...something happened. Growing up, I had cats that ate squirrels. Then, sometime around the early 2000s, I had cats that were being chased by squirrels.
My ex's cat spent a lot of time outdoors and in the barn, and picked up the "chit-chit-chit" noise that angry squirrels make. The cat does it every time she's annoyed.
They, in fact, do represent Funko. If you give someone legal authorization to act as your agent, you can't pretend that they aren't your agent when they act like your agent.
Funko might have beef with their agent, but that is between them and the agent. They still have to deal with the fact that they gave someone permission to do legal things on their behalf, and the someone acting on behalf of Funko caused damage to itch.io.
If a McDonalds employee serves me coffee that scalds me, I go after McDonald's, not the guy who McDonald's hired.
Funko says in the statement that they're dealing with it. They've reached out to itch.io to understand who's doing what, which isn't clear at this point. For example, the company itch.io previously identified as responsible for the domain being taken down has publicly stated - perhaps honestly, perhaps falsely - that they requested a takedown of only the one infringing URL. (https://x.com/BrandShieldltd/status/1866200019335794763)
> For example, the company itch.io previously identified as responsible for the domain being taken down has publicly stated - perhaps honestly, perhaps falsely - that they requested a takedown of only the one infringing URL. (https://x.com/BrandShieldltd/status/1866200019335794763)
They submitted a takedown to the domain registrar. That means they requested a takedown of the whole domain, because the registrar has absolutely zero ability to operate on a URL level of granularity. They can only take down the entire domain.
There are three possibilities here:
1. BrandShield submitted a takedown to the domain registrar knowing exactly what that meant, and is now lying about it, demonstrating that they should not be put in a position of power.
2. BrandShield submitted a takedown to the domain registrar not understanding what that meant, demonstrating a total lack of knowledge and/or level of incompetence that means they should not be put in a position of power.
3. BrandShield did not submit the takedown to the domain registrar at all, some other vendor did, and somehow no one has pointed that out yet.
Obviously #3 is unlikely given their public statements, so let's just say at this point there is absolutely no reason to give BrandShield any benefit of the doubt and their clients should be encouraged to find a vendor that isn't either lying or incompetent.
There's little reason to give BrandShield the benefit of the doubt, but there's plenty of reason for Funko to pause and collect all the right information before making specific statements about what happened.
Remember that there's some specific set of nontechnical people running comms at Funko, and they've probably never heard of a domain registrar before today. At a minimum they have to gather the stories they're hearing from both BrandShield and itch.io, identify who at Funko has the technical background to judge between the two, and convince that person to take time away from her normal responsibilities to evaluate some weird drama she doesn't care about.
Don't get me wrong, I find Funko's products to be overpriced trash that I don't understand why it fills up stores anywhere vaguely related to any kind of fandom, and I wish they would disappear, but that's neither here nor there.
BrandShield on the other hand I believe at this point we can reasonably have the pitchforks out for them and any other companies of their kind. Companies that exist to issue takedown requests, ironically, need to be taken down. Destroy them all. The world is a worse place for their existence.
When the system is riddled with holes, inefficiencies and micro-bureaucracies, and dealing with them it handled by outsourcing, it's incredibly easy to pass the buck around for all involved parties, in an effective game of Keep Away until any moderately frustrated invdividual simply gives up.
Occam’s razor suggests it’s the rich company that decided to take his website offline yesterday You know the only
People who don’t seem to like or know what itch even was
> "First of all, to be clear, we would never ask questions on such a topic in this way."
I love how they worded that. Having once worked for Ipsos, they DEFINITELY do it, but the sentence is correct, I don't recall any instances of it being done "on such a topic."
The art of pollsters is to produce results reflecting the hopes of whoever commissioned them, but with just enough even-handedness to look not-obviously-prepackaged.
So, does the fact that I have zero trouble focusing on the dot for 60 seconds mean I DON'T have ADHD, contrary to what so many people on social media have been trying to convince me?
Yeah, I used to stop at McDonald's on my way home from a big grocery run and stopped when I saw the fries there cost more than the giant bag of frozen fries I had just bought...
I'm always suspicious when I open comments and see a whole lot of people posting variations of the same talking points as top-level threads... even if I happen to agree with those points.
