FunnyJunk threatens lawsuit against The Oatmeal

By em_te
in Back Page News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Veteran

em_te

Posted
Posted

Remember FunnyJunk? Almost exactly a year ago I [The Oatmeal] 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 bull**** like this?

So do I.

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

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk_letter

Experienced

andrewbares

Posted
Posted

Tempting as it is to write up a piece about this latest development, I'd bet the same lawyer would go after any site that covers this letter.

That's true, and just by commenting on this post I bet I'm going to be sued by that lawyer.

"I hope you lose oatmeal I never liked eating you anyways!" *yelled Andrew in a forced and paniced voice* Maybe that'll protect me from crazy lawyer.

Anyways, on a serious note, it's not at all legal for a website to request you remove mentions of another website. What a joke...

Veteran

Twiddle

Posted
Posted

What is more impressive is the charity donations as the $20,000.

I run a comedy website called The Oatmeal.

Last year I wrote a blog post about another website called FunnyJunk which stole a bunch of my comics and hosted them on their website without giving me credit. They apparently didn?t like my blog post and recently FunnyJunk sent me a letter stating that unless I pay them $20,000 in damages they?re going to file a federal lawsuit against me. You can view the letter along with my response here.

Instead of mailing the owner of FunnyJunk the money, I'm going to send the above drawing of his mother. I'm going to try and raise $20,000 and instead send it to the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society.

I?m hoping that philanthropy trumps douchebaggery and greed.

post-46379-0-26488800-1339715898.jpg

Good for you Oatmeal.

Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

What is more impressive is the charity donations as the $20,000.

post-46379-0-26488800-1339715898.jpg

Good for you Oatmeal.

Very nice. (Y)

Ah, might as well cover this, in light of that donation milestone.

  • MightyJordan, Twiddle and andrewbares
  • Like 3
Grand Master

articuno1au

Posted
Posted

I think he might find himself in hot water if this goes to court..

I hope he wins, but I think what he said was fairly blatantly defamatory..

Either way, the funny junk admin needs a good kicking in the head.

I also realised upon reading all of this (I got it off ars a few days ago) that a ton of comics I had read and thought were brilliant were written by him and I just didn't know D:

Grand Master

remixedcat

Posted
Posted

yey nice way to do it and do some good.

I also realised upon reading all of this (I got it off ars a few days ago) that a ton of comics I had read and thought were brilliant were written by him and I just didn't know D:

the printer one is the best as well as the kitteh ones.

Grand Master

xpablo

Posted
Posted

The point is Funnyjunk is stealing The Oatmeal's content and making revenue from the content.

Matt should counter sue FJ for 50% of the ad revenue FJ made from the comics.

probably not anywhere near the $160k The Oatmeal's project is collecting, I think advertisers should boycott

FJ since this site is like The Pirate Bay of comics.

Grand Master

FloatingFatMan

Posted
Posted

The point is Funnyjunk is stealing The Oatmeal's content and making revenue from the content.

Matt should counter sue FJ for 50% of the ad revenue FJ made from the comics.

Seeing as FJ stole his comics, he should counter sue for ALL of the revenue made from the stolen works, plus damages of a minimum of $20k per comic stolen. Plus legal fees, of course. ;)

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • "CRAZIER than ever!" Crazy Taxi: World Tour is officially coming soon

      By margrave · Posted

      YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • Apple's AI smart glasses and Vision headset plans reportedly delayed, again

      By AnalystDan · Posted

      Apple are scared of their customers! They have built a brand over the years of "it just works out of the box", but that slows innovation. Samsung's master stroke was the Galaxy Ultra: "Let's cram everything into one handset, make it so stupid only real nerds will love it, some of the features will work, some won't, but the audience will have such a high tolerance they won't care". Apple has no such device and so they are constantly worrying these days about the fallout of creating a new experience that customers might not like. I know it is often cited the reason they don't build a touchscreen Mac Book is they don't want to cannibalise the the iPad market, but I think it's equally cold feet after the criticism Microsoft receive trying to make a touch compatible desktop OS
    • HandBrake 1.11.2

      By Copernic · Posted

      HandBrake 1.11.2 by Razvan Serea HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. Handbrake can process most common multimedia files and any DVD or BluRay sources that do not contain any kind of copy protection. Here is a detailed breakdown of HandBrake’s features: Built-in Device Presets—Get started with HandBrake in seconds by choosing a profile optimized for your device, or choose a universal profile for standard or high quality conversions. Simple, easy, fast. For those that want more choice, tweak many basic and advanced options to improve your encodes. Supported Input Sources—Handbrake can process most common multimedia files and any DVD or Blu-ray sources that do not contain any kind of copy protection. Outputs: File Containers: .MP4(.M4V) and .MKV Video Encoders: H.265 (x265 and QuickSync), H.264(x264 and QuickSync), H.265 MPEG-4 and MPEG-2, VP8 and Theora Audio Encoders: AAC / HE-AAC, MP3, Flac, AC3, or Vorbis Audio Pass-thru: AC-3, E-AC3, DTS, DTS-HD, TrueHD, AAC and MP3 tracks Additional features: Title/ Chapter Selection Queue up Multiple Encodes Chapter Markers Subtitles (VobSub, Closed Captions CEA-608, SSA, SRT) Constant Quality or Average BitRate Video Encoding Support for VFR, CFR and VFR Video Filters—Deinterlacing, Decomb, Detelecine, Deblock, Grayscale, Cropping and Scaling Live Video Preview HandBrake 1.11.2 changelog: All platforms Video Fixed a crash that happened when doing a 2-pass lossless x265 encode Fixed a memory leak that happened when doing a 2-pass MPEG-4/MPEG-2/VP9/FFV1 encode Audio Updated the list of supported dithers and encoders combinations Fixed the Core Audio AAC encoder 7.1 channel layout Subtitles Fixed the VobSub palette creation in the MP4 container Build system Improved build system compatibility with older build tools Third-party libraries FFmpeg 8.0.2 (decoding and filters) SVT-AV1 4.1.0 (AV1 video encoding) Linux Added WebM MIME type to the list of the supported formats Mac Improved handling of unsupported presets Updated Sparkle automatic update library Windows Improved handling of unsupported presets Improved queue low space pause behaviour Fixed the automatic audio track name generation Fixed the summary description of HDR video Download: HandBrake 64-bit | Portable 64-bit | ~30.0 (Open Source) Download: HandBrake ARM64 | Portable Links: HandBrake Website | Other Operating Systems | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Dell, HP PCs ran into endless reboot, BitLocker recovery loops but Windows 11 isn't to blame

      By grunger106 · Posted

      So, an article that has nothing to do with Windows 11, still gets Windows 11 in the title and a build number as the picture? Dell have a buggy build of Support Assist HP have UEFI settings that need unlocking for the secureboot cert upgrade to take place.
    • I Can't Wrap My Head Around This Number - Google to buy computing from SpaceX at $920 million per month

      By Nick H. · Posted

      What I can't seem to understand is that Google are paying SpaceX? Surely it would be the other way round, with SpaceX needing Google's datacenters etc.? Oh well, this level of money and power is way outside of my comprehension at the best of times.

  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
    • Dedicated
      Conjor earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      493
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      244
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      71
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      69
    5. 5
      neufuse
      67
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!