The comic teamed up with the company that owns the Papyrus chain of card and gift shops, Recycled Greetings, to sell paper greeting cards of his web comics via the The Oatmeal’s web store, along with other novelty items. But that caught the attention of Oatmeal Studios, a Massachusetts greeting card company that says it’s been selling greeting cards under that name for 35 years. Oatmeal Studios sued Inman and Recycled Greetings, claiming a trademark on the phrase “Oatmeal Studios.” In a complaint filed in Boston federal court on 21 November, Oatmeal Studios says that Inman’s use of The Oatmeal is too similar, and likely to confuse consumers, who may believe the businesses are related.

The suit has only one count – trademark infringement – and doesn’t include any specific damage demand. Neither Inman nor officials at Oatmeal Studios immediately responded to requests for comment.

I think Oatmeal Studios has a legitimate concern. As long as Oatmeal Studios avoids hiring an a-hole attorney, I suspect this will be resolved amiably.

You can see his cards over on his site.

“Matthew Inman spoke out against Carreon’s threat of a frivolous lawsuit, in a very popular and very public way,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. “This was nothing more than a meritless attempt to punish Inman for calling attention to his legal bullying. We called him out on this in our briefs, so it’s no surprise that Carreon was left with no choice but to dismiss.”

Ars Technica has talked to Carreon about the decision. Carreon calls the stunt “mission accomplished”. The suit was dropped without prejudice, meaning he could refile the suit at anytime.

Also from Ars we learn that Matthew’s original plan to take the $220,000 and photograph it became problematic from a legal perspective and that Matthew opted to photograph his own money and have Indiegogo disperse the funding directly to the charities.

Inman said in a separate sworn statement that, “in order to avoid having this lawsuit interfere with my expression and to avoid jeopardizing the funds from the campaign in any way, I withdrew funds from my own personal account and photographed those funds.” IndieGoGo distributed the funds directly to the two charities. To Charles Carreon, that’s a win.

This bizarre case started last year when Matthew posted a critique of FunnyJunk.com stating that the site’s users had uploaded most of his cartoons and FunnyJunk was reaping advertising profits for its users disregard for his copyright. A small internet skirmish ensued but FunnyJunk backed down and removed Matthews work. A year later Carreon, FunnyJunk’s lawyer, threatens to sue Matthew for defamation if he doesn’t pay FunnyJunk $20,000. Matthew posts Carreon’s legal letter interspersed with his own creative responses and ends with a challenge of his own. Instead of paying the $20,000, Matthew would try to raise that amount and donate it to two charities: American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation. A month later Matthew had raised over $220,000. Carreon personally sued Matthew, the charities and certain John Does for mounting a harassment campaign and infringing on his trademark (“Carreon” is trademarked).

You can read the full notice of dismissal on the EFF’s website.

The charges against Inman’s fundraising may be the most serious, but they’re also the oddest. Carreon says that Inman and his chosen charities had to take several steps in order to act within California law. Those steps include registering with the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts and making a written contract for inspection by the California Attorney General. Without those preliminary activities, all three parties are violating the law, says Carreon. The measures are meant to protect citizens from bogus fundraising attempts, and to keep commercial fundraiser from misrepresenting the charities or acting on their behalf without their input. The suit names the NWF and ACS because neither “have acted to disavow their association with the Bear Love campaign, thus lending their tacit approval to their use of their names to the Bear Love campaign.”

She also goes on to explain that Matthew’s campaign may not fit the definition of commercial because he’s indicated that all the money was going to charity and wasn’t keeping any of it for himself. This explains why Carreon donated to the fundraising campaign so that he’d be an interested party if any of the money didn’t go where Matthew said it would go.

Elsewhere on the web, lawyers are speculating on the merits of the case. One of the legal bloggers watching this case is Marc Randazza, a first amendment attorney who also deals with intellectual property, internet and entertainment law. Randazza has written a post called “Carreon Triples Down — Sues Matthew Inman” in which he says he’s an acquaintance of Carreon and even tried to talk him out of filing the suit. The comments include several attorney’s speculation on the motivation and likelihood of success. One attorney, Jonathan Corbett, posted an open latter to Carreon stating he intended to file a complaint with the California Bar based on Carreon’s conduct.

It read, in part:

In short, congratulations on making a name for himself as the man who sues charities, legitimate and lawful Internet content publishers, and anyone else who doesn’t bow to you. As a human being, you should know better, but as a lawyer, your conduct has departed frmo (sic) the minimum professional standards requried (sic) by you. I will be filing a formal complaint with the California Bar regarding your conduct.

For the legal aspect of this bizarre suit, watch Popehat (who broke the news that Carreon was suing The Oatmeal) and Randozza’s blog.

