I wasn’t going to comment on the ongoing fracas between TheOatmeal and the website that has been pirating his cartoons for all of these
years until this morning, when the latest development in the case demonstrated
just how dangerous this sort of thing is getting to be. I’m not going to name
the offended/offending party, since that’s how this situation started in the
first place, but just in case you haven’t been following the story, The Oatmeal
is a web comic and humor site, and over the years artwork from the site has
been lifted and reprinted across the Internet. This happens to most web
artists, and is usually a minor annoyance, but there was one website that was
actually making money on the stolen cartoons, and The Oatmeal took notice of it
and posted a list of every time the other site had done this. Other ‘net
dwellers began referencing these theft listings, and repeating them until
references to the other website stealing The Oatmeal’s cartoons became more
commonly found on search engines than the thieving website’s own address…
At this point, the thieves decided to take legal action, and
had their lawyer send The Oatmeal a letter claiming that the “search engine
interference” was deliberate cyber-vandalism and demanding $20,000 or they
would sue. Now, for most of us this would be a simple situation; we’d have our
lawyer respond to the letter with one of his own, possibly with a threat to not
only counter-sue but also take action over the well-documented original theft.
The Oatmeal did that, of course, but he also posted a response online in which
he vowed to raise the $20,000 from online donations – and then give the money
to charity, sending the thieving site’s attorney just a picture of the piles of
donated cash and a rather insulting drawing. In the event, it took just over an
hour to raise the $20,000 in online donations, and the fund is still continuing
to grow, reaching somewhere over $170,000 in just a few days. That should have
been the end of the story, but it wasn’t…
The lawyer for the thieves was (understandably) dismayed by the
outpouring of support from all corners of the Internet and the disrespect being
shown by The Oatmeal (and the illustration referenced above, in particular) and
decided to cause trouble by trying to get the company sponsoring the web
donations to cancel the program and send back the donations on the grounds that
this initiative violated The Oatmeal’s terms of service. This failed, partly
because the hosting company didn’t have any problem with the charity
initiative, and partly because they like The Oatmeal more than the thieves or
their attorney. Unfortunately, this also drew the ire of the collective
consciousness of the Internet, who began subjecting the lawyer to real
cyber-vandalism and electronic harassment. A reasonable person would have
issued an apology, pointed out that he’s just a hired gun doing his job, and
let the whole thing blow over…
Instead, the lawyer is now suing The Oatmeal directly,
claiming that the whole campaign was intended to have this effect from the beginning,
and the harassment he is now suffering is a deliberate attack on the part of
The Oatmeal…
Let me repeat that: the people responsible for stealing an
artist’s work and trying to then extort money from him for having the temerity
to complain about it are now claiming that the work of thousands of people all
over the world IN REACTION TO THEIR OWN STUPIDITY, GREED, AND CRIMINAL ACTIONS
are an attack on them…
As you all know, I collect stories of business-related
stupidity, but I can’t recall any story that tops this one for sheer idiocy combined
with bald-faced gall. I’m not even presenting this one as a cautionary tale; I
can’t imagine how anyone could think this was a good idea in the first place,
much less now that it has exploded on the people who were trying it. If there
is any lesson to be learned here, it’s probably that letting copyright theft
slide isn’t a good idea, or that assuming that no one could possibly be stupid
enough to attempt a specific asinine act isn’t safe…
I’ll let you know if anyone tries to sue me for making these
points…
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