Post
itch.io
@itch.io
I kid you not, has been taken down by Funko of "Funko Pop" because they use some trash "AI Powered" Brand Protection Software called Brand Shield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain
December 9, 2024 at 4:13 PM
3.9K reposts
940 quotes
6.6K likes
Honestly, however much we all hate Funko, it seems like they're only the third-worst culprit in this case (behind Brand Shield and iwantmyname)
Itch should sue Funko, their registrar, and the BrandShield for loss of business on behalf of their own interests and the interest of their users, developers, and buyers. Because this is something that not only affects itch, but also everyone that hosts jams and releases software and games on there.
The quote was meant to be a "Hey, we shouldn't leave computers to make choices" and companies looked at it and go "We can blame all our shitty things on machines and just say we can't control what it does to avoid any accountability."
An AI made up a report that was sent to another AI that accepted it and now there's a very real human devop trying to undo the AI fuckup.
Peak "AI revolution" moment. This bubble can't burst soon enough.
funny thing, looks like BrandShield plagiarized parts of some other company's "glossary" to fill out its own. infringement for me, sham takedowns for thee
Everyone is focused on Funko for the bad report, but I think the real problem is the registrar. Sometimes people make bad reports in good faith ( clearly not this one ) and the registrar needs to handle that correctly.
And on the other side of things, unfortunately, they sit on something that's clearly fraud sometimes, usually with the excuse that they can't shut down their paying customers. Even with phishing.
But when it comes to any claims, they usually give a 48 hour notice + investigation time MINIMUM.
First of all, any claim Funko makes about damage to their brand is false by definition
this sounds like grounds of the start of a class action lawsuit for damages honestly. even if you can't do it yourself, some of the companies that sell on itch probably can, so...
We get to be part of this class action even if our 'game' is a weird art joke statement that no-one's ever played... <padme>right?</padme>
This is a lawsuit.
This is time, and money lost for you, and Creators!
Get their Ass!
"Oops! Our AI powered crimes machine did a crime! You can't hold us responsible though, it was the crimes machine that did it!"
we should let them feel the combined force of our ai lawteam and ai enforcersquas, and by that i mean a concerning amount of sternly worded but intentionally vague emails
🦝funko being jealous of the infinite creativity on itch, something they'll never have
🦝while funko is getting "brand shield" I should counter by getting "bland shield" so I don't have to look at em
🦊Not surprised Funko is using AI since all their figurines also look like they used AI
I hope you sue for lost revenue and sales and the incurred costs of restoring itch.io.
Irresponsible or fake reports are a blight on the internet. It would be nice if someone sued the crap out of that tool.
Now to be fair, a lot of games you host are violating their hard-earned design trademark by featuring two level black circles
I hope you get a lot of fucking lawsuit money out of this bullshit
Are you fucking kidding me? Why in the fresh hell would you give AI the power to do stuff like this? I seriously hope you guys sue the crap out of Funko for this BS.
For all the armchair lawyers saying stuff like " i smell a lawsuit". There is tons of ways this can be settled that are more likely. Lawsuits on that level are expensive af and we shouldn't fuel the fire in that way. Itch should come back in the most sustainable way possible for them.
Financial settlement, with an amount lower than what we could expect from a lawsuit
Another reason to hate Funko Pop.
Hey, do you have a plan to obtain a new domain when the Indian ocean top level domain becomes deprecated? It's gonna be really sad to see itch of all things sunset that extension.
We need a law stating that persistent abusers of "Intellectual Property" law need to have their "property" confiscated and handed to the Public Domain.
Congratulations to Funko for not being complacent in being the worst in the physical world and gunning for Nintendo's crown in the digital world, too.
If tech firms would actually employ experienced staff who knew what they were doing, there wouldn't be the need for all this AI sh*t in the first place.
This is really bad look! I mean Funko makes a decent bit of merch based on popular indie game properties.
If they want to continue such things in the future they best learn to not use half baked "AI" tools that end up hurting the business of hundreds of indie devs.
Garbage Company--literally putting their stock directly into landfills.
You mean that brand that solely profits off other people's IP and creates nothing of it's own?
There is chain of people at BrandShield, , and iwantmyname who probably leave their microwave clocks on summertime for the whole winter.
Good will and health, I wish you all a very good "sue them for triple the company's current worth."
Additionally, I have multiple games on itch which are now unavailable thanks to them, so if a class action shows up, put me on the mailing list.
corporate overreach never looked so creatively absurd. disheartening.
...Jesus fucking christ, this is ridiculous. Gotta love AI-powered abuse
???
Hoping that this gets resolved soon - y’all don’t deserve getting taken down by a trash corp using trash AI software
Getting some traction on Hacker News: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4236...
Time to sue! Maybe you can get a bunch of money from this whole scam ordeal.
It's almost like these companies should be held accountable? Like there should be some sort of, I don't know, rules in place governing this sort of thing?
But that would stifle innovation and private enterprise, can't have that
I wonder if can shed any light or speed up a fix?
Dude I'm so sorry to hear this :( i was about to show someone a game my friend made when I realized it's all down. Hopefully they'll get it back up very soon
That is annoying… you can contact them with their email: support@funko.com it’s best to flood them with complaints and if it’s not working, sent them a lawsuit, it will scare them even more.
Sounds like Funko Pop needs to Fucko Off (is this anything?)
