Slashdot Mirror
Charles Carreon Drops Case Against the Oatmeal
Dynamoo writes "Charles Carreon has reportedly dropped his lawsuit against the creator of The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman. This bizarre lawsuit (dubbed a SLAPP suit by the EFF) kicked off after a dispute between Inman and FunnyJunk.com which spun rapidly out of control. Perhaps Carreon has seen sense, but it turns out that there might be an even more bizarre twist in this tale."
Oatmeal (both the food type and the webcomic) is good stuff; I was on Inman's side as soon as the story broke
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Kudos to Oatmeal for winning this round, but this fight may not be over. Carreon seems to have shown himself to file odd lawsuits but being a lawyer, he isn't a complete idiot. Note that he dismissed his lawsuits without prejudice, which means that he can file them again at any time. He may just be waiting for the bad PR and public focus to go elsewhere before refiling. But kudos to Mr. Inman in the mean time.
I have never heard of the Oatmeal, but I do know about Barbara Streisand. It makes me wonder if wonder if Charles Carreon has.
Sources say his lawsuit against the cream of wheat will proceed.
For once I wash I had done the more common slashdot action and NOT read the article. How do people manage to become lawyers while maintaining the maturity of a preteen girl? (and by that I reference the ability to hold a meaningless grudge and carry it out to all kinds of extremes)
If you haven't seen the text of the Inman suit against Carreon it is required reading. Someone is going to jail for this one.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
I especially like the way Mrs. FunnyJunk.com rants about how obviously Inman is a murderer, or at least is morally indistinguishable from Jared Lee Loughner (the gunman in the 2011 Tuscon shooting) even if technically he hasn't shot anybody (yet). Because that's NOT defamation of character, unlike ranting about how much FunnyJunk drag their heels on removing copyrighted works, which is the most vile sort of slander imaginable.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
So does a soldier who blindly obeys orders.
So does a whore.
What is your point?
Lawyers are trash? Point made!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
...that a guy who's last name is suspiciously close to the descriptor for animals who feed on decomposing flesh decided to become a lawyer?
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
The legal system is a good example of how systems run by people will never function as intended. Indeed, it is hard for someone who really knows what they are talking about to point to changes we could make (in the US) to "fix" it (though there surely are minor improvements to be made). Most of the changes people suggest (like banning software patents) are arbitrary, unnecessary, and would ultimately be unfair and ineffective.
On paper, the justice system it looks good. But in practice it doles out justice very unevenly. Some people receive harsher sentences simply because they look suspicious or seem to be lying. Wealthy people are always able to hire an attorney to defend themselves and take advantage of the civil courts in contract disputes or other business matters, while the less well-off usually have to settle out of court because they can't afford to take time off to go to court (much less hire an expensive legal defense team).
Ultimately, I fail to see how more lawyers will solve the problem. Even if we had enough lawyers to bring the price of hiring an attorney down to where it was like hiring an auto-mechanic, most of the people who really need representation couldn't afford it (and that's impossible due the the cost involved in becoming a lawyer). Of late, society seems to be made up of an increasingly large portion of lawyers (in the US). But if anything the economic system has become more unequal and less fair.
Perhaps if the law were simplified, more people could learn enough about it to defend themselves in court, but I don't think so. On the other hand, since laws and court precedents are entirely made up and written down, it should be possible (were someone so inclined) to build an internet application that could present legal information in a way that is comprehensive, localized, and easy to understand. It would also need to handle forms and filing, since that trips up a lot of people. If you really want to help people, I'd suggest that that's probably a better way to do it. By making the law more accessible, people will be able help themselves rather than needing to pony up hundreds of dollars an hour for legal services.
The demands of Carreon's initial letter--extortion, in my opinion--ought to be immediately identified as an abuse of power and information asymmetry (again, in my opinion). In a functional legal system, the state bar would review his actions, possibly leading to a revocation of his license.
As a resident of Arizona, I asked that this be looked into at http://www.azbar.org/contactus/contactusform.
I believe such action would go far toward preventing this kind of behavior in the future.
Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
-Scott Adams
>>>(dubbed a SLAPP suit by the EFF)
Actually...
"The acronym was coined in the 1980s by University of Denver professors Penelope Canan and George W. Pring."
^ Pring, George W.; Canan, Penelope (1996). SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out. Temple University Press. pp. 8–9. ISBN 0-375-75258-7.
My personal (and protected) opinion is that Charles Carreon should lose his law license over this for Barratry immediately, if not sooner. And let him be a lesson to all other lawyers who would consider the same course of action.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
being a lawyer is a noble profession.
Spoken like a true lawyer.
Hmmm... Let's check your blog
i’m a first-year law student
You could have mentioned this little tidbit of information but evidently decided not to. There may be noble lawyers out there (the EFF perhaps) but I would not hasten to include you in that group.
no one likes lawyers until they realize they are at a point in their lives where they need one.
That's te first reason that no one likes lawyers: the legal system is set up so that you need to retain a lawyer, and they are not cheap (Wikipedia: Surveys suggest that fees range from $150 to $1000 per hour when billed hourly). Apparently, justice is not an affordable commodity: it is often cheaper to cave in than to fight, not just in civil cases (settling) but in criminal ones as well (plea bargains). Public defenders are so overworked and underfunded that they cannot realistically do their job and since a consequence of the adversary system is that the side with the better lawyers often wins regardless of merits, lawyers are seen as either thugs or extortionists, depending on the side they are on.
And who do you think perpetuates such a system? Lawyers.
the role of the lawyer overall is to represent their client, zealously and loyally. that's likely the primary reason that the general public dislikes them: they take on the undesirable role of being an advocate for another, and this almost always means that the lawyer will be an adversary to whoever is in opposition to their client.
No, the primary reason that the general public dislikes them is, like I wrote above, the better (read: more expensive) lawyer will likely win regardless of merits in a large percentage of cases. The general public wants justice , not a game inherently biased in favour of those who learned to game the system or can afford to pay somebody to do that for them.
but here's the thing: at one point or another, every single person will find themselves in need of an advocate to protect and ensure his or her legal rights. that remains true whether the client is a hardworking laborer or even one of the vaunted rich CEOs. in the actual world, the system can be lopsided, with wealthy persons being able to afford high-powered lawyers.
Replace "can be" with "is extremely".
In a perfect world, *every* lawyer that practices privately would be required to serve as public defenders similarly to the jury duty of regular citizens (and for similar compensation). A lawyer that tried to avoid that duty or did not perform it *exclusively* and to the best of their abilities would be disbarred on the spot.
Some countries have socialized medicine and yet not a single one seems to have socialized justice. I wonder why.
nevertheless, there ARE lawyers willing to try to ensure that disparity is mitigated, if not eliminated.
[citation desperately needed]
Out of the 760,000 or so practicing lawyers in the US, how many are such valiant defenders of the poor as you paint them to be? (I assume you have data to back up your numbers).
the parent post tries to paint all lawyers as people who have chosen to do evil.
No, they just chose to perpetuate an evil system, and profit handsomely while they're at it.
if anything, the majority of lawyers are in the very business of making the world a better place, by defending the common person or the outcast
Wow, you make lawyers look almost as beneficial to society as payday lenders.
when no one else will.
Because you monopolistic fucks
Sue Carreon for copyright infringement. Let's see, 300 comics at $150,000 each = $45-million. Maybe he'll settle for only $10-million...