The evidence is in: FunnyJunk missing funny bone

Last week I told the story of how The Oatmeal, one of the primary reasons God and Al Gore invented the Interwebs, was being threatened by a lawyer who claimed it had defamed his not-quite-aptly named client, FunnyJunk.com. (Junk, yes. Funny, not so much.)

The story was weird to begin with, and now it’s entered the realm of Python-like farce.

[ Before the case turned ludicrous, Cringely suggested it was a good example of why we need a code of ethics for the Web. | For a humorous take on the tech industry’s shenanigans, subscribe to Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter. | Get the latest insight on the tech news that matters from InfoWorld’s Tech Watch blog. ]

The background, if you’re not yet familiar with it: Attorney Charles Carreon sent a letter to Matt Inman, creator of Web comic The Oatmeal (NSFW), saying he’d defamed FunnyJunk by suggesting it had republished without permission hundreds of Inman’s own copyrighted comics. FunnyJunk had, in fact, republished hundreds of Inman’s comics, without attribution or a link to the originals.

Grudgingly and with a lot of juvenile cussing and shuffling, FunnyJunk removed some of those comics, but Carreon demanded $20,000 from Inman in shut-up money or he’d find himself on the wrong end of a lawsuit. Instead of paying, Inman launched a charity drive, the proceeds of which would go to the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Foundation.

That story went viral, donations came pouring in, and now Inman has more than $210,000 to hand over to these two charities, as well as two more he’s added.

End of story, right? Avaricious attorney slinks away in defeat, never to raise his sorry head again on the Interwebs. Another victory for the forces of Web goodness. Yes?

No. Instead of admitting he’d been beaten like a gong, Carreon doubled down. He filed more charges, claiming Inman had incited hordes of Netizens to harass him and create a fake Twitter account in his name. He claimed that Inman had defamed both him and his mother, whom he says Inman depicted in a Ralph Steadman-esque drawing as an obese woman in lingerie attempting to seduce a Kodiak bear. And he claimed that Inman’s crowdsourcing had violated California statutes on commercial fundraisers. He’s now suing Inman, the fundraising site he used (Indiegogo), the American Cancer Society, and the National Wildlife Fund.

In other words, Carreon wants to keep $210,000 from going to cancer research and bears just to prove he is right and Inman is wrong. And this guy wonders why the Internet hates him?

Carreon told Forbes’ Dave Their:

“So someone takes one of my letters and takes it apart. That doesn’t mean you can just declare netwar, that doesn’t mean you can encourage people to hack my website, to brute force my WordPress installation so I have to change my password. You can’t encourage people to violate my trademark and violate my Twitter name and associate me with incompetence with stupidity, and douchebaggery,” he says. “And if that’s where the world is going I will fight with every ounce of force in this 5’11 180 pound frame against it.”

Of course, Inman did none of those things. He even blacked out Carreon’s contact information in his response to FunnyJunk and has since politely asked people to stop harassing the man. No, that was the Internet responding all on its own. And, Inman adds, that obese woman in the slinky underwear was supposed to represent FunnyJunk, not Carreon’s mom.

The response across the Interwebs to Carreon’s latest suit was, as you’d expect, utter incredulity. TechDirt’s Mike Masnick brought up the inevitable Streisand Effect and reminded us it’s a bad idea to toss a shovel to someone already in way over his head:

As the famous saying goes, when you are in a hole, stop digging. Someone might want to send that message to lawyer Charles Carreon… Now, as we’ve learned in previous Streisand Effect situations, this is the point at which the person who overreacted begins to recognize how badly they screwed up and how they’ve made things a lot worse. And then they apologize and grovel or something along those lines…

But, of course, there are always some people who can’t stop digging. In fact, I would guess that the people who often find themselves on the wrong end of the Streisand Effect are probably slightly more prone to excessive-digging in response to said Effect, because the type of person who doesn’t really know the Streisand Effect is about to hit them is likely the kind of person who doesn’t realize that continuing to dig doesn’t get one out of a hole.

Attorney Ken White at the Popehat blog has parsed the legal niceties of this case, at some length and with great sarcasm, wit, and drawings of Ewoks. He calls Carreon a “vexatious twatwaffle” and notes:

…it’s totally true, as anyone who has read about this story or met Charles Carreon could attest: interacting with him is clearly a memorable joy, akin to being farted upon by a unicorn, and his actions normally inspire only adulation and the occasional rapturous fainting incident.

Yesterday the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced it would take on Inman’s case against Carreon, whose other claim to fame is that he once successfully represented the rightful owner of the Sex.com domain after it was stolen from him by a porn merchant.

You’d think after that experience the man might have learned something about the Webbernets. Apparently not. But with the EFF in the game, this circus can’t last go on much longer. Enjoy it while it lasts.

It’s hard to improve on “vexatious twatwaffle,” but if anyone can, it’s the residents of Cringeville. What do you think of Charlie and his Golden Lawsuit? Post your thoughts below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “The evidence is in: FunnyJunk missing funny bone,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.