Bluesky Post (this was also posted on twitter)

I was hoping to find a statement from the aggressor, but it seems to be too early.

  • HexesofVexes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    I mean, it sounds like a lawsuit to me.

    1. A takedown request was issued on false grounds.

    2. This takedown was then actioned without any due process.

    3. The issue has caused tangible, and measurable, loss (calculable from prior sales records).

    Honestly, there needs to be a fixed penalty fine for bad takedowns…

    • simple@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      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…

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      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.

    • peto (he/him)@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

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

      • Vespair@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Imo we need to start attaching criminal penalties to the people behind businesses that knowingly abuse their power and position like this. Corporate bullying isn’t a financial position, it’s a failing of ethics.

        • acockworkorange@mander.xyzEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          Yup. The first couple of times might have been a mistake subject to fine. The third time you’re facing criminal contempt of the rule of law.

    • Dasnap@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

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

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        The DMCA doesn’t make false requests legal (I’m also not sure if this specific issue falls under the DMCA), but it does fail to define any meaningful penalty for making them.

    • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      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)