Well, Charles Carreon really did it good this time. Instead of backing away from the dispute, like he should have, he’s filed suit against Matthew Inman and Indiegogo. Carreon v. Inman Complaint.
For those of you who didn’t catch the story the first time around, Carreon represents a website called “Funny Junk.” Funny Junk is a “user generated content” site — so they say they don’t post any content of their own, it all gets posted by their users. Inman, publisher of The Oatmeal, kept finding his content up on Funny Junk, and got sick of it. So, he posted something on his site bitching about it.
Then, Funny Junk hired a guy who I know, like, and consider to be a friend: Charles Carreon. Charles wrote what I thought was one of the most ill-considered demand letters ever sent out on a lawyer’s letterhead. He sent it to The Oatmeal, who eviscerated it. I have to give Inman credit, his reply was witty and frankly, appropriate. As part of his “fuck you” to Funny Junk, Inman started raising money for a couple of charities, using Indiegogo.com.
And then Carreon got upset. Instead of backing away from what was clearly an unsupportable legal position, he chose to try and get the charitable fundraiser shut down. When Indiegogo wouldn’t shut it down, he sued them along with Inman.
Carreon just made himself a meme — and not in a good way. This will not end well for him. I just want to say that I tried. I really tried to get him to come to his senses. I tried really really hard.
