A legal dispute between webcomic The Oatmeal and content aggregator website FunnyJunk began in 2011. The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman alleged in 2011 that FunnyJunk users repeatedly infringed copyright of The Oatmeals original content. In June 2012, FunnyJunk's lawyer, Charles Carreon, sent Inman a letter demanding US$20,000 in damages from him, alleging the claims he made were defamatory. Inman responded by publishing the letter on his site, along with a response and announcement that he would be organizing a charity fundraiser through Indiegogo, donating the amount demanded by Carreon to the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation.
On June 15, 2012, Carreon filed a separate pro se lawsuit Carreon vs Inman et al against Inman, Indiegogo, both charities and a hundred Does for allegations related to The Oatmeals response and related actions by other individuals. Carreon dropped this case on July 3 of that year. Mashable named the case first among their list of "silliest tech lawsuits ever." Carreon was also sued by the anonymous operator of a blog parodying him after Carreon sent letters to the site's web host demanding they reveal its operator.
Background
FunnyJunk is a website where users can upload content they find humorous. According to Ars Technica, key FunnyJunk personnel are Bryan Durel and Benjamin Bunker.
In 2010, The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman found that FunnyJunk was distributing copies of comics from his website without permission. He sent e-mails, resulting in removal of some but not all of the comics, and subsequently discontinued attempts at removal.
In May 2011, Inman made a post on The Oatmeals blog against FunnyJunk and contemplating a cease and desist under the DMCA (see Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act). The FunnyJunk owner known simply as "Admin" responded with a message to all users claiming that “the Oatmeal wants to sue funnyjunk and shut it down! He thinks we're nothing more than dirty content thieves...Contact Oatmeal anyway you can!" and provided links to The Oatmeals e-mail and Facebook page. This triggered spamming by FunnyJunk users and a flame war with The Oatmeal readers.
Operation BearLove Good, Cancer Bad
In 2011/2012, FunnyJunk hired Charles Carreon to review its website. In June 2012, Carreon delivered a demand letter via process server to Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal claiming that The Oatmeals posts regarding FunnyJunk's alleged copyright infringement constituted defamation. The letter demanded the removal of references to FunnyJunk and US$20,000 in damages. Inman responded with a blog post on The Oatmeal, containing an annotated copy of the letter, and refusing to comply with the demand. Inman further proposed to raise the requisite $20,000, take a photo of himself with the cash, and send the photograph along with a satirical illustration of FunnyJunk's mother "seducing a Kodiak bear" to FunnyJunk. Rather than pay the damages, Inman proposed to donate the money to two charities, the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society. This blog post elicited more popular support for Inman and The Oatmeal than anticipated, and the fundraising effort "Operation BearLove Good. Cancer Bad." generated the $20,000 in 64 minutes and over $100,000 in under 24 hours, and at completion he raised $220,024. Inman also responded via counsel. On June 21, 2012, Carreon abandoned FunnyJunk's demands because of misinformation.
The incident spurred commentary by Dan Mitchell of SF Weekly on how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act places the onus of policing violations on content creators and by Maxwell S. Kennerly Esquire of the Beasley Firm LLC on whether public accusations of copyright infringement are defamatory.
In the aftermath of the blog post, FunnyJunk took down all pages Inman linked as infringement and Carreon sought to hide his e-mail address due to a flood of e-mail. Carreon expressed surprise, stating: "I really did not expect that he would marshal an army of people who would besiege my website and send me a string of obscene emails." On June 14, 2012 Carreon replaced his contact page with one saying, "Due to security attacks instigated by Matt Inman, this function has been temporarily disabled." Inman, however, disputed the assertion that he had instigated an attack, noting in a blog post that Carreon's contact information had been redacted from his initial comic and that he had never directed anyone to attack Carreon. Carreon's website, Twitter account and WordPress site were all attacked, but he says "I welcome the opportunity to confront legally the misuse of a new technology."