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Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

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Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#311
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I know Namecheap gets a meh rep, but we've been on the receiving end of several phishing/copyright reports and have responded across the spectrum in terms of time span. We've responded immediately. We've responded with an hour or so to go. In all cases, Namecheap has somehow responded quickly and resolved the issue.

I coincidentally just this past week ran into a major issue with Namecheap on a fraudulent domain marketplace sale that they did not resolve properly or in a timely manner. They deserve their meh reputation. They were decent about a decade ago. Come renewal my domains up for sale are moving to Dynadot. Was considering porkbun but I sense they are heading the namecheap way.

> but I sense they are heading the namecheap way

What makes you say that?

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#313
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

If the legal system is not itself either fundamentally corrupted or completely razzle-dazzled by the AI hype... and I mean those as serious clauses that are at least somewhat in question... then there are going to be some very disappointed people losing a lot of money or even going to jail when they find out that as far as the legal system is concerned, there already is legally speaking some person or entity composed of persons (a corporation) responsible for these actions, and it is already not actually legally possible to act like a bull in a china shop and then cover it over by just pointing to your internal AI and disclaiming all responsibility.

The legal system already acts that way when the issue is in its own wheelhouse: https://www.reuters.com/legal/new-york-lawyers-sanctioned-us... The lawyers did not escape by just chuckling in amusement, throwing up their hands, and saying "AIs! Amimrite?"

The system is slow and the legal tests haven't happened yet but personally I see no reason to believe that the legal system isn't going to decide that "the AI" never does anything and that "the AI did it!" will provide absolutely zero cover for any action or liability. If anything it'll be negative as hooking an AI directly up to some action and then providing no human oversight will come to be ipso facto negligence.

I actually consider this one of the more subtle reasons this AI bubble is substantially overblown. The idea of this bubble is that AI will just replace humans wholesale, huzzah, cost savings galore! But if companies program things like, say, customer support with AIs, and can then just deploy their wildest fantasies straight into AIs with no concern about humans being in the loop and turning whistleblower or anything, like, making it literally impossible to contact humans, making it literally impossible to get solutions, and so forth, and if customers push these AIs to give false or dangerous solutions, or agree to certain bargains or whathaveyou, and the end result is you trade lots of expensive support calls for a company-ending class-action lawsuit, the utility of buying the AI services to replace your support staff sharply goes down. Not necessarily to zero. Doesn't have to go to zero. It just makes the idea that you're going to replace your support staff with a couple dozen graphics cards a much more incremental advantage rather than a multiplicative advantage, but the bubble is priced like it's hugely multiplicative.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#314
post #295
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…

Hope you have money to fight them. I stuck to my guns on a wrongful one like this and while Digitalocean and Cloudflare both had my backs (surprisingly before I even asked, both of them got a lot of good will on that - they informed me they already checked and it was spurious!). Google didn't have my back though and immediately caved when they upgraded their sham copyright infringement claim to money laundering and f…

> I still have the sites exactly as they were just to spite them and will keep running them at a loss until I'm dead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spite_house

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Curb_Your_Enthusiasm_e...

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#315
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They’re talking about Australia, and the robodebt scheme. Read the Wikipedia article and you’ll probably feel outraged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme

Unfortunately it seems that the thinking is more farspread, and this was the Netherlands [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42365837

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#316
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…

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…

When AI is being used as a cover for the bad/questionable behavior the company was already doing then there is no bubble to burst. The performance of the "AI" doesn't matter, only that it throws up a smoke shield in front of the company when people call to complain about the abuse.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#317
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They’re talking about Australia, and the robodebt scheme. Read the Wikipedia article and you’ll probably feel outraged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme

[deleted]

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#318
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…

I think Funko's products are classified as collectibles, not dolls. I am sure they have licenses from Disney.

Funko still exists, ergo, they have licenses from Disney.

Disney chases down little daycare centers: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/daycare-center-murals/

They would not miss Funko.

Re: Itch.io Taken Down by Funko

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Filing false reports like this should count as fraud.

I'm in the outraged crowd and there should be pretty serious consequences, but it is important in the interest of justice to differentiate between fraud, negligence, and gross incompetence.

Whilst I agree in principle that deliberate disruption of other people's websites/serivces should be more harshly punished, I don't think it's particularly practical. There's so many ways that modern companies can obfuscate the reasoning behind what they do, so I've come to the conclusion that if they're causing harm to someone else, then they should be punished/made to pay no matter their excuse.

If companies hide behind negligence/incompetence, then we need to make it costly for them to be negligent/incompetent.

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