Aimee Weber

Any fans of The Oatmeal around here?

The Oatmeal Raises $100K for Charity in Response to FunnyJunk Lawsuit - Forbes

It would take really large brass-ones to steal a guy's content then sue him over it. The Oatmeal's reply was hilarious and raised close to $100K in one day from supporters:

FunnyJunk is threatening to file a federal lawsuit against me unless I pay $20,000 in damages - The Oatmeal

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All the cool kids are following me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/aimee

Lucifer Baphomet

Yes.

I sometimes sing the Pterodactyl song to my kids.

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Adeon Writer

They're just mad they accidentally stole and posted the comic slamming themselves, probably. (I don't know if that actually happened, but in my personal made up reality, it did.)

Polo

Nice to see jerkishness exposed. (And a shame that Inman had to put his time to this use--how long must it have taken to amass that list of links?!?!)

I do worry about that Kodiak bear, though.

Ayu Sura

The saga continues:

FunnyJunk Issues Bogus Legal Threat To The Oatmeal, Hilarity Ensues | Popehat

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"You broke the rules! Now I pull out all your pubic hair!" - Tenacious D

Joshua Nightshade

Cancer and bears are nice and all but I hate The Oatmeal. Everything he writes is linkbait. Which makes sense given the fact that his prior job experience was at a SEO company. I don't really find "sixty ways keyboard fungus is more awesome than a cat" to be worth the amount of attention his wacom-splooges evidently always are.

Frivolous lawsuit or not he managed to engineer this entire thing into awesome attention for himself where he looks kickass. It's respectably manipulative; touché, sir. Touché.

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MissKillian Barbosa

I think The Oatmeal is terribly funny. I find myself snorting out loud at work reading his comics. The latest one, "Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek whoever lived" was not only informative but funny as hell.

FunnyJunk has been supporting the theft his and MANY other artists work for a long time.

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Silly Ol' Killy Dilly

Joshua Nightshade

I wouldn't really say informative. Hyperbolic throughout with bits of truth stretched here and there, sure. The line about "an earthquake machine that nearly demolished a New York neighbourhood" in particular was a myth. Actually most of the things he slapped on that comic are flimsy. Somebody from Forbes wrote a rebuttal and the two of them had a dick-smacking contest, and most of The Oatmeal guy's defences are "I'm not a journalist, I'm a comedian" when the Forbes journalist pointed out the inaccuracies.

MissKillian Barbosa

Y U no liek OATMEAL?

The world needs to know if their cat is plotting to kill them or not!

Hint... yes, they are

Tracer Graves

The Oatmeal is bad because he's good at SEO?

*scratches head*

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Joshua Nightshade

It's unfunny to me, and I feel that everything he does is a carefully manipulated post designed to generate as much attention as possible. He's also extremely good at that, so every time I see a link of his I feel like it's perpetuated by teenage girls in Hot Topic talking about how unmainstream they are. I also don't like talking about him, because it contributes to the cycle.

Joshua Nightshade

Also, stay tuned for my next webcomic: Six Ways to Know if Tracer Has Smelly Toes.

Joy Honey

looks at Joshua's postcount






























runs away giggling

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Joshua Nightshade

You think those posts are written carefully?

Joy Honey

Sure they are! Especially the ones

Joshua Nightshade

I'm really proud of the ones. I should get a pulitzer.

Joy Honey

I don't believe I've seen those. Pulitzer worthy, indeed.

Void

holy shit but I was laughing my ass off at the end of that article
I'll start the campaign to have Cris add that emote immediately... what shall we name it? I'm thinking :bukkake-whirlwind: =D

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MissKillian Barbosa

FunnyJunk's lawyer, Charles Carreon, has attempted to disable the fundraising website.

http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.c...ity-fundraiser

Innula Zenovka

There's an interesting commentary on this by the blogger Popehat. He quotes the lawyer and legal blogger, Marc Randazza, as saying that this is atypical of Charles Carreon:
However, on learning the attempt to disable the fundraising, Mr Randazza changed his views rather eloquently:

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Amity Slade

Carreon made an error by asking for too much protection money. When a lawyer is bullying a layperson for protection money, the amount demanded should be cheaper than the expense of the victim hiring their own lawyer to fight it.

Aimee Weber

I just read the latest Popehat, Innula, and it got me to thinking ... Despite billing himself as an "internet lawyer", Carreon really doesn't understand internet culture AT ALL.

Here is my theory. Carreon has been paying, at best, halfhearted attention to all of the recent MPAA/RIAA battles, and without any nuanced insight into the root causes of the friction, he concluded: "the internet folks love internet piracy and they hate all these fat-cat artists who think they own their own work! I'm gonna be a hero by threatening and litigating!"

Turns out the hatred for the RIAA/MPAA may have less to do with society's view of artists or how they feel about artists getting paid for their work, and much more to do with people's hatred of the litigious people and organizations that encumber creativity and innovation.

detrius

Yeah, we totally hate these artists, that's why we want to download all their stuff, alright.

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Aimee Weber

And it continues.

Funnyjunk's Lawyer Accuses The Oatmeal of Instigating Attacks Against Him - Forbes

I'm not sure what the legal definition of "instigated" is, but since Inman never really said anything even remotely like "folks should attack Carreon's website" (and, in all likelihood, his site wasn't attacked at all, just swamped by hits because of the recent spotlight), Carreon may be setting himself up for a defamation lawsuit of his own.

https://yfrog.com/z/odfehxcj


ADDED: Also, The Oatmeal's legal response:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/96850920/F...tmeal-Response

Morgoth

The Oatmeal's response, both the informal and the 'legal' version, were the most interesting law-related documents I have read. There is something inherently amusing about a serious legal document describing a comic about pterodactyls tearing you a new asshole.

And yes, 'The Oatmeal' is exceedingly canny- he does what he does very well, and his success in raising way more than $20k shows how very smart he is. His response to this could not have been better played. What he did means that funnyjunk and their lawyer are going to look terrible, whatever they do from now onwards in response to what he did.