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The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour

364 points| Liu | 13 years ago |mashable.com

109 comments

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[+] aresant|13 years ago|reply
Matt Iman (guy behind TheOatmeal), was co-founder & original CTO of SEOMoz and left after his side project (Mingle2) blew up in popularity and was acquired.

He mentions in his departing SEOMoz blog post that the company that acquired Mingle2 wanted "to leverage my viral marketing and linkbait abilities" - back in 2007.

Fun to look at this through understanding that he's a SEO guru and viral-marketing genius.

Perfect David vs. Goliath headline, tons raised for charity so he comes out looking flawless, 3220 new inbound links for theoatmeal, etc.

Wow.

via http://www.seomoz.org/blog/my-departure-from-seomoz

https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=15&sourc...

[+] nostromo|13 years ago|reply
Having a rival is pure press (and SEO) mastery. Seriously.

It reminds me of the genius rap rivalries of the 90s and 00s which left both rivals better off in every way (press, album sales, fame). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_rivalry

[+] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
I wonder if you can complain to the bar. Seems like a number of lawyers have taken up the "shakedown" model and been penalized for it. You should be able to complain to. The bar that this lawyer reflects badly on the profession for not doing his research.
[+] jontas|13 years ago|reply
I'd love to take that $20-40k and put it towards a company that does nothing but monitor websites like Funny Junk and issue takedown notices on the behalf of the content owners.

Companies like this probably exist, but I'm sure they don't come cheap and are used primarily by the big players (eg music labels, movie studios).

I think it is great that Matt is donating the money to charity. However, the idea of putting the money towards some kind of community focused content monitor struck me as an interesting alternative.

I also wonder to what degree something like this could be automated. I know sites like YouTube monitor their own content, but what if Matt could upload all his images, verify his ownership in a legally meaningful way, and then automatically monitor Funny Junk and issue takedown notices in real time.

[+] snowwrestler|13 years ago|reply
Consider the offsetting financial incentives here.

Sites like FunnyJunk can be created by a small team, allow the upload of a ton of copyrighted content by users, and then run ads next to copyrighted content. Boom, instant money, and if they do well, maybe an acquisition (see: YouTube). All they have to do is keep up with DMCA takedowns, which are few and far between from small content producers like The Oatmeal.

Meanwhile, if you want to build a company to automate content protection, you have to go find deep-pocketed content creators from day one. I don't know of any way to run ads against the creation of DMCA takedowns.

So the financial incentives are totally asymmetric. It's way easier and more lucrative to create a platform for infringing content, than for protecting it. Until that changes, small creators like The Oatmeal will get victimized.

[+] Jimmie|13 years ago|reply
I'm curious about this too. Use something like Tineye and check new Funnyjunk submissions against The Oatmeals image archive. Aside from the hardware it's a tiny amount of work for 1 human to monitor the results.
[+] dustywusty|13 years ago|reply
So, like MarkMonitor or InternetIdentity.
[+] pasbesoin|13 years ago|reply
The legal herd definitely is in need of thinning. (I mean, career changes, of course -- to flipping Kodiak burgers.)

I'm glad parody and appropriately sharp (in more than one way) commentary have not been wiped off the Internet, yet. Hopefully, not ever.

[+] TomGullen|13 years ago|reply
Is there any chance that FunnyJunk has played the Oatmeal for promotional purposes here?
[+] cynest|13 years ago|reply
Maybe. The problem is that a year ago when this first came up the admin(s) resorted to homophobic name-calling. This doesn't give them much credit in the image control department.
[+] calciphus|13 years ago|reply
There's always a chance, but if so they're very poor marketers. This is the modern world - there IS such a thing as bad publicity. They just got a mountain of it, and The Oatmeal came out smelling like roses.

And raised what, $40k for charity in a few hours?

[+] redthrowaway|13 years ago|reply
I'm guessing not. This isn't exactly the kind of publicity they need.
[+] Kluny|13 years ago|reply
Speaking for myself, I have no more desire to go to funnyjunk than I did before this mess started.
[+] hobin|13 years ago|reply
I thought that, too. 'Bad publicity is still publicity'?
[+] antihero|13 years ago|reply
Everyone is playing everyone for promotional purposes.
[+] Shengster|13 years ago|reply
Ironically The Oatmeal is down. Presumably because so many people want to give him money that they've DDOSed his website.
[+] cpunks|13 years ago|reply
My guess is FJ and Oatmeal are both getting massive traffic thanks to this little battle.
[+] unknown|13 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] SideburnsOfDoom|13 years ago|reply
They really didn't like it the last time that The Oatmeal talked about funnyjunk (and was highly linked to, commented about and other google-juice-accumulating indicators), or at least that's what the lawyer's letter indicates. Why should this time be any different?
[+] woodall|13 years ago|reply
Pot meet kettle

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

[+] guice|13 years ago|reply
Looking for legal options ... getting duped by iTunes descriptions ... forced to look for pirate options.

Hosting somebody else's images without arbitration. Then fall to name-calling when the owner asks for them to be taken down.

