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.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So maybe two dozen (some of whom you admit you cannot name) out of centuries, even millennia, if you insist on going back to the Greeks, in which folks were writing novels?

That's not a lot. In my own library I have hundreds of novels from scores of authors from just within the past few decades of my own life - and that's all genre stuff. No standard mysteries, westerns, romance...

In all, I don't see there's a solid argument there that the past, with lower expectations of financial success, were somehow better for literature.

I think this, at the least, is conflating together multiple things. Besides availability, one of the things that leaves many people unaware of earlier novels is that stylistic changes tend to make most fiction from farther back than a couple generations effectively opaque to one degree or another. We've had copyright for for a long time now, but I'm betting most people wouldn't be able to name a lot of well known novelists from the 20's, either. Fact is, only a small number of fiction authors ever end up being evergreens, and that has almost nothing to do with how much money they were able to make at the job.

 

[billd91]

Fact is, only a small number of fiction authors ever end up being evergreens, and that has almost nothing to do with how much money they were able to make at the job.

A lot has to do with works being included in some form of literary canon, their value promulgated through being deemed suitable by educators or publishing houses for extended life beyond the life of their authors.

 

[gban007]

Just an FYI, since author's rights and publishing rights (aka "copyright") emerged around the time of the early 18th century, almost all the examples you have here were produced under some form of copyright regime. It's also very clear that many of those authors motivation was making money (Dickens, Twain and Bram Stoker are very obvious examples).

Indeed from what I was seeing, Dickens and Twain at least fought for stronger copyright laws than were in place.

 

[Bunch]

There's a lot to copyright protection. The most basic is strict copying of a book. My guess is that's what Twain and others of that era are arguing for more protection against.
Then there is the intellectual property protection. This is things like fan fiction and derivative products like Harry Potter themed wands, theme parks etc.

Strict copying I'm all for protecting for a reasonable length of time.

The derivative stuff I'm personally less worried about protecting. I buy a ton of books for my family and I'm not convinced opening up derivative works would substantially harm most authors. I'll give you the big example. Take Rick Riordan. He has an imprint series like Tom Clancy where he slaps his name on other authors works to allow them to work in his worlds. When I present those to my kids they almost always say NO! Even with the original authors oversight and blessing the derivative books are rarely as good as the original authors so much so an 8 year old can tell after reading one or two

 

[Bohandas]

If society for some reason abandoned copyright, trademark, and intellectual property rights . . . which isn't going to happen . . . but if it did . . . it would be a big change for sure! It would change the type of media we'd get as consumers and it would certainly change the ability of artists to make a full-time living off their work.

But overall, would it be a negative change? I'm not convinced it would be.

We would certainly be getting less published novels to enjoy, but we'd still get literary works. We'd get less multi-million blockbuster movies and video games, maybe even no more at all! But we'd still get movies and video games. Same with comics, role-playing games, and other types of artistic media. The pace and scope of media being released for our enjoyment and consumption would slow . . . but it would not stop. And there is so much wonderful stuff on the market that is existing right now, you could never consume it all!

It would be even harder for artists, at least artists who aren't crafting physical things, to make a full-time living. So? It's already hard now . . . should an artist expect to be able to do their art full time without a "day job"? Sometimes I think I'd rather a future where we had less full-time artists and more part-time artists, where almost everyone was creating art in their free time to share with others . . . but not necessarily to earn a buck.

Ah well, just spitballin' here . . . I expect corporate driven increases in copyright and IP protection before I leave the mortal plane . . . I don't think I'll ever see it lessen or go away.

Agreed. These people who are saying that these things wouldn't be viable anymore, what they really mean is that they wouldn't be viable as a profession or as a sector of the economy. They would still be viable in the only way that is important; there would still be enough products available to the end user.

If every major media franchise was shuttered tomorrow and no studio or publisher ever touched them again it wouldn't significantly hurt those franchises in the least because there are more than enouh fanworks to cover the loss of the name brand crap.

Never buy name brand products. You're paying extra money for a logo. It's as true for Marvel as it is for Nike.

 

[Bohandas]

There's a lot to copyright protection. The most basic is strict copying of a book. My guess is that's what Twain and others of that era are arguing for more protection against.
Then there is the intellectual property protection. This is things like fan fiction and derivative products like Harry Potter themed wands, theme parks etc.

Strict copying I'm all for protecting for a reasonable length of time.

This I agree with. As long as it doesn't apply to infringement without monetary gain, and as long as the author is a person who is alive and not some guy who's been dead for 16 years or a corporate comittee designed to cancel out the humanity of its individual members

The intent of copyright law was to protect authors from publishers, not to protect publishers from the consumer.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

…not some guy who's been dead for 16 years or a corporate comittee designed to cancel out the humanity of its individual members

I was a copyright lawyer. I also create a variety of IP.

