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FunnyJunk v. the Oatmeal: Copyright Infringement Complaints As Defamation
An anonymous reader writes "Funny as it might sound, FunnyJunk's threat of litigation against The Oatmeal raises a very important issue: the extent to which artists can complain in public about perceived or actual infringement of their works by user-generated content websites. Does it matter if the content creator accused the website of condoning or participating in the infringement?" The short story is this: Numerous Oatmeal comics were posted without permission to FunnyJunk; Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman lambasted FunnyJunk in the form of a blog post. FunnyJunk responded with a suit (or rather the threat of a suit) accusing Inman of willful defamation, unless he ponies up $20,000, which he doesn't plan to do.
Actually, it seems to be more than that.
I glanced over the original Oatmeal blog post. He mentions a bunch of other comics that are being ripped off. I followed a link from the blog post to the website, which is a query for "the oatmeal." No results found. So I tried a couple others - Cyanide and Happiness, Calvin and Hobbes... No results. Then I tried just "Calvin." Bunch of results, many of them Calvin and Hobbes, many of them with the name "calvin and hobbes" verbatim in the title and text.
Unless their search index is just behind from the scrubbing, it looks like they didn't even scrub. They're just gaming the search results.
I vote based on politicians' actions, unless contrary to my preconceptions. Often wrong, never uncertain. #iamthe99%
If you want to support him, go to to his store and buy prints/shirts/coffee mugs.
This, "we can post what we want," business goes both ways. FunnyJunk may not have any legal obligation to remove the offending content, but Inman was not lying when he posted his criticism of FunnyJunk. Everything he said was true. His opinion was that these facts made FunnyJunk unethical. He has a right to his opinion and he has the right to express it. FunnyJunk could have just left it at that, "Oh somebody on the internet doesn't like us, and that somebody has a large audience." Instead they decided to threaten to sue for defamation. Here's a hint guys. Defamation suits only work when someone is lying about you. It's like slander and libel. You can't sue somebody for laying out a set of facts and then expressing their opinion about those facts. That's not defamation. Somebody needs to go back to lawyer school.
sure smells like destruction of evidence... And courts tend to take a very dim view of destruction of evidence...
Deleting the records that show these links existed (the site backups) would be destruction of evidence. Not preserving the backups that would otherwise be deleted in the normal course of business could be considered destruction of evidence once there is an expectation of litigation and discovery.
Removing the offending links? No, that's not destruction of evidence. You are not required to continue to commit wrongdoing to preserve evidence of that wrongdoing.
Hardly.
TheOatmeal: angry and funny blog post to vent about FunnyJunk stealing his and others' comics
RIAA: SUE ALL EVARYTHING!
TheOatmeal: no actual DMCA takedown notices filed.
RIAA: file ALL the notices!
FunnyJunk, to users: harass the shit out of TheOatmeal!
YouTube: K, I'm gonna take obey every takedown notice.
FunnyJunk: SUE THEOATMEAL!
YouTube: Shit, we're getting sued by RIAA Viacom. Oh hey, let's start Vevo.
TheOatmeal: WTF they want HOW much? BEARS AND CANCER AND CHARITY!
RIAA: Uh, we're still not making as much money as we want. Who else can we sue?
Maybe the whole "conflict" is to not take seriously, and is a conspiratorial hoax between oatmeal and funnyjunk. Or rather, those are the puppets and this is really a conspiracy between the puppetmasters: National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society. What if this is all just an attempt to wipe out cancer in bears, thereby removing this important check on their population, so that they are finally able to overrun North America? I, for one, welcome our new ursine overlords.
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