I fail to see the connection here. Care to explain?

[+] beedogs|13 years ago|reply
They can't be serious with this legal "threat". They don't have a leg to stand on.
[+] Tyrannosaurs|13 years ago|reply
The guy is a lawyer and seems to think that they do.

If you read his letter it's very specific, he's not saying that the material isn't there, he's taking issue with the suggestion that funnyjunk is willfully violating the Oatmeal's copyright (as opposed to just not responding fast enough in pulling it down). That's the complaint - the suggestion that it's intentional.

Just because you've been wronged, it doesn't give you carte blanc to say what you want about the person doing it. You're safest sticking to the absolute barest facts with no editorialising or commentary.

I have no problem in seeing that there might be a valid case here. I don't like it and it sucks, but in the eyes of the law there might be something.

(Obviously all this ignores the possibility that he's just rattling the cage and seeing if there's $20,000 of easy money there based on Inman running scared. It might be significant that neither the requests being made in terms of removing the material nor the amount (compared to potential legal fees in fighting the case) are that onerous).

[+] jsprinkles|13 years ago|reply
FunnyJunk is apparently responding quietly on their site, as just searching for the word 'oatmeal' results in no search results (that wasn't the case when this blog post went up). According to people I know that use the site, you cannot add comments with the word 'oatmeal', either. They also deleted every single linked image he exhaustively listed.

I have a hard time resolving litigation like this with the fact that the truth can change in minutes, as Web sites are fairly easy to edit. It's just scary.

[+] jjcm|13 years ago|reply
How does this bode in the terms of destroying evidence? Is there any legal ramifications of doing this after you've engaged in legal action?
[+] cf0ed2aa-bdf5|13 years ago|reply
The search thing is really interesting to me.

I'm no lawyer but couldn't this theoretically be used in court by Inman since FunnyJunk apparently makes it extra hard for content creators like Inman, the Cyanide & Happiness guys et cetera to find their content and issue takedown requests?

Thinking a bit further: by filtering search they are implicitly saying that they know they are hosting content by Inman aren't they? In that case they shouldn't be able to hide behind the DMCA safe harbor provisions since one of the requirements of the DMCA is that the Online Service Provider has no knowledge about any infringing material on their servers (Section 512(c) http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512)

[+] jere|13 years ago|reply
Inman sounds smart enough to have personally archived some evidence or found a reliable archive he can count on.

There are definitely caches. What scares me is: will that count as viable evidence and will the judge understand what has happened?

[+] planetguy|13 years ago|reply
Y'see, this is why The Oatmeal guy is a comic genius. He understands that while

"drawing of your mom seducing a bear"

is funny,

"drawing of your mom seducing a kodiak bear"

is hilarious.

[+] lbrandy|13 years ago|reply
comedy protip: strong/hard consonants are funny. 'kodiak' is an awesome comedic word. Any punchline involving a bear could almost certainly be improved by inserting 'kodiak'. Just like you should use 'buick' when you need an arbitrary car, and 'tuesday' when you need an arbitrary day. This also explains why a well-placed 'fuck' is funny.
[+] pi18n|13 years ago|reply
He's not a comic genius, he's a marketing genius. His comics are actually quite banal; everyone hates their printers, a list of reasons why makes us feel good but isn't actually funny.
[+] skeletonjelly|13 years ago|reply
Can you elaborate? I don't find his humour overly humourous but each to their own.
[+] sparknlaunch|13 years ago|reply
While this is a great story likely to go down in Internet history, it seems a risky strategy. Sure he raised $20k but seems like this will just fuel the fire of the FunnyJunk lawyers. There have been more trivial legal cases than this one - that could go on for a long time.
[+] crikli|13 years ago|reply
The total is now $57K with 15 days left. Matthew is in the position of being able to use the internet as a money spigot if FunnyJunk really wants to escalate.
[+] bhb916|13 years ago|reply
He's not going to have to pay for legal representation. There are plenty of lawyers who will take this case pro bono.
[+] gwern|13 years ago|reply
Yes, I was a little surprised when I reached the charity step: 'well, what do you plan to do if they actually do sue you? Go ask your fans for another 40k to pay for your defense & appeal and/or damages?'
[+] brown9-2|13 years ago|reply
FunnyJunk's lawyers seem like a huge joke, and I think that the oatmeal has been successful enough to afford adequate representation.
[+] ruswick|13 years ago|reply
Although the lawsuit is bullshit, I would probably be really happy if the oatmeal were to get sued out of existence.

I try to stay away from it as much as possible, but of the handful of things I've seen there, they were all trollish and entirely incorrect.

The site is just more Internet scum and it going away would probably be for the best.

[+] GiraffeNecktie|13 years ago|reply
Um. Seriously? A unique individual with one of the most brilliant, funny, audacious and original voices on the Internet and you'd like to see him sued out of existence? Because uh ... the Internet's not big enough or what? Wow. Just wow.
[+] hobin|13 years ago|reply
Unresolved anger issues much? Hint: the internet is big. If you don't like something, ignore it.