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Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

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Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#161

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

leafo wrote: post #31

I'm the one running itch.io, so here's some more context for you: From what I can tell, some person made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game. The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all "unauthorized" use of their trademark, so they sent reports independently to our host and registrar claiming there was "fraud…

(FYI, if you didn't already notice this, you're probably far too busy anyway, but still: https://bsky.app/profile/botherer.bsky.social/post/3lcuitcck...)

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#162

Post by johnnyanmac »

seanthemon wrote: post #55
Hamuko wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fan anything has always been at the mercy of the trademark owner.

there was a time where the internet wasn't a corpo hellscape.

This kind of impersonation/defamation is one of the edge cases where its good to have a DMCA process. You want to quickly take down something like this and then deal with the slow legal stuff over time.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#163

Post by acka »

CaptainFever wrote: post #123
CaptainFever wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish BrandShield didn't use AI as a marketing term. It just looks like it's doing a generic ctrl-F on webpages? Then things like this happen, and people think "ooh AI is bad, the bubble must burst" when this has nothing to do with that in the first place, and the real issue was that they sent a "fraud/phishing report" rather than a "trademark infringement" report. Then I also wish that people who knew better…

It's possible they were using LLMs (or even just traditional ML algorithms) to choose if a certain webpage was fraud/phishing instead of mere trademark infringement, though. In this case it makes sense that one would be angry that a sapient being didn't first check if the report was accurate before sending it off.

More than the hypothetical risk of Earth being consumed by a paperclip-making machine, I believe the real and present danger in the use of ML and AI technology lies in humans making irresponsible decisions about where and how to apply these technologies.

For example, in my country, we are still dealing with the fallout from a decision made over a decade ago by the Tax Department. They used a poorly designed ML algorithm to screen applicants claiming social benefits for fraudulent activity. This led to several public inquiries and even contributed to the collapse of a government coalition. Tens of thousands of people are still suffering from being wrongly labeled as fraudulent, facing hefty fines and being forced to repay so-called fraudulent benefits.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#164

Post by kiba »

kaoD wrote: post #155
spondyl wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh damn, I didn't know this! I've used their services for ages and even got to briefly meet the founders once in Wellington who gave a talk on Erlang. Ah well, while it sucks that the good times may be over, I'm glad the founders got their exit :)

> I'm glad the founders got their exit I'm not. I mean, I am happy for them but this concept of growing a business to an exit is not going well for society as a whole (at least the exits that are in my areas of interest, so I assume it extrapolates to all exits). Every single business that gets bought out gets instantly enshittified in one way or another, always to the detriment of the customer. Depending on how entr…

Sell it to the employees? It won't be lucrative to selling it to someone with more cash than sense, but it may be more likely to preserve the value. There's no guarantee of course, and there's so little experience societal wide in running an employee co-op.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#165

Post by Freak_NL »

Animats wrote: post #53

Hm. So Funko sells merchandise related to the Jurassic World franchise.[1] But, according to Licensing International, Mattel licenses the toy rights to that franchise from Universal Products and Experiences, the merchandise arm of Universal Pictures. [2] Also, Funko sells Disney Princess dolls.[3] Mattel announced a multi-year licensing deal with Disney to license the doll rights for Disney Princess dolls. “The coura…

Why on earth would you send letters? These are all huge corporations with sizeable legal departments. They either know or they should, and most importantly, are paid to handle this. Moreover, you're not likely to be heard or understood by the first line of customer care there, even if this was something they weren't aware of (quite unlikely) but wished they were. It's a waste of time, and something even the biggest altruist would find hard to defend as a sensible effort.

Besides, Disney is perfectly capable of degrading their own brand.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#166

Post by pjc50 »

zo1 wrote: post #52
juped wrote: post #14

Everyone involved in this is terrible except itch.io; it's a shame litigation, the available method for redressing this, is often avoided due to the high expense.

As a naive and new adult entering the world, I would have assumed that all you need to do is report this to your police/government, and they'll start a case, preliminarily determine that "Yeah, some sort of fraud happened" and then proceed to start a court case against the accused party so that a jury/judge can determine it's validity. The fact that lawyers and the "lawyer system", in conjunction with prosecutorial o…

This stuff would be civil jurisdiction in most countries. The Internet adds an extra layer of problems: the registrar, complainant etc may be in different countries, making it practically very hard to get anything done.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#167

Post by paxys »

rf15 wrote: post #7

Brand Shield and other AI slopware needs to be sued to death for all the damage they cause, including their customer's reputation and bottom line

Even if the suit is 100% justified (which it is in this case), and you can show damages, the problem will usually be of jurisdiction.

Funko Pop is an American Company.

BrandShield, the "Brand Protection Software" they used, is based out of Israel.

iwantmyname, the registrar, is from New Zealand.

They got bought out by Team Internet, which is British.

And who knows where all of them are actually registered.

They are all going to point the finger at each other for the problem. Who do you sue, and where?

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#168

Post by egorfine »

yorer wrote: post #51
koito17 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally use Porkbun since Namecheap's API is poorly-documented and they attempted a KYC audit for purchasing a $100 domain. I am fine with the identity verification, but their ticketing system seems to have sent all of my e-mail to their spam box, because they would never respond. I attempted opening tickets explaining the e-mail situation, but they wouldn't listen. In the end, I gave up and let them deactivate th…

That kyc thingy is icann requirement, its how domain registration works. Icann require every accredited registrar to verify registrant details so registrar would randomly ask for id, passport etc. That include porkbun, they're bound to their contract with icann as an accredited registrar too. They probably won't ask today but maybe tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year, or never.

> That kyc thingy is icann requirement

Is it really? Or just contact info is enough?

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#169

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

nicwest wrote: post #154
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've seen death threats on Bluesky aimed at the CEO over this?

https://bsky.app/profile/karmn.bsky.social/post/3lcuc4dqudc2... It's hard for me to read this any other way.

I saw that too. While the jury's out, this is clearly not an obvious "call to arms" or any kind of threat. It may be read that way, so I'd prefer not to have it, but if even stating the name of a CEO is off the table, then that's far too much 'protection', IMO. But, yeah, "fix this" isn't great wording to be using.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#170

Post by TZubiri »

viraptor wrote: post #18
TZubiri wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is as decentralized as you can get. Dns is the entire foundation of decentralization, any more and you get into schizo hyperprivacy protocols.

It's federated, not decentralized. For decentralized you need something like https://ens.domains/

Are there any well established definitions for these terms as separate?
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