Statement is from https://xcancel.com/OriginalFunko/status/1866255848366039468#m
From: https://xcancel.com/BrandShieldltd/status/1866161489528180988#m
Edit, bonus panel! What scum.
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
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.
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.
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.
