Some are useful. It’s not uncommon for scammers to throw up copies of legitimate sites, but hosting malware etc. Having tried to deal with Google, GoDaddy-et-al I can attest that their fucks given about such things is minimal but one of these companies can get offending sites taken down pretty quick.
The problem is when they don’t do due-diligence (and don’t face reasonable consequences for failing in said diligence) and then shit like this happens
Fuck all the corpo fucks involved here with their plausible deniability attempt. If you truly felt any remorse, you’d talk about how you’ll disengage this AI chum service, or demand that requests are extremely precise or hyper targeted at specific direct issues. This story of blanket action helps the big company with monkey and always hurts the little guy that gets swept up in their ravenous wake.
Also, educate the next month of your online presence you boosting the brand you wronged with your reach. But you won’t do shit, you aren’t remorseful.
Personally I want to see the criminal shield removed for corporations. All C-Level executives become personally liable for any illegal actions, malfeasance, slander/liable, or injurious action perpetrated or instigated by the company with the ONLY defense being proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt (not just reasonable doubt) that an actor within or without the company caused the action with the express intent of harming the C-Level executives, either specific or generally.
Fuck corporate personhood. Fuck people making a LLC and doing whatever the fuck they want under the guise of the company then the company declares bankruptcy while they run off like a cartoon character with bags of money. Leadership liability and culpability should be the norm, not the exception.
Essentially, unless they are personally doing it, they are protected. Embezzle millions and you go to jail, poison a water supply, kill thousands, give birth defects, cancer, and a myriad of other health issues to a community at large and only the corporation is liable/culpable.
It would be a real shame if [email protected] (the domain registrar of brandshield.com) were to get a bunch of reports about scams and illegal activity found on the website. Bonus points for copying [email protected].
It’s really just “this thing happened” and nothing else, as if they’re reporting on events where they’re just innocent bystanders. Instead of saying what they did, it’s “hey, we didn’t do [detail]”.
Is it a legal liability thing to avoid using specific words? It’s hard to imagine it being bad PR to “properly” apologize (at least compared to releasing a non-apology apology statement).
I would imagine that admitting fault is a bad look when it comes to fighting the lawsuit that inevitably comes after. Hard to claim you’re not liable when you’ve made a statement saying it’s your fault.
Yes, theoretically Itch could sue them for lost revenue. Brandshield should be very afraid of Funko getting sued since getting your client sued can’t look good
People used to think so highly of CEOs, that they must be doing something right if they got to where they are. They must be smarter and have all the answers.
Now people are realizing CEOs are just rich scumbags.
“Funko did not request a takedown of the @itchio platform.”
Man, I fucking hate corpo-speak like this.
Yes, you didn’t personally make the request against itchio… But you hired this company to enforce “brand protection” and that’s what they did. So you did actually request the takedown, but you just did so by authorizing another party to make such requests on your behalf.
This is like a military General saying “hey I didn’t commit any warcrimes, I just gave the orders to my men to commit warcrimes!”
They always talk about how giving coverage leads to copycats. Typically that has meant me getting pissed at the over coverage of mass shootings, but now I’m sitting here waiting like… Okay? Any day now? Maybe not.
There are lots of finger-pointing here. Funko said the takedown was done by their partner, BrandShield. BrandShield said it was a URL-specific (or is it subdomain?) takedown, not the whole domain. The registrar, Iwantmyname, responded said takedown by taking down the WHOLE domain.
I think Funko shouldn’t have trusted AI to do legal-related stuff. BrandShield is a stupid idea born from the AI-hype. It’s stupid and shouldn’t have existed. Iwantmyname is just as incompetent if not more–they haven’t even released any public statement about this. Their customer support are also slow to response apparently.
Itch.io should move domain registrar. Funko should stop using BrandShield, it only damages their brand more.
Also what’s up with Funko calling someone’s mom lol. that’s stupid
I also think that this is why AI won’t replace our jobs. I’ve seen many instances where technologies replaces jobs, but this ain’t it
I think Iwantmyname may be the worst player in this story.
Everyone else kind of did what they were expected to do:
Itch provides a platform for user generated content and took down some questionable content when asked.
Funko is an IP based toy company and asked a tech company to protect their IP online
BrandShield is a fucking cancer of a service that acted aggressively to protect its client’s interests
But:
Iwantmyname is meant to provide a domain name registration service, it’s a cutthroat industry where often times customer service is viewed as an unnecessary cost, but itch was their client and they should have been helping itch respond to the notice in a manner that allowed it to continue to exist. Instead they were willing to shut it down without any real dialog.
