Bluesky Post (this was also posted on twitter)

I was hoping to find a statement from the aggressor, but it seems to be too early.

  • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    901·
    17 days ago

    This is crazy. How can they just take down your domain without at least discussing the issue.

  • Furbag@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1451·
    17 days ago

    If lawmakers would simply make the entity responsible for the operation of these AI powered tools be fully liable for every decision that it makes, right or wrong, this kind of nonsense would vanish overnight.

    I hope the people running itch.io have great lawyers, because I would be trying to take Funko to court for punitive damages over something like this.

    Also, while we’re at it, reform the DMCA to disallow automated copyright related takedown requests without some sort of human reviewing it at the other end. It’s been abused to hell and back by big business.

    • Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      60·
      17 days ago

      Also, while we’re at it, reform the DMCA to disallow automated copyright related takedown requests without some sort of human reviewing it at the other end. It’s been abused to hell and back by big business.

      Itch.io shared on hackernews that they apparently sent a report for fraud and phishing, not copyright infringement. So sounds like funko was abusing the system even if automated copyright claims weren’t a thing.

    • intensely_human@lemm.eeEnglish
      121·
      17 days ago

      If you think about it, until now there’s been an u spoken, automatic limit on all government activity because some person has to actually implement all government activity.

      That’s been, through all of history, at least some kind of filter on the actions government would take.

      (I’m using the term “government” ultra loosely, since in this case it’s a private entity implementing policy; “government” as in an authority who can halt a person’s operations as they see fit. “Government” in the same way management or command structure or the principal’s office is like a “government” in its little realm of operation).

      Up until now, government has to be done by people. But AI makes it easy to do tons of activity, which can have a larger disruptive impact.

    • treadful@lemmy.zipEnglish
      221·
      17 days ago

      If lawmakers would simply make the entity responsible for the operation of these AI powered tools be fully liable for every decision that it makes, right or wrong, this kind of nonsense would vanish overnight.

      They are? AI isn’t some autonomous entity with its own legal rights and responsibilities.

      The problem is that these actions aren’t illegal. This is all a civil issue, and yeah, hopefully itch.io puts a hurt on Brand Shield but I doubt it.

  • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    135·
    17 days ago

    Fucko pop should be forced to pay damages. It’s too easy for shitty companies to send out takedown notices and too difficult for those takedown notices to be contested by comparison.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      17 days ago

      That was the whole point of the DMCA, though. Prevent bad publicity by claiming copyright infringement and companiea have to take down the content before they investigate any response. Any time a company doesn’t do that they are risking their own necks. So usually they only ignore it if they know for sure it’s bogus which requires that they spend the resources on a person reviewing every notice before the required time expires.

    • NounsAndWords@lemmy.worldEnglish
      293·
      17 days ago

      Sorry, obviously the public awareness of the people making these decisions is dangerous information.

      DAMN YOU ANTHROPOMORPHIZED COMPANY RUN BY NOBODY WHO THEREFORE CAN MAKE SHITTY DECISIONS HIDING BEHIND CAPITALISM!!!

      Thank your glorious mods for protecting our corporate overlords.

      • Bassman1805@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        17 days ago

        I’m with you about not anthropomorphizing faceless companies as the bad actors here, but also I really doubt the CEO was the one who enacted this decision. It probably came from some middle manger who clicked “yes” on some report they didn’t actually read.

    • Rin@lemm.eeEnglish
      31·
      17 days ago

      Comment removed or am i dumb? What did it say?

      • NounsAndWords@lemmy.worldEnglish
        614·
        17 days ago

        Of course not. But do people really get to make shitty decisions that impact other people while hiding behind the veil of corporate structure without being directly named and shamed for their decisions?

        • francisfordpoopola@lemmy.worldEnglish
          162·
          17 days ago

          My only comment here is that I run a small business and decisions can occur that I don’t always see up front and with which they negatively impact employees or customers. I also know many large clients where the leadership delegates decisions down to sometimes stupid or misguided staff. The balance here comes to how a leader reacts when they learn of the hurtful actions and is there an opportunity for change.

          • Jax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            51·
            17 days ago

            I think that from your standpoint, the small business owner, it makes sense to do this.

            I think the corporate demons pulling the strings of these massive companies love, and I mean love, when people look at them like you.

      • Railcar8095@lemm.eeEnglish
        154·
        17 days ago

        Wow wow wow. Who said anything about death? This clearly calls for a broken leg at most.

