Bluesky Post (this was also posted on twitter)
I was hoping to find a statement from the aggressor, but it seems to be too early.
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I’d bet these fan projects lead to more sales of their garbage products, but these corporations don’t see that because they want that licensing money now. Or they’re just spiteful and vindictive like Nintendo.
On one level, I sympathize with companies like Nintendo, I don’t want to, BUT companies are supposed to make efforts to protect their IP or they run the risk of losing those exclusive protections when it matters later on (abandonment). So if they want to continue their IP rights, they’re supposed to defend it against anything that comes along. I still don’t like it, but I kind of understand why they have to do it.
Granted, I think they could come up with some sort of licensing terms that would made it easy for solo developers to still develop small-time projects to encourage people to create these one-off labors of love, similar to what alot of TTRPG developers do, but for whatever reason, they go the hardball approach, which just creates bad feelings in the community.
https://www.themyerslg.com/blog/what-happens-if-you-dont-defend-your-ip/
They have to defend their trademark. They don’t have to defend copyright, and most of Nintendo’s reputation comes from copyright claims. Someone streaming a let’s play isn’t selling a counterfeit Mario game, they’re just showing you things in a real Mario game, so there’s no trademark claim.
They’re also big abusers of the fact that most of the people they make copyright claims against can’t afford to defend themselves against such a behemoth. Even if you’re sure you’ve not violated their copyright and your lawyer’s sure, too, it’ll be much cheaper to roll over than get the legal system to agree with you.
I don’t want to, BUT companies are supposed to make efforts to protect their IP or they run the risk of losing those exclusive protections when it matters later on (abandonment).
My understanding is that 1.- they are not forced to defend against every possible case of trademark usage 2.- they are not obligated by law to be jerks about it and 3.- this applies to trademark only, not copyright or patents.
“We did not commit crime, we commited it with alforithm”. Cory Doctorow had talk about it long before AI was mainstream.
“We did not commit crime, the algorithm committed crime”, rather
I don’t remember what exactly he said, but I think it was from this video.
Might be a good time to change domain while you’re at it, if .io is about to be retired.
It probably won’t be.
Not only is the agreement between the UK and Mauritius on the brink of collapsing (bizarrely, the UK is trying to get rid of territory and Mauritius doesn’t particularly want it very much), but there’s so much reliance on the .io domain that it’s unlikely to be removed.
Especially because tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Apple make use of it.
ICANN is pretty strict about this following some complications that happened back in the 90’s . No country, no country code, no domain. No matter who, no matter what.
I mean,
.sustill exists.That is the event that icann uses as it’s reason to be strict about it.
And so do Soviet Union too. /s
The only thing you can rely on from ICANN is that they will do whatever is most profitable for their board members.
Though they have made odd decisions before. IO is generic and widely-used enough that it doesn’t seem implausible that they might change it to not be tied to the Indian Ocean territories.
.io will be removed from a country code and over to a cosmetic domain like .sex
It’s really not that complicated
That would make it the only 2 letter non country code top level domain. And could also cause issues if another country is later assigned io as it’s 2 letter country code by ISO
No, it would make it the second 2 letter non country code top level domain. .su is the other.
No it would be the first. .su is still considered a CCTLD http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/su.html
And so could .io
I will take it
They want to change it? But why?
I think they are referring to this.
As in, it’s not that they want, they might have to.
Looks like they switched to 1api.net
Good. If a registrar causes issues because of their own non-response during their own investigation then it’s useless.
I wish to avoid any and all companies which do not have actual customer service, but I don’t know if this is possible without spending a lot of extra money.
unfortunately we’ve entered an era where not wanting to condone/support/endorse/encourage shitty corporate behavior requires the sacrifice of not getting to enjoy most products and conveniences that are available. theyre often enjoyed by many other folks who just shrug and say “everyone else is doing it”
I find most companies that undercut their competitors’ prices are cutting corners somewhere I don’t want to be involved in. quality and customer service has a price. I try as hard as I can to pay that price, or just do without.
just try your best, pick your battles; it’s all anyone can do without going insane and/or full modernity-hermit
(reminds me of the cattle “rancher” in ‘king corn’ who says theyd love to go back to selling grass fed, grass finished beef, but all anyone wants to buy is cheapass, corn sileage-stuffed feed lot crap, so it’s either sell that, or go out of business. producers cant just choose their market; there has to be a demand for it.)
It works for me now? Not sure how long ago this was, timewise, but at least they are back on.
Still doesn’t work for me.
That can be just your DNS server having it cached. The servers behind it still exist
Yup. 45.33.107.166 works.
Welcome to Web 3 I guess. Automated systems ignoring real actors
Web 3 was crypto scams, we’re up to web 6 or 7 by now
Web 3.0 was actually the Semantic Web originally, the cryptobros are bad at counting.
