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OatMeal being sued by FJ

polycounter lvl 8
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Lazerus Reborn polycounter lvl 8
This, is the by far one of the strangest things i've seen in quite a while.

FunnyJunk is currently suing the Oat Meal because there hosting his content. It has to one of the most backward cases i've seen in a while. Of course Matthew's has responded in kind~

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk_letter

Utter brilliance.

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  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 14
    I have to be honest, as funny as he spins it, I don't know if this is the best/most professional response to a legal issue...
    Also insulting the lawyers' mother, I dunno, he's just hired by the guys at FJ...
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    Xoliul wrote: »
    I have to be honest, as funny as he spins it, I don't know if this is the best/most professional response to a legal issue...
    Also insulting the lawyers' mother, I dunno, he's just hired by the guys at FJ...

    A professional response would be expensive court costs and a funny-junk keeping on their regular business unhurt, going out in the open with this, and with humor is lovely!
  • Lazerus Reborn
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    Lazerus Reborn polycounter lvl 8
    Well he reached $20k in 64mins and is currently on $93k with 15 days to go.

    Link to it~ http://www.indiegogo.com/bearlovegood?c=home
  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 14
    Well yeah, correct me if i'm wrong, but have they got any legal reason to drop their charges because he said "fuck you, your mom's fat and likes bears, and I'm donating the money to charity!" ? It makes them look like dicks (not that they didn't already), but if they want they could just press through and he'd have to go to court anyway? I mean, they're suing him on grounds of some vague "slandering" and using funnyjunk to direct more traffic to his site, what he's doing now could easily be seen by them as more of the same.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    I wouldn't be surprised if he's pursuing his current course of action because:
    A) He knows they haven't got a leg to stand on.
    B) He knows it will cost them even more to follow it up than it'll cost him (unless they win).
    C) Both of the above.
  • WarrenM
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    Doing what he's doing will fill the internet about information about how Funny Junk are assholes who steal other artists work and basically will spread his message far and wide - particularly because the money he's raising will be given to charity. That will spread the message even faster. Beating down an evil sue-happy dickhole AND raising money for charity - there's not a blog around that wouldn't link to that.

    I think he's doing something great here, assuming he's actually on the right side of this. Why do it behind closed doors, talking through lawyers? Get it out in the open and expose their bullshit to the eye of the internet.
  • Zpanzer
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    Zpanzer polycounter lvl 8
    I laughed my ass off when I saw his donation site
  • jimmypopali
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    Saw it today, pretty hilarious.
  • R3D
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    R3D interpolator
    When i first read the thread title i thought some rappers were suing eachother or something.

    This is much more hilarious.
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    I think it's pretty awesome, we live in a exaggerated serious world sometimes, it's good to see there's people that can still say "FUCK THE POLICE" in style! :P
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Looks like Funnyjunk ate the Oatmeal for breakfast.....see what I did there? Derp!
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    Ugh, read this yesterday. Honestly, I sometimes think Oatmeal is a genius in disguise with the way he handled this.

    Charity + Information + Humor + Open Policy = Victory.

    I mean c'mon, do you know what this means for FunnyJunk if they want after this at this point? The Charity part alone about Cancer is enough to get people riled up.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    The thing is, FunnyJunk's entire business revolves around people uploading material to their site, which is in almost all cases the property of someone else. There's no way they can really hope to win this suit if The Oatmeal doesn't back down or fails to hire an incompetant goon to represent them.
  • Fomori
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    Fomori polycounter lvl 12
    The Oatmeal is brilliant and his response to this is brilliant. Hope this gets even more attention.
  • MagicSugar
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    MagicSugar polycounter lvl 10
    Well he reached $20k in 64mins and is currently on $93k with 15 days to go.

    Nice. I'ts over $100k. So he only committed 20k for charity, meaning excess funds can be ethically used for counter-suit money. :thumbup:
  • gsokol
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    That was a fun read.

