitions and classification methodology.” It describes what this site published as reproducing “BAM’s original analytical categories, definitions, compilation, tables, store-level analysis and organizational structure.” The company’s own title names the incident. The company’s own notice certifies that the store-level analysis is real, is BAM’s, and is what this site said it was.
Fourteen days earlier, at BAM’s quarterly town hall, a franchisee had reported stores down more than twenty percent. BAM’s chief executive, Ammon McNeff, answered that “what’s harder to establish is exactly how much of every store’s decline was caused by this issue.” The document his company has now sworn to sits in its Google Workspace, dated June 30, and establishes it store by store.
The second document is the one this site reported on August 20: a talking-points script with word-for-word replies about the settlement, the chief executive, the police, and the accusations of theft, written for owners to post as “independent franchise owners.” The notice names its author. It is “BAM’s internal document,” titled “Resolution Strategy,” and its contents are “BAM-created original written guidance, messaging principles, moderation instructions, scenarios, and prepared responses for franchise owners.” The owners who posted those replies in their own names were posting BAM’s prepared responses under BAM’s moderation instructions. The company has now said so under oath.
The notice is careful about what it does not claim. “BAM does not claim copyright in unprotectable underlying facts or individual numerical facts standing alone,” it says. It does not claim “the publisher’s independently created commentary or independently developed store-identification analysis” either. Nothing in it says a figure is wrong, a category is misquoted, or a store is misidentified. This site’s corrections line has been open since the day it launched. BAM has never used it to say a figure was wrong. It has used it once, to demand names, and it has now sworn twice.
The July letter carried a promise. It was, the company wrote, “not a demand to suppress legitimate criticism, independently created commentary, or lawful reporting based solely on public records.” The September notice concedes that the pages it names contain “the publisher’s independently created commentary,” claims no copyright in it, and asks the host to disable the pages anyway.
Read the two demands together and the claim has moved. In July the company claimed everything and signed nothing. Now it signs, and it claims the wrapper: the arrangement of the worksheets, the wording of five definitions, the full text of a script. The facts, the counts and the store identifications it gives up in writing. The notice arrived four days after this site joined the units back to the stores they are, and it is careful to say that it claims no copyright in that.
A company that wanted the numbers gone had a sworn filing in which to say they were false. It said they were facts.
The notice tells the host that BAM “previously submitted copyright complaints” about this site, “including Vercel Case No. 01391428,” and on that basis asks the host “to evaluate the account under its repeat-infringer policy.” No notice under that case number, or any other, has ever reached this site from its host, and the host has never disabled anything on it. The only earlier demand this site has received is the unsigned July message, which it published. The notice does not say what that earlier complaint concerned, when it was made, or what became of it. The request to brand the site a repeat infringer rests on a complaint the accused was never shown.
In July the unsigned letter asked this site for “the identities of all persons who provided or published the materials.” The site declined, and the answer has not changed. This notice asks the host instead. Separate from the copyright claim, it requests that the host preserve “subscriber/account information,” “billing and payment information,” “IP and login records,” and “records identifying persons who created, administered, funded, uploaded to, or controlled the relevant projects,” “pending appropriate legal process.” It is the July demand with a new addressee, and one new word. “Funded” appears nowhere in the July letter, and the notice offers nothing behind it. The notice also concedes, in its own words, that it holds no process to compel any of this: disclosure “may require appropriate legal process.” The company is still asking who publishes this site, and it has now asked twice.
The notice also lists pages that are not on this site, at a different domain. A notice addressed to this site’s host does not reach the pages of another website.
BAM’s takedown notice, reproduced verbatim as forwarded by this site’s host on September 8, 2026; nothing added, removed, or paraphrased. The host redacted the sender’s name and contact details.
I, [Redacted], am Chief Operating Officer of BAM Franchising, Inc. (“BAM”) and am authorized to act on behalf of BAM with respect to the copyrighted works identified below.
BAM previously submitted copyright complaints concerning unauthorized reproduction of BAM materials on thebammap.com, including Vercel Case No. 01391428. Additional BAM-created proprietary works have since been obtained, copied, reproduced, and distributed through the same website and associated website infrastructure.
This notice concerns those newly published materials, as well as continuing reproduction of BAM’s Franchisee Training & Operations Manual.
1. Copyrighted Works
A. BAM Confidential Incident Impact Report / Store Performance Analysis
BAM owns the copyright in an internal spreadsheet currently maintained in BAM’s Google Workspace under the title “Confidential Incident Impact Report.”
The workbook contains BAM-created analysis organized into five substantive worksheets:
The work includes BAM’s original selection and arrangement of information, analytical structure, categories, written category definitions, tables, charts, formulas, presentation and compilation.
Among BAM’s original analytical categories are “The Impacted,” “Consistent Struggles,” “Resilient Performers,” “The Turnarounds,” and “The Bounce-Backs,” together with BAM’s written definitions and classification methodology.
BAM does not claim copyright in unprotectable underlying facts or individual numerical facts standing alone. The complaint concerns the copying, reproduction, distribution, and display of BAM’s copyrighted workbook, its original expression, analytical structure, selection and arrangement, definitions, tables, charts, and compilation.
An original copy of the workbook can be supplied to Vercel confidentially for comparison.
B. Franchisee Field Guide & Talking Points / Resolution Strategy
BAM owns copyright in internal corporate communications and crisis-response materials contained in BAM’s internal document “Resolution Strategy – Corporate & Social Media,” including the section entitled “Franchisee Field Guide & Talking Points.”