The rest might be decent business partners if you are looking for their kind of service but Iwantmyname isn’t to be trusted.
Agree, though I would not use the word “decent” about BrandShield or Funko. Being harmfully lazy and immoral legally and according to contract is still harmfully lazy and immoral.
While the registrar should have made more to understand the situation before acting, it’s important to keep in mind that according to itch.io, the request was not a DMCA takedown but an accusation of “fraud and fishing”. There’s probably a very large legal exposure for a registrar to let criminal website use their service if they are made aware of it, so reducing their liability is probably their highest priority.
BrandShield is inexcusable for using such a claim as a first step.
The Idea to use AI to detect possible copyright infringements isnt even that bad. Its gets bad when you trust the AI to be able to tell things apart. If the alerts from the AI aren’t reviewed by humans it is doomed to fail.
Also: brand shield says they only wanted the url gone but you don’t get that when talking to the registrar. Registrar are all or nothing, so clearly they knew they were doing this
The question is are they really that incompetent, or are they really that malicious? Add in mislabeling the report as fraud instead of infringement, I lean towards them being malicious, but I guess that could also be gross incompetence. Either way, Brandshield looks terrible.
You just know that their “AI driven platform” is a call to google for the brand names they’re “protecting” followed by takedown requests issued to the registered email followed by one to the registrar for every domain found.
We need a new internet because this one is fucked.
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Brand protection partners is a much friendlier way to say bloodsucking lawyers.
Some are useful. It’s not uncommon for scammers to throw up copies of legitimate sites, but hosting malware etc. Having tried to deal with Google, GoDaddy-et-al I can attest that their fucks given about such things is minimal but one of these companies can get offending sites taken down pretty quick.
The problem is when they don’t do due-diligence (and don’t face reasonable consequences for failing in said diligence) and then shit like this happens
Fuck all the corpo fucks involved here with their plausible deniability attempt. If you truly felt any remorse, you’d talk about how you’ll disengage this AI chum service, or demand that requests are extremely precise or hyper targeted at specific direct issues. This story of blanket action helps the big company with monkey and always hurts the little guy that gets swept up in their ravenous wake.
Also, educate the next month of your online presence you boosting the brand you wronged with your reach. But you won’t do shit, you aren’t remorseful.
Personally I want to see the criminal shield removed for corporations. All C-Level executives become personally liable for any illegal actions, malfeasance, slander/liable, or injurious action perpetrated or instigated by the company with the ONLY defense being proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt (not just reasonable doubt) that an actor within or without the company caused the action with the express intent of harming the C-Level executives, either specific or generally.
Fuck corporate personhood. Fuck people making a LLC and doing whatever the fuck they want under the guise of the company then the company declares bankruptcy while they run off like a cartoon character with bags of money. Leadership liability and culpability should be the norm, not the exception.
Aren’t C-Suite already liable for illegal actions? I know for sure that it’s that way in Germany, and I cannot imagine it to be different in the U.S.
Nope, they are covered most of the time by what is known as the “corporate veil”.
Better explained than I can do here: https://federal-lawyer.com/when-can-a-ceo-be-held-personally-liable/
Essentially, unless they are personally doing it, they are protected. Embezzle millions and you go to jail, poison a water supply, kill thousands, give birth defects, cancer, and a myriad of other health issues to a community at large and only the corporation is liable/culpable.
All the support to Itch.io’s mom
I “love” how they very carefully avoid making any apology whatsoever.
Enlightenment me but I think it’s because of legal reasons? Can an apology be used as pleading guilty?
IANAL but I do believe in some places not only is an apology and admission of guilt but it can also be used against you
Wdym by I ANAL? Good for you?
I am not a lawyer but I suspect it’s an initialism
Legit question. Am I dumb for not understanding it?
I Am Not A Lawyer
I got it thanks. I meant in the first try. Is it a commonly used acronym or I was supposed to decrypt it?
Not in Canada though otherwise everybody would be in prison all of the time.
That buck just keeps on passing around, huh?
It would be a real shame if [email protected] (the domain registrar of brandshield.com) were to get a bunch of reports about scams and illegal activity found on the website. Bonus points for copying [email protected].
Oh, I’m here for it.
Fuck Funko and fuck their shitty CEO.
Not worth thinking about any further. I wish itch.io the best in their lawsuit.
I notice it doesn’t include the word “sorry”.
It’s really just “this thing happened” and nothing else, as if they’re reporting on events where they’re just innocent bystanders. Instead of saying what they did, it’s “hey, we didn’t do [detail]”.
