Itch doesn’t appear interested in suing unfortunately. I want them to, not because I’m bloodthirsty, but to set precedent that this wreckless use of AI content moderation isn’t OK. I can imagine Disney and Nintendo following this.
Yes, “reckful” is a real word, although it is rarely used in modern English. It means being thoughtful, careful, or prudent, essentially the opposite of “reckless.” It comes from the same root as “reck,” which means to care or pay attention to.
Examples of Usage:
In older texts, “reckful” might describe someone who is cautious or considerate of consequences:
“He was reckful in his approach, weighing every decision carefully.”
Why It’s Uncommon:
“Reckless” became the dominant term in English, and “reckful” fell out of common usage. Today, terms like “careful,” “prudent,” or “mindful” are more likely to be used in its place.
So while “reckful” is technically correct and would make sense in context, it might sound archaic or poetic to most modern English speakers.
They really should because the law has already decided that AI isn’t an independent entity, and is essentially just a computer program.
So whoever initiated the AI is ultimately responsible for its behavior, they can’t claim the AI malfunctioned because they chose not to bother having any human oversight, they knew that this was always a possibility and still they took responsibility for it.
My worry is that without a lawsuit or other action, we’ll keep seeing LLM slop companies taking down smaller websites for bogus reasons. This needs to be codified somehow that there were damages done to Itch’s earnings (and more importantly the earnings of the independent creators on the platform who should start a class-action suit), and that what Funko’s contracted LLM company did was wrong.
There’s financial damages, loss of profit, emotional distress, reputation loss, and more. We need to take action against these companies for their wrongdoing. So either they need to willingly pay up and have that payment be known and public, or they need to be made to pay by the courts.
The expression is actually “hear, hear!” A shortening of “hear him, hear him”, an instruction saying “listen to what this guy’s saying. It’s good shit.”
Itch is by no means a small time player. Doing some very fast statistics off of the game price breakdowns available and the counts of games available vs. the number they rate as best sellers, if 20% of their best sellers make a sale each day and 7.5% of their non-best sellers make a sale each day, assuming an average price for the three pricing filters of (under $5, $2.5), ($5 to $15, $10), (over $15, $20), then Itch sells approximately $20k/day. Half a day is $10k. If those averages are actually much higher in their respective areas, as in just below the maximum then the daily total jumps to over $35k/day. There is wiggle room in my assumptions, but it is safe to say that Itch sees about $25k±7k/day.
As mentioned in other suits, there are nonmonetary damages as well which are harder to quantify without access to their analytics such as reputation damage, lost traffic, maintenance and repair from the forced outage at the domain level, etc. I could see a suit for $50k in actual damages and another $500k-$1M in punitive damages to send the message that this behavior is intolerable in general.
A law firm capable of handling such a suit would probably bill at a rate of $2000/hr, or more.
If your numbers are right, then they could afford to pay for 20 hours of work. That’s probably not enough to even file the suit. Again, this assumes your numbers are right but even if they were 10x this it may still not make sense to file a suit.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the math works out in their favor.
Except that most firms that charge $2000/hour take the fee from the settlement, not up front, when doing civil litigation. Really only criminal law is paid directly by the client, at least in the US.
Well let’s say $30k, treble damages to $90k. So up to 45 hours of billable time before losing money. I don’t know how much time a suit takes, but I’m pretty sure it’s more than that. I don’t know how likely it is for them to award legal fees, either.
Even if they work on contingency, they’d still have to be sure they’d win and turn a profit before they’d take the case.
That is where punitive damages come in. Most huge settlements are substantially punitive, which are damages awarded not on merit, but with the express intent of making the settlement hurt enough that the offender, and others in similar situations, think twice about taking similar actions.
So, how much is Funko or their “partner” going to willingly pay Itch for their lost income? Or is there going to have to be a lawsuit?
Itch doesn’t appear interested in suing unfortunately. I want them to, not because I’m bloodthirsty, but to set precedent that this wreckless use of AI content moderation isn’t OK. I can imagine Disney and Nintendo following this.
I mean… a little bloodthirst is okay.
This isn’t wreckless. In fact, it’s fairly wrecking.
