Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

mashable.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 113 posts

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

#21

Post by lbrandy »

planetguy wrote: post #2

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.

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.

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

#22

Post by rufibarbatus »

mrpollo wrote: post #13
jsprinkles wrote: post #8

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…

Google cache still has all of the content indexed example: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:e8h2n1h...

Looks like FJ's been excluded from the Internet Archive. Is there a trustworthy caching authority, you know, for this kind of situation?

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

#23

Post by dangrossman »

jjcm wrote: post #15
jsprinkles wrote: post #8

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…

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?

The alleged libel is based, in part, upon Funnyjunk's claim that they are acting legally within the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA by only hosting UGC and taking it down upon notice of infringement.

The Oatmeal's response to the claim included a list of content infringing his copyright. Funnyjunk is going to want to remove that content to retain its safe harbor from liability for the infringement. It may or may not be a properly worded notice under the DMCA, but a lot of notices UGC hosts get aren't, and they still take down the content -- because the intent of the parties and whether they acted in good faith matters when it's time to face a judge.

That the pages are no longer accessible does not mean the evidence has been destroyed, either. The DMCA requires only that you "block access to" the content, not physically remove it from a server.

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

#24

Post by ruswick »

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.

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

#25

Post by GiraffeNecktie »

ruswick wrote: post #24

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.

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.

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

#26

Post by hobin »

calciphus wrote: post #12
TomGullen wrote: post #6

Is there any chance that FunnyJunk has played the Oatmeal for promotional purposes here?

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?

Agreed. I don't compliment people very often, but countering the suit by raising money for charity - combined with his usual humor and quick wit - was a masterstroke.

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

#27

Post by skeletonjelly »

planetguy wrote: post #2

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.

Can you elaborate? I don't find his humour overly humourous but each to their own.

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

#28

Post by hobin »

ruswick wrote: post #24

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.

Unresolved anger issues much? Hint: the internet is big. If you don't like something, ignore it.

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

#29

Post by pi18n »

planetguy wrote: post #2

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.

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.
Post reply on HN