Remember FunnyJunk? Almost exactly a year ago I published a blog post about my comics being stolen, re-hosted, and monetized on FunnyJunk's website. The owner of the site responded and some of the comics were taken down, He still had a ton of my comics hosted without credit, but the energy it would take to get him to take them down wasn't worth it. I thought the issue was done and over with so I let him be.

A few days ago I was served papers informing me that the owner of FunnyJunk is going to file a federal lawsuit against me unless I pay him $20,000 in damages. You can read the full letter here.

The owner of FunnyJunk hired Charles Carreon, a lawyer who became famous in the 90s after successfully litigating sex.com.
Charles does a bit of modeling too, apparently.

I don't want to get tied up in courtroom nonsense. I don't want to pay more money to my lawyer. Don't you miss the days when I posted 2 comics a week, instead of writing rebuttals to Forbes and dealing with bulljive like this?

So do I.

I've annotated the letter below as well as outlined how I'm going to deal with this.

On Friday, June 15, 2012, attorney Charles Carreon passed from mundane short-term internet notoriety into a sort of legal cartoon-supervillainy.

He transcended typical internet infamy when he filed a federal lawsuit last Friday in the United Sates District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland. He belonged to the ages the moment he filed that lawsuit not only against Matthew Inman, proprietor of The Oatmeal, but also against IndieGoGo Inc., the company that hosted Inman's ridiculously effective fundraiser for the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society.

But that level of censorious litigiousness was not enough for Charles Carreon. He sought something more. And so, on that same Friday, Charles Carreon also sued the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society, the beneficiaries of Matthew Inman's fundraiser.

Yes. Charles Carreon, butthurt that someone had leveraged his douchebaggery into almost two hundred thousand dollars of donations to two worthy charities, sued the charities.

something about moms and bears LOL

I just hope the Oatmeal isn't stuck paying the legal fees necessary to defend themselves against this BS lawsuit. That's one of those things I really hate about our system; you can be sued by anybody for any nonexistent reason and even if you win you're still stuck paying thousands of dollars in legal fees.

If there's any justice, the case won't just be dismissed, but Carreon will have to cover the Oatmeal's expenses and maybe pay some additional compensation. But that's only if the courts were to be fair, which they rarely are.

There's a thread a few posts down:

http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=87460

Aw. I was hoping Funnyjunk had the balls to sue The Oatmeal claiming it infringed their nonexistent copyright on the stuff they stole. Still pretty hilarious though.

I didn't read the whole thing, but I think I got enough of the high points to say this.

I truly doubt Oatmeal will even have to say a word before this whole case is thrown out. And given that Funnyjunk now only doesn't have copyright, but downright stole the stuff themselves, making them guilty of (if I read it right in my admittedly brief skimming) the exact same thing they're accusing Oatmeal of...given that, I would be shocked if Oatmeal didn't also get court costs awarded.

It's hard to get court costs back after being sued like Spengs said. But in cases that are so egregiously frivolous, they very well could get court costs awarded. At least, that's what I took away from that one episode of Marilyn Millian. I'd be shocked if they didn't get court costs. This whole case is just stupid.

So, it sounds like FunnyJunk is the new ebaumsworld

And that he illegally donated money to a charity.

Can you even do that?

Perhaps I should have phrased that "illegally collected money for a charity". Subtle difference.

How much more of a douchenozzle can Carreon get? Seriously!

Picking a fight with the Internet is kind of like taking a cattle prod to a sleeping Grizzly Bear a foot away.

After handcuffing yourself to said grizzly.

And sticking your head in its mouth.

"I can't see how this could possibly go wrong!"

Douchebags suing people that point out they're douchebags?

Does anyone need Popcorn or a Large Soda?

IT looks like their home town is against them and siding with The Oatmeal on this on.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/weekly-...ent?oid=3428866

Dude, did you read some of the comments on that article? The first one I saw compared Inman to Jared Loughner, the guy who shot Gabby Gifford. What the hell?!