AI scams
Back up at least
WTF
AI will take our jobsAI will create more jobs because there will be dedicated staff who needs to handle the fallout when it does stupid shit
Turns out we can solve the unemployment crisis by just creating problems for ourselves! Let’s start throwing eggs at windows to get window cleaners more business.
This is surely what Reagan envisioned every Spring.
Yeah but it’s gonna be those slimy lawer-types
This is the future of Feudalism
What the absolute fuck? itch.io is fucking massive, how did the registar just treat them like this? goddamn!
They’re not really all that massive, just a medium-large fish in a small pond. If this had been about Microsoft or Sony or some other brand that any random non-gamer you stop in the street will have heard of, they might have gotten special treatment from the registrar, but itch.io? Not even nearly big enough. gog wouldn’t be either. Steam might just pass the minimum threshold.
So if you’re a small pond how do you treat your medium-large fish this way of not even listening to their response?
The registrar probably treats all their customers shoddily when problems arise, and itch may not be that large a customer—do we know how many domains itch actually had with them? Probably not enough to form a significant percentage of the registrar’s income, and either that or the possibility of Rabid Attack Lawyers (which the big companies like Microsoft have on retainer) would be required to get special treatment from many companies.
I’m not saying that the registrar is in the right. They messed up, and it would serve them right to go under for this (although they probably won’t). I’m just saying that it’s unsurprising that itch was mistreated by a corporate bureaucracy.
There is no way in hell that steam would have this happen, the amount of money they have behind them combined with the name alone, no registrar would dare disable their domain without being damn sure what was happening was actually happening.
Stream would seek the registar for restitution/compensation, and if you take the yearly Revenue and divide that by the hours in a year they are approaching the $1,000 an hour mark. Of course this number would be different if they actually took it to court. But due to this alone I highly doubt their domain Handler(Mark Monitor) would touch that claim with a 10-ft pole without doing some pretty intensive research
There’s been an aggressive push against gaming recently. Check all the recent Steam news.
I haven’t seen anything like that. What steam news specifically are you referring to?
They are probably referring to this: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/millions-examples-extremist-and-antisemitic-content-found-steam-new and this: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/steam-is-an-unsafe-place-for-teens-and-young-adults-us-senator-warns-gabe-newell-of-more-intense-scrutiny-from-the-government-if-valve-doesnt-take-action-against-extremist-content/
Oh yeah those reports where they count pepe the frog as extremists content.
It’s it anti video games to point out something that is actually happening? Just because you love the company doesn’t mean that any bad news is an attack against the industry. Valve doesn’t want to moderate their forums, it was bound to happen.
Valve doesn’t want to moderate their forums, it was bound to happen.
Of course! Big government needs to save us from our 1st amendment rights. Thanks so much. I don’t think I’d have figured it out without your help.
1st amendment applies to public spaces, not a forum owned by a private company.
if it’s the government that is doing the censoring, against the will of both the users and the private company, how does it not apply here then?
Seems to me it’s quite public because anyone can access their space by simply creating a free account. You’ve seemingly equated the letter of the law to the spirit.
edit: What the above poster isn’t legally understanding is quasi-public spaces. Ethically, they’re simply failing entirely.
The 1st is there so the government doesn’t step in and create laws prohibiting speech. It’s there to stop the gov from stifling free speech. It’s not there to give you a location to use free speech.
I am a big GOG enjoyer myself, but when I need to use steam for anything, I have never encountered such content. Perhaps there is such content in private or otherwise not very visible spaces (such as user profiles), where they will not get reported, but that is true for any site with user content. I call BS on this being an issue.
Really? Because in my experience you have to wade through racist, homo- and transphobic, and misogynistic shit the second you foolishly open the discussions page on any game that features black or brown, LGBTQIA, and/or female characters.
As I said, I have never seen anything I would consider extremist myself. Though from your reply, I get the feeling the issue could be an unreasonably broad definition of extremist content on your side. That or I just happen to not visit games with such discussions.
Much of that is just bots and if you spend any measurable time on the internet you start to ignore stuff with variable capital letter words and emoji spam so it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that the person you’re responding to, doesn’t see that stuff. I don’t really either. My brain auto filters paragraphs of anti woke/racist rhetoric like pop-up ads.
I am a big GOG enjoyer myself, but when I need to use steam for anything, I have never encountered such content.
You’ve never seen a Pepe meme on Steam? I’m not kidding there either - if you dig into that ADL link and follow it to the research, they have a list of top extremist and hateful symbols on Steam and the swastika is number 2 at 9 percent of detected symbols. #1, representing something like 55% of extremist and hateful symbols their automated detector found on Steam was Pepe.
