Itch.io games site taken down

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

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...

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.

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

I believe all of this is legal thanks to DMCA.

Fixed minimum penalty

Hopefully this ruins Funko Fucks

Would the lawsuit be against funko or the registrar (or both) ?

Leafo

I'm the one running itch.io, so here's some more context for you:

From what 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 and phishing" going on, likely to cause escalation instead of doing the expected DMCA/cease-and-desist. Because of this, I honestly think they're the malicious actor in all of this. Their website, if you care: https://www.brandshield.com/

About 5 or 6 days ago, received these reports on our host (Linode) and from our registrar (iwantmyname). I expressed my disappointment in my responses to both of them but told them had removed the page and disabled the account. Linode confirmed and closed the case. iwantmyname never responded. This evening, got a downtime alert, and while debugging, I noticed that the domain status had been set to "serverHold" on iwantmyname's domain panel. We have no other abuse reports from iwantmyname other than this one. I'm assuming no one on their end "closed" the ticket, so it went into an automatic system to disable the domain after some number of days.

I've been trying to get in touch with them via their abuse and support emails, but no response likely due to the time of day, so decided to "escalate" the issue myself on social media.

(OCR)

What HN client is this?

where is hacker news

There's been an aggressive push against gaming recently. Check all the recent Steam news.

They're not really all that massive, just a medium-large fish in a small pond. If this had been about Microsoft or Sony or some other brand that any random non-gamer you stop in the street will have heard of, they might have gotten special treatment from the registrar, but itch.io? Not even nearly big enough. gog wouldn't be either. Steam might just pass the minimum threshold.

You say it like it's okay to do if you are not fucking massive.

I like how people collected them as if they'd be valuable. I survived the beanie baby craze, fool me once and all that.

I see their junk at every thrift store and flea market in Ohio.

I legitimately thought they went out of business.

youtooz is working with snaller creators unlike funko which i think olny worked with m(iste)r b(r)east

Yes and they’re yet another collectible product that exploits the psychology of a subset of people who compulsively collect things. I put them in the same category as gambling and note that there’s a lot of crossover with these things (loot boxes and CCG booster packs being prime examples of a gambling and collectible combo).

The FOMO based businesses are preying on people with poor impulse control...which there are no shortage of in the nerd world.

My partner has an entire bookcase of them, all still in box.

My mom got me my first one in 2019 or 2020 because she thought it was cute (Guyfolye from Silicon Valley). A few months later she asked me if they were just Beanie Babies and I thought that was the end of it. Now every Christmas I get one even though she knows I don't like them and we both snark on the super niche weird ones. She even got custom ones for me and my wife last year. It never ends, and I have 6 sets of beady little eyes staring at me when I'm watching TV in the basement.

A true death of art.

I remember going through the prices my buddy paid for his with actual sculptures on Etsy and him just getting more and more annoyed. He's probably going to have a Funko themed wedding next year.

I wouldn't say the epitome, have you heard of The Big Bang Theory?

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.

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.

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.

the "oh our automated system did it oopsies please forgive us" excuse doesn't make it any better either

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.

I could understand that if they were an overseas company, but they are from the US. That had to be one of the most incompetent customers service reps ever.

This reminds of the story of some company not shipping to the Rhode Island because it's an island not a state. Maybe someone here remembers more details

Did you send them a map?

Turns out we can solve the unemployment crisis by just creating problems for ourselves! Let's start throwing eggs at windows to get window cleaners more business.

Yeah but it's gonna be those slimy lawer-types

On one level, I sympathize with companies like Nintendo, I don't want to, BUT companies are supposed to make efforts to protect their IP or they run the risk of losing those exclusive protections when it matters later on (abandonment). So if they want to continue their IP rights, they're supposed to defend it against anything that comes along. I still don't like it, but I kind of understand why they have to do it.

Granted, I think they could come up with some sort of licensing terms that would made it easy for solo developers to still develop small-time projects to encourage people to create these one-off labors of love, similar to what alot of TTRPG developers do, but for whatever reason, they go the hardball approach, which just creates bad feelings in the community.

https://www.themyerslg.com/blog/what-happens-if-you-dont-defend-your-ip/

The DMCA still has a lot of problems. Like if someone uploads something behind a paywall, the victim has to pay before they can even send a valid notice.

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

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

Web 3 was crypto scams, we're up to web 6 or 7 by now

It probably won't be.

Not only is the agreement between the UK and Mauritius on the brink of collapsing (bizarrely, the UK is trying to get rid of territory and Mauritius doesn't particularly want it very much), but there's so much reliance on the .io domain that it's unlikely to be removed.

Especially because tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Apple make use of it.

They want to change it? But why?

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

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

Or Tenfingers (shameless plug)

If top level domains are user-configured based on which start zones users select, could that run into issues where two people think they're going to the same domain, but actually go to different domains?

It sounds like having your instance admin in charge of what google.com points to, instead of ICANN being in charge of all of them.

It's automating the enshittification. A large language model doesn't need to sleep and doesn't have a conscience.

AI as we know it now is, in a nut shell, the automation of "I was just following orders". Or a digital factory line of evil. Either way, this is about removing the human element from as many decisions as possible.

It would be tricky, unethical, and in some cases illegal to get people to do the sort of things the owner class and fascists want to do to society. But it's easy to let an AI program go nuts. The cruelty is the point in the case of the fascists. And in the case of the owner class it clears out anyone who couldn't afford a lawyer.

Why develop and create something in a vacuum when you can beta test it on everyone.

AI is a great tool. But tools need to still be handled by humans. AI should compile a list of sites "infringing" and this list should be checked by a human. There always should be a human filter with all AI uses. Cool, let your stuff be written by AI but check what is written and fix weird or wrong shit. Have the meat be done by AI and the details by humans.

It's really just the DMCA.

This kind of faultless takedown shouldn't be legal, but the DMCA carved it out decades ago.

yes, maybe AI winter was a good thing

The current DNS implementation works well but there should maybe be some ICANN rules that restrict regristars more.

I can't really think of a way to make it better without making it less secure.

what do you mean

unfortunately we've entered an era where not wanting to condone/support/endorse/encourage shitty corporate behavior requires the sacrifice of not getting to enjoy most products and conveniences that are available. theyre often enjoyed by many other folks who just shrug and say "everyone else is doing it"

I find most companies that undercut their competitors' prices are cutting corners somewhere I don't want to be involved in. quality and customer service has a price. I try as hard as I can to pay that price, or just do without.

just try your best, pick your battles; it's all anyone can do without going insane and/or full modernity-hermit

(reminds me of the cattle "rancher" in 'king corn' who says theyd love to go back to selling grass fed, grass finished beef, but all anyone wants to buy is cheapass, corn sileage-stuffed feed lot crap, so it's either sell that, or go out of business. producers cant just choose their market; there has to be a demand for it.)

That can be just your DNS server having it cached. The servers behind it still exist

Still doesn't work for me.