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Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
171–180 of 493 posts
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 algori…
Perhaps in certain cases requiring someone to sign off, and take the blame if anything happens, would help alleviate this problem. Much like how engineers need to sign off on construction plans.
(Layman here, obviously.)
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's very unlikely that anything criminal has happened here, so government is irrelevant. I'm not even sure we're seeing any malevolence, just rank incompetence.
Maybe not "criminal", sure. But even us thinking "oh it's a civil matter, not criminal one" is something conjured up by the lawyers in conjunction with government. It's such a convenient excuse, basically making it so that you as the injured party need to prove something at your own expense - expense that is directly funneled to the lawyer class.
At the very least what happened here is lying in a commercial context. Arguably something that should be illegal, and sometimes is illegal under the banner of "fraud". Again, the definition of fraud is not obvious (despite them arguing it is super explicit in the laws) and we have to rely on the lawyer priesthood to determine what the "sacred texts" say about it. Maybe even rolling some conjured up lawyer-dice and seeing what the Oracle at the Court says about it after they convene a little "ritual" known as a court meeting or deposition.
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#174I'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…
I run a domain registrar. "serverHold" is not a status that iwantmyname could've set. If they had suspended the domain it'd have "clientHold" set. Server Hold means the registry (i.e. .io directly) has suspended the domain. Your best bet would be to contact the Internet Computer Bureau Ltd who run .io at admin@icb.co.uk, or the registry technical support provider Identity Digital at techsupport@identity.digital.
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#175I'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…
> I had removed the page and disabled the account Did this account violate your ToS or the actual law? While I totally understand where are you coming from and I would probably be forced to do the same, I still tend to believe that closing a fan account is exactly the same thing that your registrar did to you.
It's not optimal, but he must choose between every published game there and one fanpage.
Besides that, there are so many websites with copyright content that never changes the domains, is just the domain registration bad or why they just disabled the domain?
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#176[flagged]
> I'm not trying to be a corporate bootlicker
Perhaps it comes naturally ;)
No, but seriously, you may be giving them a bit too much benefit of the doubt.
There's a little more context here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42364033
Note the "fraud and phishing" complaint. Like, I don't see _any_ way to get to that from what's going on, and of course registrars (correctly) take such complaints far more seriously than DMCA complaints (which shouldn't really be going to the registrar in the first instance, of course).
I wouldn't particularly blame the registrar here, though now that 'AI' spamware is doing this, registrars will presumably have to take fraud complaints a lot less seriously, and the internet will get a little bit worse. But certainly this isn't itch.io's fault; the blame lies squarely with the spamware, and with Funko for using such spamware in the first place.
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#177I've experienced the same thing: a YouTube channel deleted without any explanation (the email from Google mentioned spam, even though I filmed all the videos myself), Facebook preventing me from sharing posts from a website (without any explanation), and of course, domain names that get deindexed from Google without any reason (no message in Google Search Console). I believe we've reached a point where any activity o…
I mean at least those are walled garden platforms where this sort of thing we've come to expect. An independent website as big as itch.io going down because of a bogus complaint is a big surprise
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#178I'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…
iwantmyname was bought out by a conglomerate, “Team Internet[1]”, a few years ago. Prices went up, service went down. I’d recommend moving your domains when you can (Porkbun have been good, though I haven’t had any incidents like this). Best of luck! 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Internet
Same thing with Gandi, which is a shame. Domain renewal price silently went up 3x or so last year after getting acquired.
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#179Funko as a brand exists entirely on derivative content, albeit licensed. Seems like exactly the sort of brand that would trip auto-DMCA software.
Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I had removed the page and disabled the account Did this account violate your ToS or the actual law? While I totally understand where are you coming from and I would probably be forced to do the same, I still tend to believe that closing a fan account is exactly the same thing that your registrar did to you.
It's not optimal, but he must choose between every published game there and one fanpage. Besides that, there are so many websites with copyright content that never changes the domains, is just the domain registration bad or why they just disabled the domain?
It's not optimal, but the registrar had to choose between every registered domain there and one business.
But yes, no doubt, that system is broken and the registrar should have known better.