Recently I wrote about how the much loved itch.io store got taken down by Funko (as in Funko Pop figures). The situation seems thankfully sorted with itch back up, but things got a little weird.
Writing on X / Twitter, the itch.io official account posted to mention Funko called their mother:
That's pretty crazy behaviour, if really true. Especially, when you see the below.
While the official Funko account an hour later on that same day posted up a statement:
At Funko, we hold a deep respect and appreciation for indie games, indie gamers, and indie developers. We’re fans of fans, and we love the creativity and passion that define the indie gaming community.
Recently, one of our brand protection partners identified a page on http://itch.io imitating the Funko Fusion development website. A takedown request was issued to address this specific page. Funko did not request a takedown of the @itchio platform, and we’re happy the site was back up by this morning.
We have reached out to @itchio to engage with them on this issue and we deeply appreciate the understanding of the gaming community as the details are determined. Thank you for sharing in our passion for creativity.
There's two issues with the statement. The first, is that there's not even a simply basic apology included there. The second, is that it wasn't just a simple take-down request. As itch founder Leaf "leafo" Corcoran posted on Hacker News:
I'm the one running itch.io, so here's some more context for you:
From what I 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, I 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 I had removed the page and disabled the account. Linode confirmed and closed the case. iwantmyname never responded. This evening, I 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 I decided to "escalate" the issue myself on social media.
What an absolutely insane situation.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: missingnerdWanted to check the reactions on their Twitter post before being reminded that Twitter comment sections are unusable since Elon took over 🤦♂️
For what its worth, itch.io also post on BlueSky.
I think I would be moving my domain registration elsewhere as a first action.
Quoting: KlaasWhy do they claim that they did not request a takedown of the itch.io domain, when that is exactly what happened as a result of their requests?
They claim, or at least imply, that they only requested the takedown of this specific page hosted within itch.io (the fansite, created by one specific developer), not the entire itch.io domain with a lot of other things.
Quoting: LoudTechieThis is a great example of "it can be done legally, but nobody actually does it" by the way.
The itch.io founder challenged the takedown.
In such a case they should receive a response from the rights holder within 24 hours.
They didn't.
If this was a DMCA takedwon request, they can now come and try this out in court, but the burden of proof lies with them and not everyone with a website has the budget and guts to take a coorperate behemoth to court.
Which is why this guy saw only the path of public shaming as a way out, which worked by the way.
He has a response.
As clarified by leafo, this was not a DMCA takedown. It was an abuse report claiming fraud and phishing, not copyright violation.
Though as you point out, they do put the effort to distance themselves: "a takedown was issued", not "we issued a takedown". And then "we did not request the takedown of the entire domain", which leaves space for someone else (like "the partner") to have done so.
Quoting: SalvatosI’m guessing whatever Funko or their agents did to find Leaf Corcoran’s phone number, they landed on an outdated one from when he still lived with his parents, or found something like a WHOIS record where he deliberately used theirs to obfuscate his own. As fun as the sensationalistic tweet/news title is, I doubt they went out of their way to call her rather than him.
Title is accurate, it's not saying they called Leafo's mother on purpose, it's the fact that they ended up calling her at all and, seemingly, when the person on the other end picked up and went "(Leafo's Mother's name here) residence.", they didn't immediately go "Oh jeez, sorry, we got the wrong number."
Honestly beyond it being weird, it's just plain unprofessional. Itch has a Contact Us page, they could have reached out on Twitter, Facebook, but somehow they decided they needed to call Leafo personally, something that is not an option that Leafo has chosen to provide publicly. Imagine for a moment if Valve decided to call you, personally, on your phone, to discuss something, as an example.
redneckdrow 12 hours ago
Bless yer hearts Funko, you gol'durned IDJITS!
Quoting: JustinWoodTitle is accurate, it's not saying they called Leafo's mother on purposeI made and make no claim otherwise, but that seems to be the conclusion that many commenters here and elsewhere have and will come to without further explanation, hence my wanting to point out that things did not necessarily unfold as one might imagine at first glance.
Quoting: JustinWoodit's the fact that they ended up calling her at all and, seemingly, when the person on the other end picked up and went "(Leafo's Mother's name here) residence.", they didn't immediately go "Oh jeez, sorry, we got the wrong number."They may very well have landed on her voicemail, and she may not have a personalized message on it, just a standard message stating the number. This kind of assumption is what I meant by the tweet and resulting article titles being sensationalistic: they provide too little information to paint an accurate picture of the situation, leading to kneejerk reactions from people filling the gaps with their own imagination and biases.
Quoting: JustinWoodHonestly beyond it being weird, it's just plain unprofessional. Itch has a Contact Us page, they could have reached out on Twitter, Facebook, but somehow they decided they needed to call Leafo personally, something that is not an option that Leafo has chosen to provide publicly.Agreed for the most part, except that for a legal matter such as this (his mom’s message suggests that this is about Leaf’s social media statements about Funko, not about the fuckup with Itch.io’s registrar) I wouldn’t be surprised to be contacted in a more direct and immediate manner rather than via my company’s customer service. It would also feel weird to receive a cease and desist via a Twitter DM.
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