I always find it interesting that people are less willing to protect the creators of music or written works than someone who created a new gizmo, founded a restaurant, etc.

Why shouldn’t a writer’s heirs/successors in interest be able to enjoy the economic benefits of IP creators for a length of time like those of Henry Ford, or Carnagie Deli?

The intent of copyright law was to protect authors from publishers, not to protect publishers from the consumer.

It also protects IP creators from other IP creators.

 

[aramis erak]

Why shouldn’t a writer’s heirs/successors in interest be able to enjoy the economic benefits of IP creators for a length of time like those of Henry Ford, or Carnagie Deli?

Because Trademark and Copyright last FAR longer than Patent.

• Patent: 15 or 20 in the US, depending upon type. (Design 15, utility 20)
• Copyright,
  • for works written in/after 1978:
    • Single author Life+70
    • Multi-author last alive life+70
    • Work For Hire, corporate: 95 from publication or 120 from creation.
  • for works between 1963 and 1978: 95 years if copyright mark included or registerd
• Trademark:
  • Registered: 10 years, no limit on renewals, provided it is defended and in use.
  • Unregistered: as long as defended and used.
• Service Mark: same as trademark.
• Trade Secret: No US national protection; some states have some protections.

Note that due to the much shorter copyright durations of the first half of the 20th C, most of REH, HPL, Zane Gray, and other pulp authors works are in the public domain, but that most of the 80's and 90's lit won't be released into the public domain until the final years of the 21st Century... and no RPG from a major publisher will be, either, as they're mostly work for hire.

D&D OE goes PD in 2064...AD&D PHB in 2073... but most heartbreakers (being copyright their authors) from say, 1980 (when the first few really started to matter) have authors still alive... assuming no changes to extend it further.

Fred Hicks' Fate? He's not dead yet, so Jan 2095 if he dies next month... if he makes it another decade (and demographically he should get at least that), pushing into the 22d century (2105)...

Now, there is the workaround of rewording/paraphrasing. But that's closed a few games to international audiences. (France and Germany, with their creators rights, consider paraphrases violations, too.)

The Tabletop RP and War Gaming Industries have reacted with a mix of open licenses and fan use policies... so it's clear a lot of creators are NOT precious about their rules additions.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because Trademark and Copyright last FAR longer than Patent.

• Patent: 15 or 20 in the US, depending upon type. (Design 15, utility 20)
• Copyright,
  • for works written in/after 1978:
    • Single author Life+70
    • Multi-author last alive life+70
    • Work For Hire, corporate: 95 from publication or 120 from creation.
  • for works between 1963 and 1978: 95 years if copyright mark included or registerd
• Trademark:
  • Registered: 10 years, no limit on renewals, provided it is defended and in use.
  • Unregistered: as long as defended and used.
• Service Mark: same as trademark.
• Trade Secret: No US national protection; some states have some protections.

Note that due to the much shorter copyright durations of the first half of the 20th C, most of REH, HPL, Zane Gray, and other pulp authors works are in the public domain, but that most of the 80's and 90's lit won't be released into the public domain until the final years of the 21st Century... and no RPG from a major publisher will be, either, as they're mostly work for hire.

D&D OE goes PD in 2064...AD&D PHB in 2073... but most heartbreakers (being copyright their authors) from say, 1980 (when the first few really started to matter) have authors still alive... assuming no changes to extend it further.

Fred Hicks' Fate? He's not dead yet, so Jan 2095 if he dies next month... if he makes it another decade (and demographically he should get at least that), pushing into the 22d century (2105)...

Now, there is the workaround of rewording/paraphrasing. But that's closed a few games to international audiences. (France and Germany, with their creators rights, consider paraphrases violations, too.)

The Tabletop RP and War Gaming Industries have reacted with a mix of open licenses and fan use policies... so it's clear a lot of creators are NOT precious about their rules additions.

I’m quite aware of the lengths the various IP types are protected for. (Because IP lawyer.)

But note that the post I quoted mentioned a creator only “16 years” dead- shorter than utility patents.

The same quote also discusses corporate created IP. The fact that something was created by an incorporated group doesn’t diminish (or increase) its value as IP. A lot of artists use incorporating documents for the legal protections they offer. This is especially true when artists collaborate on a project.

 

[Bohandas]

I was a copyright lawyer. I also create a variety of IP.

I always find it interesting that people are less willing to protect the creators of music or written works than someone who created a new gizmo, founded a restaurant, etc.

The IP protections for gizmos only last 21 years IIRC. The IP protections for film, music, and written works last functionally forever