Perhaps there is such content in private or otherwise not very visible spaces (such as user profiles), where they will not get reported, but that is true for any site with user content. I call BS on this being an issue.
If you dig into their research, it’s mostly private user groups and profiles. Game discussion pages are moderated by their respective devs or whoever the devs appoint but user groups are moderated by their owner/appointees and user profile pages aren’t really moderated at all unless you’re doing something actually illegal in the US.
So unless you go looking at the user profile pages of white supremacists, or go searching for white supremacist user groups you won’t run into much of it.
Pepe isn’t hate speech. It was re-co opted by the creator and I often see it in queer friendly gamer spaces. If your threshold for hate speech is a cartoon frog, you may need to recalibrate. Most people do not see it as such and do not use it as such.
So unless you go looking at the user profile pages of white supremacists, or go searching for white supremacist user groups you won’t run into much of it.
Yeah, that is my point. How can people be radicalized by something they don’t see?
Also, as non American, I find it mental that pepe memes are considered hate symbols now.
All you need to do is join a Rust server and then look at some profiles.
If you only check the forums for technical questions then you’ll dodge it, if you look at the non tech sections for certain games (with diversity or ambiguous message like Hell Divers) then it’s something else.
Care to provide a link? I just skimmed Helldivers 2 discussions a bit and found nothing extremist.
Edit: The worst I found so far is this, which is pretty dumb but not really at the level of “dangerous”, or where it obviously needed to be removed.
Valve doesn’t want to moderate their forums
Devs and publishers are mods of their forums, if it’s too much for them they can add community mods or lock their forums (like some do).
And ultimately they’re still Valve’s responsibility. If you provide a platform, you’re responsible for what people do on it.
Actually this is the purpose of section 230, to remove the responsibility of the provider in terms of content. The steam discussion forums would be a form of social media and therefore steam as a whole under at least US law would not be responsible for the content that’s posted on it.
Please note that this doesn’t mean that they can’t moderate their forums, section 230 does allow the owner of the platform to dictate what they want on the forums as long as they’re acting in good faith.
In my opinion section 230 is healthy for an environment, because it’s primary purpose was to prevent an individual from being able to sue the company as a whole for Content that someone else posted, which in my opinion is fair. If someone produced libel against someone, that’s something they need to handle with the person who posted it. It doesn’t make logical sense for the person to go after the platform that held the content as they wern’t involved in that process.
This is what manufacturing consent looks like. This increasing barrage of news about a topic, most of which is based on nuggets of truth but stretched so thin you can see your hand on the other side. The idea is to make you believe something needs to be done just with the sheer volume of time spent talking about something.
The reality is that the ADL is a Zionist front that is full of shit even on their best day, and they want control over Valve the same way they have the CEOs or owners of Reddit, Meta, and even smaller players like Bumble under their thumb. You watch, they will pressure the government to act and then when the squeeze is coming, offer Valve an easy out by joining their special advisory board on tech.
So instead we should let racists, misogynists and lgbtphobes make people believe that something needs to be done to protect white men from oppression?
What are you even talking about?
You say it like it’s okay to do if you are not fucking massive.
Obviously that’s not what I meant. Be charitable.
That’s pretty crazy.
Huh, so I’ve always disliked funkopoops but just because I didn’t like the mass production design and they were made in China with no evidence trying not to be made with slave labor.
Now I have a new reason
Back when I opened my comic and game shop (I no longer do comics, just games) I tried to get an account with Funko directly. They did not believe me that New Mexico is in the United States. The response was along the lines of, “if you feel that you are in the United States, we can pursue this further. But I suggest you opening an account with one of our Latin American distributors.”
Did you send them a map?
I could understand that if they were an overseas company, but they are from the US. That had to be one of the most incompetent customers service reps ever.
Yeah, New Mexico IDs and license plates both say “New Mexico, USA” for exactly this reason. So many people have almost been illegally arrested and turned over to ICE by incompetent cops during traffic stops. Cops will pull New Mexico plates over, see the New Mexico ID, and demand to see visa paperwork because they think the person is from Mexico.
Good they are not sending people from New York back to England But you got to admit, some of the naming choices are ridiculous, what’s with all those Paris-es and Pragues.
New Mexico was actually named before Mexico was named.
https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-faq/why-is-new-mexico-called-mexico/
Wow, that’s an unexpected twist.
The customer service rep is also AI. And if it isn’t, u can bet your ass in 5 years its just going to be AI all the way down for anything support related. Literally anything to not have to pay humans for work.
You oughta make a tax on that AI stuff, Camacho
Come on now, Camacho was actually a great leader. He made the smart guy an advisor, stood back, and just let him work.
I did try to kill him that one time though, but we’re cool now.
Nah, you rehabilitated him.
I feel like I’m crazy because I can’t see our own leaders doing that due to sheer hubris
That’s how Camachos are made.