    I wonder how the guys at funky junk are taking this.
  • r_fletch_r
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    r_fletch_r polycounter lvl 9
    MagicSugar wrote: »
    Nice. I'ts over $100k. So he only committed 20k for charity, meaning excess funds can be ethically used for counter-suit money. :thumbup:


    that would be a really immoral thing to do. the collection is for charity. if he takes the money he's lying to people
  • MagicSugar
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    MagicSugar polycounter lvl 10
    r_fletch_r wrote: »
    that would be a really immoral thing to do. the collection is for charity. if he takes the money he's lying to people

    Not to me it ain't. The indiegogo goal was $20K. He can do whatever he want's, but if I were in his shoes I'd reserve the excess for legal - cuz saying fuck off to other party doesn't nullify their legal action. I didn't see in his oatmeal page saying what he'll do for funds above and beyond his initial goal. Sure he'd give all away, just I'm stating my opinion.
  • Timmywithag
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    Timmywithag triangle
    this is really funny not including the first funnyjunk incident he totally set them up I think. his site has been down because of the insane amount of traffic he gets after he puts up a new comic. so guess what he did. he posts a ling to all his comics on funnyjunk basically using them to show his content that they never took down. servers them right, its hilarious
  • RexM
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    The funniest part is that a ton of artists are beginning to become aware that their work is also on FunnyJunk.
    MagicSugar wrote: »
    Not to me it ain't. The indiegogo goal was $20K. He can do whatever he want's, but if I were in his shoes I'd reserve the excess for legal - cuz saying fuck off to other party doesn't nullify their legal action. I didn't see in his oatmeal page saying what he'll do for funds above and beyond his initial goal. Sure he'd give all away, just I'm stating my opinion.

    Their claims being bollocks does nullify their legal actions, though. A judge will throw this out quickly and laugh in the face of the FunnyJunk owner.
  • crazyfool
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    crazyfool polycounter lvl 13
    'Bearlove good, Cancer Bad!!!!'

    guys a friggin genius haha, I hope it all works out for him. The stories pretty amazing and to think he could possibly shut them down with all the support behind him, looks like a mutiny is going on at FJ aswell. One of the funniest things is funnyjunk now has his kodiac bear artwork and lawyers letter on their front page haha.

    That said if they are after 20k in damages now, then this stunt could mean they go for even more in damages and then he might have to take this all a bit more seriously. $121k in one days not a bad little earner though
  • Vitor
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    Vitor polycounter lvl 18
    Funny read for sure!

    Maybe Oatmeal guy is the same from FJ and he just made it up to get 100k? :D
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    crazyfool wrote: »
    'Bearlove good, Cancer Bad!!!!'

    guys a friggin genius haha, I hope it all works out for him. The stories pretty amazing and to think he could possibly shut them down with all the support behind him, looks like a mutiny is going on at FJ aswell. One of the funniest things is funnyjunk now has his kodiac bear artwork and lawyers letter on their front page haha.

    That said if they are after 20k in damages now, then this stunt could mean they go for even more in damages and then he might have to take this all a bit more seriously. $121k in one days not a bad little earner though
    That would only serve to add more fire AGAINST FJ, you cannot simply up and change your damage claims without some hard paperwork, and dates.

    So if this went to court, and judge asks why the sudden price hike, FJ would have to explain it not only in hard facts and that whatever the original thing is/or was is a mistake, but why did they change the number after the date when the Started closed with more then 100K, since they had plenty of time to fix that beforehand.
  • crazyfool
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    crazyfool polycounter lvl 13
    would they not treat it as a seperate lawsuit though as it acclaims to a seperate incident. hope they burn out though, oatmeals awesome!!!!
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    they could say his reply to the letter is a second act of defamation
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    they could say his reply to the letter is a second act of defamation

    defamation is intentional false communication. Its obvious Oatmeal isn't intentionally lying about anything.
  • Lazerus Reborn
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    Lazerus Reborn polycounter lvl 8
    Slander and damages to the company's name and image = loss of profit etc could be the used for the next one.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    It's only slander if it's fallacious and not an opinion.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    ZacD wrote: »
    defamation is intentional false communication. Its obvious Oatmeal isn't intentionally lying about anything.

    I know but that's what the lawsuit is about, right? They claim the oatmeal made false claims that hurt their business.
  • konstruct
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    konstruct polycounter lvl 18
    I dunno...

    chasflag3.jpg

    ..this dude looks pretty fierce
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    Apparently, now FJ wants to kill IndieGoGo's run while taking away all the funds for themselves, and even went ahead and posted direct information about Andrew (guy at OatMeal) and asked their fan-base to harass him.

