Internet cartoonist raises $200k for charity in response to lawsuit threat

Instead of paying $20,000, a popular Internet cartoonist turned a threat of legal action from FunnyJunk.com into an opportunity for a fundraiser.

TheOatmeal.com owner Matthew Inman, 29, of Seattle, received a letter from a FunnyJunk’s lawyer stating that Inman would be sued for defamation if he did not remove all references to FunnyJunk from his website and pay $20,000 to FunnyJunk.

The situation started about a year ago, when Inman wrote in a blog post that FunnyJunk that had “stolen, re-hosted, and monetized” his comics. In response, FunnyJunk did take some of the comics down, but many remain on the site without any attribution to Inman. Inman decided that spending the “energy” fighting against FunnyJunk “wasn’t worth the time,” so he let the issue drop, he said.

The recent letter from Charles Carreon, FunnyJunk’s lawyer, refers to a post Inman wrote about how FunnyJunk’s “business operates” — by making money off of artists’ “stolen material.” The statement is a false accusation, wrote Carreon, and constitutes defamation.

After informing his readers of Carreon's letter, Inman hired his own lawyer, sending his official rebuttal dated June 11 and posted on Scribd.com, as confirmed by Inman's publicist Ann Inman.

“I don't want to get tied up in courtroom nonsense,” wrote Inman in a blog post. “I don't want to pay more money to my lawyer.”

So instead of paying FunnyJunk $20,000 for “hosting MY unlicensed comics on YOUR … website for the past three years?”, he decided to raise that much money for what he wrote is a “better idea.”

Within an hour of announcing that he would be aiming to raise $20,000 for charity instead of reacting to the letter, Inman had breezed past his goal amount using the global crowd-funding platform Indiegogo. Now with six days left of the 15-day fundraiser, the amount raised is over $200,000 — and Inman has yet to comply with the letter’s requests.

However, Inman's fundraiser has only added fuel to the fire.

Carreon now represents himself, filing a lawsuit last Friday against not only Inman, but also Indiegogo and the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society — the charities to which he is donating — according to Inman's latest blog post this Monday.

Jason Schultz, an assistant clinical law professor at the University of California – Berkeley, said the organizations pulled into the lawsuit are tangential.

“In general, when you see lawsuits like this that name pretty much anyone under the sun they can find, it's meant to often intimidate people and pester them to get them to pay money or to back down in some way,” Schultz said.

In an open letter, Inman tells Carreon that the lawyer is “making things worse,” writing that he expected Carreon to stop after the successful fundraiser.

“I'm glad that it got the response it did,” University of Nebraska – Lincoln sophomore Erin Hall said. “[The Internet] isn't all fun and games.”

Yet FunnyJunk's unnamed owner is not entirely at fault, she said.

“To be fair, it was the users that stole the content, but that doesn't exempt [the website’s] horrible system of moderators overlooking things,” said Hall.

Plus, the legality of FunnyJunk is not even the issue.

“The claims in the lawsuit are really more about whether or not you can [criticize FunnyJunk],” said Schultz, “and whether or not FunnyJunk is actually breaking the law is not really going to get touched in this case.”

Schultz, who also was a senior staff attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that it is unfortunate that the lawsuit has been filed because of its “poor logic.”

“I think that this is basically the kind of lawsuit that one files when one wants to harass someone and doesn't actually have much merit to it,” said Schultz, adding that what Carreon is claiming cannot be proven as a lawful violation.

“He's characterizing it as fraud, but really, it's simply that Matt Inman has stated an opinion and discussed a controversial issue online,” said Schultz, “and that's not the kind of thing you can sue people for.”

The First Amendment protects Inman's opinionated cartoons — and words — said Schultz.

“In fact, I think there's a very good chance [Carreon] will get fined and penalized by the courts for [filing] such a lawsuit,” said Schultz.

While the rate of donations has slowed, support for Inman remains strong with positive comments and tweets continuing to flood The Oatmeal.

The lesson here, said Schultz, is that running to court to sue due to negative online opinions usually just costs pain, money and time.

“[It's] almost never the way to go,” Schultz said, laughing. “You almost never win.”

Sonia Su is a Summer 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.Follow her on Twitter at @SoniaSu_

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.