The customer service rep is also AI.
I would believe this, except it was in 2019.
It is not uncommon, I was almost arrested when I moved to PA because I did not have a passport, or visa, or green card to go with my NM ID that clearly says USA on it for this very reason. Our license plates also say USA on them.
Maryland also refused me a license twice saying that I needed proof I am a citizen, despite having my NM birth certificate.
I also had two other distributors tell me they do not sell to Mexico.
The president elect also has made the mistake. He said we need a border wall between Mexico and Colorado.
I always knew Americans in general were bad with global geography… but to not even know their own states? That sounds insane.
Heck, in our Dutch schools, we actually learn all the states in the United States. I definitely know New Mexico is a state. Same as Alaska and Hawaii (but not Puerto Rico, which is a territory but not a state)
How am I better at this than actual Americans? That should not be a thing.
I learned all the states at a 4th grader. Perhaps earlier even. I generally believe this is not a case of people not being taught, but a case of people not paying attention or otherwise info-dumping information they don’t think they need.
There was a point when i was in the military where I could literally write in the names of every country in the world on a blank map. It’s been years since I had to do that and I wouldn’t be able to do it now.
Well I’d certainly hope the people in the military get properly trained. You’d hate to confuse Austria and Australia or Georgia (state) and Georgia (country) if you ever needed to bomb or invade either one of them :D
It was not for the purposes of bombing. It was for the purposes of recognition of their military aircraft and weapons systems.
I think people see/hear the Mexico part and they ignore the New bit. I have found that if I say NM vs New Mexico while working with a new distributor there is no confusion.
When I was in school I had to learn all 50 states and their capitals as well as be able to find them on a map.
I never get tired of Europeans being surprised at the average intelligence here, thank you for making me giggle. The average American is about as smart as a stick, and as we both know, sticks aren’t good at geography
Less than as smart as*
Wouldn’ it it be “less smart than”?
A solid percentage of Americans are dumber than shit. Ive also encountered folks who thought that California is independent from the United States and also Muslim for some fucking reason. As a born, raised, and actively living in California I can garuntee neither of those facts are true. Seriously we are at worst nationalistic not independent.
Your English is also better than people in my family whose ancestors were 18th-century British colonists.
I once had a heated argument with a coworker about where the capital of the US is located. He was of the opinion that Washington state was the capital and Washington, DC was a US city located in Colombia (he also had difficulty understanding that Colombia and Columbia were spelled differently). He wasn’t trolling; when I finally got to a map (pre-smart phone days) and showed him where DC is located, he got really mad.
Thank you, we take pride in our language education.
We learn English, French and German in school, which really helps when dealing with the rest of Europe. Whenever you meet someone from another European country, chances are you can find at least one language you both speak. Makes trade and travel a lot easier.
I do occasionally slip up when talking to Americans. We’re generally taught UK and US English here simultaneously. Which means I sometimes have the UK spelling in my head, which can differ slightly. For example, flavour vs flavor. Online, I usually try to keep it ‘US English’.
Yeah, I can absolutely see that ‘District of Columbia’ argument in my head :D You’d assume people at least know that one considering how much important stuff happens there. I’d understand if someone not from the US didn’t know. But Americans really should.
I’ve experienced the language skills of Nederlanders first hand! What I found to be most striking was hearing people having trilingual conversations especially in restaurants where the waitstaff were actively communicating individually with dozens of people in two to three languages.
I’ve tried to keep up with language skills but starting a language in high school or college just didn’t work for me. Especially since the application of those skills prioritizes written communication. I always end up with an understanding of pronunciation, some grammar, and a handful of vocabulary that I can’t actively use.
I don’t think any Americans are judging you too harshly for UK spellings. I think keeping track of all the slang and colloquialisms would be the greater challenge. I was taught “grey” and “colour” as a kid and the only problem I have is with spellcheck. 😂
Ha, the slang and colloquialisms are actually the easy part, really!
We are subjected to an awful lot of US culture in general. We watch Hollywood movies and we get most US shows, which are shown with subtitles here. We also follow US news and events, we enjoy US music, we use a lot of the same services, etc. Basically, if I moved to the US, I’d fit right in.
We tend to enjoy US culture quite a bit. We might disagree on topics like politics, healthcare, gun issues or the metric system, but by and large we’re like… Canadians.
I had problems with TSA before because my real ID confused them and they didn’t believe it was a valid US ID. Granted, this was at a regional airport, but it’s literally the ID that complies with requirements set by Homeland Security for the specific purpose of use in airports by TSA.
Edit: and my ID isn’t even from New Mexico!
I am planning to get a passport to alleviate the issues of traveling with a NM ID.
This reminds of the story of some company not shipping to the Rhode Island because it’s an island not a state. Maybe someone here remembers more details