Mmm, testing panels were largely unmoved by it, preferring "Funko Poop" instead.
I smell a lawsuit... Hope the website gets back up soon. This is terrible.
Would it be any help for additional people to contact iwantmyname's support team ("the best on the planet" apparently) about this? Maybe people who have stuff on sale on Itch?
ummm... who cares? stop giving greedy indie devs your money and play a good game instead.
Hopefully Bluesky doesn't break your handle's domain link in the short term.
uh, can you sue them? :[ that sucks
Yet one more reason to dislike the slopmaking company that is Funko. Ofc registrar and Brand Shield are also to be hated
Wishing you guys all the best :( I hope you'll be able to get the site back up and running soon
Totally shows how the free market works perfectly and no regulations are needed ever.
...You know what, I give up. This year's too fuckin weird. Next!
Wtf. I'm so sorry. This is dumb and Funkos are trash anyway.
Good luck to all of you guys, hope everything will be fixed as soon as possible
Oh this fucking sucks I'm sorry man I hope things get resolved quick, fuck funko, their dumbass brand bullshit, and your registrar honestly
I'd never heard of them, now I have. Perhaps that was the point?
Holy actual fucking shit! On a Sunday? Wow, bullshit scammers never actually have to sleep now they’re powered by stolen IP masquerading as AI.
Not much of a protection when it's actively creating legal issues left, right, and center.
Could you maybe post the IP you previously had on the A/AAAA records on the DNS so people could override it in their hosts file to gain access temporarily?
Looks like the main site is 45.79.115.66 but good luck with all the subdomains. Hopefully this is enough noise for that clown registrar to fix this quickly.
Their DNS is at Cloudflare, so you can e.g.
dig itch.io @dawn.ns.cloudflare.com
How is that even a thing that can happen? I hope you fix everything and get compensation.
do you have an IP address that I can connect to in the meantime? I like to browse
This is fucking bullshit. I'm very sorry for your trouble.
Great, even more reason to not buy those stupid mass look-a-like figures.
What in the actual FUCK?? Is there nothing that can be done to resolve this? There's so much good stuff on your website!
I really hope you guys look into suing them. Leaving a computer responsible to such reports, which harm y’all and the games on y’all’s platform financially, entirely automatically is insane and should have consequences.
Great, so I can't use all my RPG Maker stuff I've purchased currently. Thanks Funko. ;w;
Another reason to hate funkos aside from being fuckass ugly
My goodness, what a mess. I hope this can be fixed but what a terrible way of working, also by iwantmyname. This feels so surreal, but I guess anything is possible nowadays.
Do you think this will be more of a quick annoyance or a "several-days-long fight" kind of problem
Friends buying and bankrolling Funko pops don't look to wise today, no sir.
Problem aside, literal almost any merch is better merch than choosing a Funkopop.
Whaaaat the fuck funko?!?!?! Absolute horseshit, hope y'all are able to get itch back up ASAP!
Oh wow that's painful on so many levels! 🤦♂️ Hope it gets sorted out soon.
I already hated Funko, but now I have even more reason to hate them.
Just how in the SHODAN did it link "Funko" to "itch.io"?!
That's infuriating. Believe it or not I was having a conversation about how much Funko pops suck earlier today for unrelated reasons
Class action lawsuit on behalf of all itch users?
Ooouuaaaghhh I was actively on itch when it was taken down I’m so pissed I hope you get well soon
Everyday I get a new reason to loathe ai
...Are we fucked? Like. Is there no way to get itch back at all? Is everything that was on there gone?
they dont have access to the domain, their servers weren't shut down. absolute worst case scenario should be that they would have to register with a new domain, (and potentially resetup all their dns stuff). but no content should be lost by this
wtf, thats messed up. Even more reasons to hate funko, hope you get your domain back
Hey , unfortunately another bookmark
This is a situation where is actually a good shout.
Cloudflare have a good reputation with regard to not disabling domains without actually reviewing the report properly.
I wonder if there's grounds for a lawsuit somewhere in this...
Funko pop just getting trashier...
I hope the issue will be solved soon.
Damn, we're absolutely with you on this. If you need any help here, feel free to ask.
I think the fallout from this will be great for their brand, so looks like it's working as intended. /s
I hope this is as temporary as possible.
I can’t imagine why the funko ceo would be so out of touch and delusional to think that someone wants to copy their shitty pieces of plastic
Oh wow, that's horrible! I hope that you manage to talk... >whoever< is applicable into getting the site back up!
(And it's tempting to suggest using this as precedent for legislation against things like "Brand Shield", or the exclusive use thereof at least.
But I also realise that you may well have your own stuff to deal with, and so may not feel that you have the bandwidth to take on a fight like that!)
In a just world you could sue both the registrar, Funko, and maybe the people making the garbage software into oblivion for something like that
I hope you get it back soon, I am so sorry. Yall don't deserve this :(
But AI and automatic reporting are saving $BRAND from certain ruin, we can't just NOT do it…
Thank god I dodged a bullet on Funko Fusion, because what in the actual hell?!?!
what the holy fuck, i sincerely hope this can be fixed. and can you get a new registrar?
I WAS LITERALLY JUST PLAYING A GAME ON ITCH AND I THOUGHT MY INTERNET DIED????
weirdest monday morning news i've had in a while, and considering All of Last Week that's saying something
