If you were following Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk, which Mashable termed one of the Top 9 Silliest Tech Lawsuits Ever (along with, say, the RIAA Suing Limewire for statutory damages totaling more than the entire global GDP), then you know it has finally come to a, rather surreal, conclusion.
It started as a fairly normal exchange of take-down notices and hostilities, but became so much more. Michael Inman, The Oatmeal web comic, got annoyed that FunnyJunk (a content aggregator) had so many of his comics posted there without his permission. FunnyJunk retorted they comply with the DMCA and will take down stuff if Inman gives them notice, which only really resulted in all the FunnyJunk comics that had properly attributed the source being taken down, while unattributed ones remained up. Annoying, but whatever.
So Inman ranted about it on The Oatmeal in proper Oatmeal style, and this is where it got weird. FunnyJunk’s lawyer, Charles Carreon, sent Inman a letter demanding $20,000 in damages for defamation.
Inman annotated the legal letter on his site, in what may perhaps be the funniest legal claim ever (more comedians should annotate legal documents, maybe then they’d actually be read by anyone other than other lawyers).
The cool thing was, Inman actually DID get all that money, plus around $200,000 more. He photographed it (or at least an equivalent amount), and sent the pictures to Carreon. Carreon, who had pursued the case as a personal vendetta, pretty much sued everyone – Inman, both charities, Indiegogo, and a bunch of random webizens who didn’t like him – making a fool out of himself in the process.
Ars Technica has some great coverage of the whole debacle including such gems as:
Lawyer Attacking the Oatmeal Shocked by Big Mean Internet’s Reaction
The Oatmeal Fights Back, Snaps Photo of Cash, Sends Money to Charity
(and the ever-surreal): Carreon Claims Victory, Drops His Lawsuit Against the Oatmeal et al.
Guys like Carreon give lawyers a bad name. Especially as his legal theories were, for the most part, completely bogus. Wish there were some way to disbar attorneys for being complete idiots. The whole thing made for an interesting story, though.