Is it a legal liability thing to avoid using specific words? It’s hard to imagine it being bad PR to “properly” apologize (at least compared to releasing a non-apology apology statement).
In USA yes. In Canada we made a law about exempting “sorry” specifically, not even joking lol.
I would imagine that admitting fault is a bad look when it comes to fighting the lawsuit that inevitably comes after. Hard to claim you’re not liable when you’ve made a statement saying it’s your fault.
Yes, theoretically Itch could sue them for lost revenue. Brandshield should be very afraid of Funko getting sued since getting your client sued can’t look good
Fuck Funko Pops.
Fuck BrandShield.
I accuse them both of causing itch.io to go down and it is their fault.
A corpo bully pointing fingers at some AI slop they use, how convenient
Corporate doing corporate shit. And then asking why people hate corporations and their CEOs.
People used to think so highly of CEOs, that they must be doing something right if they got to where they are. They must be smarter and have all the answers.
Now people are realizing CEOs are just rich scumbags.
Yep, I’m sure most of them just bought their positions there to have power over society.
“Funko did not request a takedown of the @itchio platform.”
Man, I fucking hate corpo-speak like this.
Yes, you didn’t personally make the request against itchio… But you hired this company to enforce “brand protection” and that’s what they did. So you did actually request the takedown, but you just did so by authorizing another party to make such requests on your behalf.
This is like a military General saying “hey I didn’t commit any warcrimes, I just gave the orders to my men to commit warcrimes!”
Translation: “we didn’t think this predatory behavior would affect our bottom line, and we deeply regret that it has.”
If only we had a few more Luigi, these corpo-shit would think twice
They really like to show off how much power they have and how self defense is, indeed, justified.
They do and undo like there’s no consequences whatsoever.
They always talk about how giving coverage leads to copycats. Typically that has meant me getting pissed at the over coverage of mass shootings, but now I’m sitting here waiting like… Okay? Any day now? Maybe not.
There are lots of finger-pointing here. Funko said the takedown was done by their partner, BrandShield. BrandShield said it was a URL-specific (or is it subdomain?) takedown, not the whole domain. The registrar, Iwantmyname, responded said takedown by taking down the WHOLE domain.
I think Funko shouldn’t have trusted AI to do legal-related stuff. BrandShield is a stupid idea born from the AI-hype. It’s stupid and shouldn’t have existed. Iwantmyname is just as incompetent if not more–they haven’t even released any public statement about this. Their customer support are also slow to response apparently.
Itch.io should move domain registrar. Funko should stop using BrandShield, it only damages their brand more.
Also what’s up with Funko calling someone’s mom lol. that’s stupid
I also think that this is why AI won’t replace our jobs. I’ve seen many instances where technologies replaces jobs, but this ain’t it
I think Iwantmyname may be the worst player in this story.
Everyone else kind of did what they were expected to do:
But:
The rest might be decent business partners if you are looking for their kind of service but Iwantmyname isn’t to be trusted.
Agree, though I would not use the word “decent” about BrandShield or Funko. Being harmfully lazy and immoral legally and according to contract is still harmfully lazy and immoral.
While the registrar should have made more to understand the situation before acting, it’s important to keep in mind that according to itch.io, the request was not a DMCA takedown but an accusation of “fraud and fishing”. There’s probably a very large legal exposure for a registrar to let criminal website use their service if they are made aware of it, so reducing their liability is probably their highest priority.
BrandShield is inexcusable for using such a claim as a first step.
The Idea to use AI to detect possible copyright infringements isnt even that bad. Its gets bad when you trust the AI to be able to tell things apart. If the alerts from the AI aren’t reviewed by humans it is doomed to fail.
URL-specific and they go to the registrar? What can they do, they don’t manage the hosting
Also: brand shield says they only wanted the url gone but you don’t get that when talking to the registrar. Registrar are all or nothing, so clearly they knew they were doing this
I think this is a very important point. Why would you talk to a registrar of the domain to get a specific page offline. This doesn’t make sense.
The question is are they really that incompetent, or are they really that malicious? Add in mislabeling the report as fraud instead of infringement, I lean towards them being malicious, but I guess that could also be gross incompetence. Either way, Brandshield looks terrible.
yup. someone is lying here
Well put, they can’t just palm it off on the third party. You hired them and green lit the action.
You just know that their “AI driven platform” is a call to google for the brand names they’re “protecting” followed by takedown requests issued to the registered email followed by one to the registrar for every domain found.
We need a new internet because this one is fucked.
Where’s Rache Bartmoss when you need em?