        But it we take into account the amount of trash they generate…

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldEnglish
    635·
    17 days ago

    At first I was like “WTF does an indie games site have to do with Funko?” then I Googled it…

    Looks like they hosted a BUNCH of infringing games, so Funko, instead of doing the righteous thing and sending them a takedown request, just nuked the whole domain…

    • DacoTaco@lemmy.worldEnglish
      47·
      17 days ago

      Sounds about right for funko lol.
      ( though tbh, listing all games that taken the funko brand would be a massive task lol ).

      Still, this one hell of a messy shit i wouldnt want to touch legally haha

      • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
        10·
        17 days ago

        though tbh, listing all games that taken the funko brand would be a massive task lol

        That’s what the brandshield “AI” was supposed to automate. Hell, I could possibly cobble some python script to crawl through itch and create a list of infriging games/devs, something that wouldn’t take more than 1 day.

        • DacoTaco@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          17 days ago

          Sure, but for a lawsuit you should also validate that list to make sure there were no mistakes. Same should have happened with the ai bot. But nooooo, too many people takes scripts and ai output as facts -_-

    • nixcamic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      17 days ago

      So from what I’ve heard at least some of those are just fan pages that just link to the official site.

  • RBG@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    121·
    17 days ago

    It works for me now? Not sure how long ago this was, timewise, but at least they are back on.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    392·
    16 days ago

    Not only is this absolutely inexcusable, also, Funko Pops are ugly and creepy-looking and I don’t understand why people spend so much money on them just because they look vaguely like the characters or people they’re supposed to represent.

    God I hate our whole system.

    • Makhno@lemmy.worldEnglish
      232·
      16 days ago

      Funko pops are for people that lack a personality and try to create one by buying dumb shit that sits on a shelf and depreciates in value. They’re just memecoin bros

  • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
    494·
    17 days ago

    Might be a good time to change domain while you’re at it, if .io is about to be retired.

  • uis@lemm.eeEnglish
    413·
    17 days ago

    “We did not commit crime, we commited it with alforithm”. Cory Doctorow had talk about it long before AI was mainstream.

    • girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      37·
      17 days ago

      Good. If a registrar causes issues because of their own non-response during their own investigation then it’s useless.

  • HexesofVexes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5271·
    17 days ago

    I mean, it sounds like a lawsuit to me.

    1. A takedown request was issued on false grounds.

    2. This takedown was then actioned without any due process.

    3. The issue has caused tangible, and measurable, loss (calculable from prior sales records).

    Honestly, there needs to be a fixed penalty fine for bad takedowns…

    • Dasnap@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      17 days ago

      Funko would drag a lawsuit out for years, but Itch might have the spite to push through it.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
      422·
      17 days ago

      Honestly, there needs to be a fixed penalty fine for bad takedowns…

      Absolutely not, fixed fines become expected costs, and immensely favor monied actors. Make it percentage based so it hurts equally, and rich people actually have to pay a measurable amount.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        22·
        17 days ago

        Probably both if you can make the case for it. Funko for the false request, the registrar for not doing their due diligence in honoring it. Depending on the wording of the law the registrar may be off the hook however, so whether there’s a case to be brought there would be a question for their lawyers.

    • simple@lemm.eeEnglish
      122·
      17 days ago

      Takedown requests being spammed everywhere is sort of standard, what’s crazy is that their domain holder immediately honored the request, completely ignoring how massive itch io is with millions of users…

    • peto (he/him)@lemm.eeEnglish
      273·
      17 days ago

      Fixed penalties just become the cost of doing business. Like actors, we need to start asking for percentage of gross.

      • Vespair@lemm.eeEnglish
        79·
        17 days ago

        Imo we need to start attaching criminal penalties to the people behind businesses that knowingly abuse their power and position like this. Corporate bullying isn’t a financial position, it’s a failing of ethics.

        • acockworkorange@mander.xyzEnglish
          6·
          17 days ago

          Yup. The first couple of times might have been a mistake subject to fine. The third time you’re facing criminal contempt of the rule of law.

  • lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    274·
    17 days ago

    I hope this teaches them the valuable lesson of always having domains with more than one registrar.

    Or, hopefully, we migrate to a system more advanced than DNS registrars where your “name” can be taken down by an unrelated third party. The current system sucks and the fact that even the Fediverse relies on it (accounts are tied to domains, making full account migration impossible) makes even the remains of my pre-graduate CS student brain rumble.