This document contains BAM-created original written guidance, messaging principles, moderation instructions, scenarios, and prepared responses for franchise owners.
An original BAM copy can be supplied to Vercel for comparison.
C. Bricks & Minifigs Franchisee Training & Operations Manual, Edition V.10.6.24
BAM owns copyright in the Bricks & Minifigs Franchisee Training & Operations Manual, Edition V.10.6.24, including its original text, graphics, photographs, tables, instructional material, selection and arrangement, and related training content.
The complete manual is approximately 311 pages and includes nineteen numbered operational sections and appendices concerning franchise operations, financial procedures, customer service, safety, inventory, purchasing, pricing, vendors, loss prevention, brand standards,marketing, hiring, recruiting, and related subjects.
The manual itself states that it is intended for franchise owners only and is not to be shared outside the company.
BAM maintains the original manual in its corporate records and can provide an original electronic copy for comparison.
2. Infringing Material and Locations
A. September 3, 2026 – BAM Internal Store Performance Workbook
Infringing page:
https://www.thebammap.com/updates/20260903/1
This page reproduces substantial portions of BAM’s internal Confidential Incident Impact Report, including BAM’s original analytical categories, definitions, compilation, tables, store-level analysis and organizational structure.
More significantly, the page provides a direct download of a reconstructed copy of BAM’s internal workbook containing all five underlying worksheets.
Direct infringing file:
https://www.thebammap.com/updates/20260903/1/bam-store-analysis-reconstructed.xlsx
The page expressly represents this download as the complete workbook, including the Summary, dashboard, April, May and June store tables.
BAM requests that Vercel disable access to both the webpage and the downloadable workbook, together with materially identical copies stored in the same account or deployments.
B. September 4, 2026 – Continued Reproduction of BAM Store Performance Analysis
Infringing page:
https://www.thebammap.com/updates/20260904/1
This page again links to the copied workbook and reproduces substantial elements of BAM’s copyrighted internal analysis, including BAM’s original categories and definitions, Summary-tab organization, counts, tables and store-performance compilation.
The publisher then combines the copied BAM material with its own attempt to identify the stores associated with BAM’s anonymized unit numbers.
BAM is not asserting copyright over the publisher’s independently created commentary or independently developed store-identification analysis. The infringement complained of is the underlying reproduction, display and distribution of BAM’s copyrighted workbook and protectable expression incorporated into and linked from this page.
BAM requests removal or disabling of the copied BAM material and downloadable workbook, and, to the extent that the page cannot be separated from the infringing material, disabling of the page.
C. August 20, 2026 – Franchisee Field Guide & Talking Points
Infringing page:
https://www.thebammap.com/updates/20260820/1
The publisher expressly states that it obtained BAM’s internal talking-points document and that the document is “reproduced in full below.”
The page then reproduces BAM’s Franchisee Field Guide & Talking Points, including its original messaging principles, moderation rules, scenarios and prepared responses.
This is not merely quotation of isolated portions for commentary; the copyrighted BAM work is reproduced substantially in full.
BAM requests removal or disabling of the copied document and materially identical reproductions.
D. Bricks & Minifigs Franchisee Training & Operations Manual
Primary infringing site:
https://www.bamopsmanual.com/
The website identifies itself as a reproduction of BAM’s Franchisee Training & Operations Manual, Edition V.10.6.24, and provides access to the manual section by section.
The site currently reproduces the complete manual through approximately page 311, including:
Representative infringing URLs include, without limitation:
The site’s own pages expressly state that they “reproduce” portions of BAM’s Operations Manual. BAM requests disabling of the deployment containing the reproduced manual and materially identical copies.
3. Requested Action
BAM respectfully requests that Vercel:
Because this appears to involve repeated publication of BAM copyrighted works after prior copyright notices, BAM also asks Vercel to evaluate the account under its repeat-infringer policy.
4. Preservation Request
Separate from the DMCA takedown request, BAM requests that Vercel preserve, pending appropriate legal process, records concerning the accounts and deployments associated with thebammap.com and bamopsmanual.com, including available:
BAM understands that this preservation request is separate from the statutory DMCA notice and that disclosure of nonpublic subscriber information may require appropriate legal process.
5. Contact Information
[Redacted]
Chief Operating Officer
BAM Franchising, Inc.
[Redacted]
Telephone: [Redacted]
Email: [Redacted]
6. Good-Faith Statement
I have a good-faith belief that the use of the copyrighted materials identified above in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
7. Accuracy and Authority Statement
I state that the information in this notification is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that I am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive rights alleged to have been infringed.
Electronic signature:
[Redacted]
Chief Operating Officer
BAM Franchising, Inc.
Date: September 8, 2026
The sworn statement is now another part of the record it continues to object to.
Sources. The notice, as forwarded to this site by its hosting provider on September 8, 2026, reproduced above; the host redacted the sender’s name and contact details, and the notice identifies the sender as chief operating officer of BAM Franchising, Inc. Matthew McNeff is BAM Franchising’s chief operating officer, per public state business records and his own public statements about the company. U.S. Copyright Office Public Records System, searched September 9, 2026, under “Bricks & Minifigs,” “BAM Franchising,” and the titles the notice gives: no registration. The July letter, published. The July 31 notice, published from the public record. The script, reported. The review-removal remark, reported. The Slack ban and the stores cut off, reported. The August 25 town hall, reported. The study, reported, and the longer read.