I have no idea what's behind the false notice, but this much I do know: Colin would never abuse DMCA himself, or make a big an issue out of a case of infringement that wasn't knowing and/or willful.
How do I know this? Well... indulge me in a little story. ;-)
Some years ago, we were putting together a party for Internext in Florida, and as part of the process, we designed printed fliers, tickets, etc., for distribution at the show to promote our party.
To make a long story somewhat shorter, the artist who designed the promotional materials chose an image that happened to be Colin's intellectual property, and made that image the visual center of all the promotional materials. It was on the flier, it was on the tickets, it was all over the place; I think it might even have been on the signage at the party itself.
Colin pulled me aside on the show floor and very calmly explained to me that we had infringed on his IP rights, and that he was pretty disappointed that we had done so. Making matters worse, I actually knew the image was closely associated with Wasteland -- I just incorrectly assumed the artist who made the fliers, tickets, etc., was giving me accurate information when he said that he'd licensed the image from the photographer himself.
(It turned out that our artist had been scammed by a guy falsely representing himself as the rights-holder, something that was not that uncommon back then. The artist can be forgiven for not seeing through that subterfuge, but I should have known better and confirmed it all for myself.... but I digress.)
At any rate, Colin could have bent us over a barrel on that one, or at the very least, made a big stink that would have landed me in hot water, personally, but he didn't do that. Instead, he kept the issue between the two of us and didn't demand a thing from TopBucks -- other than the apology he got from me on the spot, and assurance that we'd be more careful in the future, generally, where licensing photography was concerned, and any content associated with his site, in particular.
The point of this rambling anecdote is that whatever happened here, there is no way in hell that Colin directed anybody to send out a bogus DMCA take down notice.
I don't have any reason to believe that Degban would do so, either.... but in Colin's case, I'd sooner believe that Abbie Hoffman climbed out of his grave and sent that DMCA notice than believe it was anything done with Colin's imprimatur.
