Itch.io Down Thanks to Funko Pop's "AI"

Digital gaming storefront Itch.io announced on Bluesky that the cause of an outage early Monday morning was the pop culture collectable company Funko filing a complaint with their domain registrar. The filing came from an "AI Powered" Brand Protection Softare by Funko.. From the spost:

I kid you not, @itch.io 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

The site appears to be back online at this time. after several hours of downtime. Itch.io is one of the largest online storefronts for independent games including thousands of tabletop roleplaying games.

 

[Bohandas]

Another example of why the concept of intellectual property needs to be abolished

Things like this wouldn't happen if 'piracy' was treated as the non-issue that it is

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Another example of why the concept of intellectual property needs to be abolished

Things like this wouldn't happen if 'piracy' was treated as the non-issue that it is

That feels like a bit of an overreaction. But reforming intellectual property laws seems wise.

In this case, though, the real answer is that humans need to be involved to at least check in on big moves by AI, which is what AI advocates promised would happen in the past and is already not happening.

 

[Abstruse]

Another example of why the concept of intellectual property needs to be abolished

Things like this wouldn't happen if 'piracy' was treated as the non-issue that it is

IP law needs to be reformed, not abolished. Unless you want the end of all art since, without protections like copyright, no artist would be able to make money from their work. No more art, writing, books, music, TV, film, stage plays, nothing.

But that's also getting a bit off topic from the subject.

 

[Joshua Randall]

humans need to be involved to at least check in on big moves by AI, which is what AI advocates promised would happen in the past and is already not happening.

Exactly.

And if you are allowing so-called AI, or any system really, to make decisions without human oversight then you are at fault already, a priori. Because something WILL go wrong. Not IF, WHEN. And you've decided not to review that, just to let it happen.

 

[Gradine]

IP law needs to be reformed, not abolished. Unless you want the end of all art since, without protections like copyright, no artist would be able to make money from their work. No more art, writing, books, music, TV, film, stage plays, nothing.

Yes, because as we all know, nobody made art before money was invented

 

[Bohandas]

IP law needs to be reformed, not abolished. Unless you want the end of all art since, without protections like copyright, no artist would be able to make money from their work. No more art, writing, books, music, TV, film, stage plays, nothing.

They could definitely still get paid for their work. They would just have to ask the comissioner for payment in advance.

Also how the hell is someone gonna fileshare a stage play? Anyone going to a stage play instead of a movie is already going there for a live experience. And the existence of stage plays are proof positive that being paid once per performance instead of over and over again for about a century would not be the end of acting.

EDIT:
And in any case, producing entertainment is one thing that AI definitely can do, because there's no right answer. So we would be able to muddle through even if all the artists really did up and quit

 

[Bohandas]

Yes, because as we all know, nobody made art before money was invented

or to express themself or as a hobby

 

[Joshua Randall]

This is a specious argument. Great art is not coming out of socialist hellholes and never has.

 

[Gradine]

This is a specious argument. Great art is not coming out of socialist hellholes and never has.

That's gonna be a big ol' yikes from me, there.

We would have to be dismissing the flourishing artistic culture of post-revolutionary Cuba, but then, maybe Cuba gets to be an exception because it's not also a hellhole.

 

[J.Quondam]

This is a specious argument. Great art is not coming out of socialist hellholes and never has.

???
I don't honestly believe there's much correlation between art and the economic system its creators are embedded in.