Commenting so that I remember to look it up, is reckfull a word? Or maybe reckful, knowing how English is weird about double 'l"s?
Chatgpt answer:
Yes, “reckful” is a real word, although it is rarely used in modern English. It means being thoughtful, careful, or prudent, essentially the opposite of “reckless.” It comes from the same root as “reck,” which means to care or pay attention to.
Examples of Usage:
In older texts, “reckful” might describe someone who is cautious or considerate of consequences: “He was reckful in his approach, weighing every decision carefully.”
Why It’s Uncommon:
“Reckless” became the dominant term in English, and “reckful” fell out of common usage. Today, terms like “careful,” “prudent,” or “mindful” are more likely to be used in its place.
So while “reckful” is technically correct and would make sense in context, it might sound archaic or poetic to most modern English speakers.
They really should because the law has already decided that AI isn’t an independent entity, and is essentially just a computer program.
So whoever initiated the AI is ultimately responsible for its behavior, they can’t claim the AI malfunctioned because they chose not to bother having any human oversight, they knew that this was always a possibility and still they took responsibility for it.
I don’t know itch’s daily profit, but I doubt a half day’s will be enough to warrant a suit.
My worry is that without a lawsuit or other action, we’ll keep seeing LLM slop companies taking down smaller websites for bogus reasons. This needs to be codified somehow that there were damages done to Itch’s earnings (and more importantly the earnings of the independent creators on the platform who should start a class-action suit), and that what Funko’s contracted LLM company did was wrong.
There’s financial damages, loss of profit, emotional distress, reputation loss, and more. We need to take action against these companies for their wrongdoing. So either they need to willingly pay up and have that payment be known and public, or they need to be made to pay by the courts.
Don’t worry false positives and AI go together like oil and fire.
Yes, which is why we should make every one of those false positives cost an arm and a leg to the perpetrators.
Here here.
The expression is actually “hear, hear!” A shortening of “hear him, hear him”, an instruction saying “listen to what this guy’s saying. It’s good shit.”
I see you are another of my pedant tribe. Thank you for the correction and context. You are a scholar and a gentleman.
Itch is by no means a small time player. Doing some very fast statistics off of the game price breakdowns available and the counts of games available vs. the number they rate as best sellers, if 20% of their best sellers make a sale each day and 7.5% of their non-best sellers make a sale each day, assuming an average price for the three pricing filters of (under $5, $2.5), ($5 to $15, $10), (over $15, $20), then Itch sells approximately $20k/day. Half a day is $10k. If those averages are actually much higher in their respective areas, as in just below the maximum then the daily total jumps to over $35k/day. There is wiggle room in my assumptions, but it is safe to say that Itch sees about $25k±7k/day.
As mentioned in other suits, there are nonmonetary damages as well which are harder to quantify without access to their analytics such as reputation damage, lost traffic, maintenance and repair from the forced outage at the domain level, etc. I could see a suit for $50k in actual damages and another $500k-$1M in punitive damages to send the message that this behavior is intolerable in general.
A law firm capable of handling such a suit would probably bill at a rate of $2000/hr, or more.
If your numbers are right, then they could afford to pay for 20 hours of work. That’s probably not enough to even file the suit. Again, this assumes your numbers are right but even if they were 10x this it may still not make sense to file a suit.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the math works out in their favor.
Except that most firms that charge $2000/hour take the fee from the settlement, not up front, when doing civil litigation. Really only criminal law is paid directly by the client, at least in the US.
Well let’s say $30k, treble damages to $90k. So up to 45 hours of billable time before losing money. I don’t know how much time a suit takes, but I’m pretty sure it’s more than that. I don’t know how likely it is for them to award legal fees, either.
Even if they work on contingency, they’d still have to be sure they’d win and turn a profit before they’d take the case.
That is where punitive damages come in. Most huge settlements are substantially punitive, which are damages awarded not on merit, but with the express intent of making the settlement hurt enough that the offender, and others in similar situations, think twice about taking similar actions.
Most humans are priced out of their dignity at even risking a $2000/hr expense.
Which loosing party will have to pay. Unless you want them to sue in baboon’s jungle court of America.
That’s where orgs like the EFF come in. Though in this case I think itch can do it.
It’s likely more than you think