    Guys, I don't think FJ has any grounds at this point...
  • DeadlyFreeze
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    DeadlyFreeze polycounter lvl 17
    He very well might be SOL if he didn't file DMCA's. Just having oatmeal's content on his site isn't enough to prove a copyright violation. OM will have to show that FJ actually had knowledge he was infringing to begin with, that's where it gets murky.
  • HitmonInfinity
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    HitmonInfinity polycounter lvl 11
    Oatmeal's response has my vote for "best thing on the internet 2012," but man I'm so tired of this kind of crap. Our "lawyer up" culture is such a buzzkill.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    He very well might be SOL if he didn't file DMCA's. Just having oatmeal's content on his site isn't enough to prove a copyright violation. OM will have to show that FJ actually had knowledge he was infringing to begin with, that's where it gets murky.

    OM doesn't have to prove any of that given that he's not filing suit over it.
  • DeadlyFreeze
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    DeadlyFreeze polycounter lvl 17
    ambershee wrote: »
    OM doesn't have to prove any of that given that he's not filing suit over it.

    If FJ took down all copyrighted material that OM reported but left other things up that he didn't, then technically the defamation part is true. The obligation to report copyright infringement is on the holder.

    So if it actually went to court OM's defense would have to show the FJ knowingly infringed.

    The likelihood it actually goes to court is about nill, I don't think any judge would even see this case.
  • RexM
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    There are a couple of sites that cached the pages that FJ took down, thankfully.

    FJ has no case.. and this could really destroy their site.
  • DeadlyFreeze
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    DeadlyFreeze polycounter lvl 17
    That's not how it works, having copyrighted content isn't proof.

    You have to 'knowingly infringe'. As long as FJ took down content when someone said 'hey this is copyrighted' then he hasn't done anything wrong in the eyes of the law.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    defamation has to be a knowingly false statement, Oatmeal just has sad funny junk hosts a lot of content copy written content that is not created by them or their users, if Oatmeal said they've asked for their stuff to be removed via DMCA's and they were removed, and that wasn't true, that is defamation. But Oatmeal is just saying their copy written material on there. It's like saying there is copy written material on youtube.
  • RexM
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    That's true.

    To comply with DMCA's, you don't even have to delete the data from your server. You just have to remove the links pointing to said data.

    Still, it was a little suspicious for FJ to have hundreds of OM's comics on their site. It's not like it was one or two.

    Any owner of a site definitely knows what is on their site, but proving that is another story...
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    Indeed. Let us not also forget the other part of the suit where FJ is trying to state that the Oatmeal is using the case as a means to promote their own business at the expense of FJ. That will be very hard to prove.
  • Mcejn
  • leslievdb
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    leslievdb polycounter lvl 15
    hahah probably the worst move he could have made
  • praetus
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    praetus interpolator
    So, on the snowballs chance in hell he wins, he'll be known as the guy that took money from a cancer charity? Nice.
  • underfox
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    underfox polycounter lvl 7
    this made my day :) i can go to bed with a smile on my face.
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    This is why we can't have doctors and other nice stuff, because we need natural selection and a good dose of genetic acid for people like these.
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 13
    Ace-Angel wrote: »
    This is why we can't have doctors and other nice stuff, because we need natural selection and a good dose of genetic acid for people like these.

    Oh no how can you say such a thing, we must take care of EVERYONE and give EVERYONE the same chance and group hugs and kisses.

    I say they burn his degrees and suit and chase him out of town, the lawyer that is.
  • NoChance
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    That's not how it works, having copyrighted content isn't proof.

    You have to 'knowingly infringe'. As long as FJ took down content when someone said 'hey this is copyrighted' then he hasn't done anything wrong in the eyes of the law.

    Is this why hundreds of sites that allowed users to post links to videos that were copyrighted got shut down by homelan security this year? They weren't even hosting the content just posting links.

    Also he states in his post that they are suing him over a post that when he made it was true, and they want him to retroactively take it down now since they removed all the links. Thats nonsense.
  • Ben Apuna
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