Charles Carreon, the lawyer originally hired by FunnyJunk to threaten Matthew Inman with a federal defamation lawsuit, has field a suit representing himself against Matthew, Indiegogo (the website where Matthew has raised nearly $200,000 for the National Wildlife Federation, and the American Cancer Society – AND named both charities in the suit. The suit alleges trademark infringement and incitement to cyber-vandalism.

Matthew has posted a response on his blog to the new suit. He says:

So when did this transform from Oatmeal VS FunnyJunk to Carreon VS the internet? I’m going to take a wild shot in the dark here and guess that it’s when you announced to a journalist at MSNBC that you were trying to shut down a charity fundraiser which would benefit cancer victims and endangered wildlife. THAT was the moment when the tide of public opinion focused on you instead of FunnyJunk. I never encouraged anyone to attack, harass, or otherwise contact you. In fact in my original letter I blurred out your contact information and I linked to your Wikipedia page instead of your website. If I’ve directed energy anywhere it’s been to the fundraiser page.

…

Your lawsuit is meritless and it’ll probably just get dismissed, but I’m guessing you’re just going to keep trying until you find an angle that sticks with a judge. My advice: take a few weeks off, stop saying crazy shit to journalists, and come back when you’ve calmed down. Write an apology to whomever you feel is appropriate, or just don’t write anything ever again.

The suit alleges Indiegogo and the two charities have not filed the proper paperwork for such a fundraising campaign. Indiegogo has issued a statement stating that the suit was “frivolous” and that they have “not seen any behavior to cause us to believe that this campaign doesn’t comply with Indiegogo’s Terms of Service.” No responses from the charities have been reported at this time.

For more background on this story, visit:
Lawyer Demands the Oatmeal Pay Him $20K Not to Sue Him and
Funnyjunk Lawyer Shocked by the Oatmeal Response
Fighting words to FunnyJunk lawyer: The Oatmeal will not cave

Putting aside any legitimate legal standings, I’m starting to think Stan Lee’s retirement plan is filing lawsuits against anyone making a movie with any characters he was associated with.

Correction: As one commentor below notes, the lawsuit is being filed by Stan Lee Media, not Stan Lee the individual. Several news stories (including the NY Post story I linked to) make it appear Stan is behind the lawsuits, but most others clarify that it is his old media company.

Last week the New York State Supreme Court, New York County, dismissed all claims in a million dollar lawsuit brought by the Graphic Artists Guild (GAG) against the Illustrators’ Partnership of America (IPA) and five named individuals.

In the lawsuit, GAG asserted claims for defamation and interference with contractual relations, alleging that IPA had interfered with a “business relationship” GAG had entered into that enabled GAG to collect orphaned reprographic royalties derived from the licensing of illustrators’ work. GAG alleged that efforts by IPA to create a collecting society to return lost royalties to artists “interfered” with GAG’s “business” of appropriating these orphaned fees.

In her decision, Judge Debra James ruled that statements made by the Illustrators’ Partnership and the other defendants were true; that true statements cannot be defamatory; that illustrators have a “common interest” in orphaned income; and that a “common-interest privilege” may arise from both a right and a duty to convey relevant information, however contentious, to others who share that interest or duty.

Regarding a key statement at issue in the lawsuit: that GAG had taken over one and a half million dollars of illustrators’ royalties “surreptitiously,” the judge wrote:
“Inasmuch as the statement [by IPA] was true, [GAG]‘s claim cannot rest on allegations of a reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. Truthful and accurate statements do not give rise to defamation liability concerns.”

And she noted:

“The plaintiff Guild has conceded that it received foreign reproductive royalties and that it does not distribute any of the money to artists.”

Labor Department filings provided as evidence to the court document that between 2000 and 2007, GAG collected at least $1,581,667 in illustrators’ reprographic royalties. GAG admitted to having collected similar royalties since 1996. GAG’s officers have repeatedly refused to disclose how much money their organization has received to date or how the money has been spent.

DUTY AND COMMON INTEREST
The judge concluded that this situation justified an assertion of common interest by IPA. This means that “the party communicating [relevant information] has an interest or has a duty” to convey that information truthfully to others “having a corresponding interest or duty”:

“The duty need not be a legal one, but only a moral or social duty. The parties need only have such a relation to each other as would support a reasonable ground for supposing an innocent motive for imparting the information. Here the plaintiff Guild’s factual allegations demonstrate that the defendants’ statements were both true, and fall within the parameters of the common-interest privilege.”

We hope this decision will end the two and a half years of litigation during which GAG pursued its claims against IPA and artists Brad Holland, Cynthia Turner and Ken Dubrowski of IPA, as well as attorney Bruce Lehman, former Commissioner of the US Patent Office and Terry Brown, Director Emeritus of the Society of Illustrators.

Idaho Statesman reports that in addition to the cartoon porn, Kutzner had 500 pictures of teenage females (but couldn’t be proven that they were under 18) and 8,000 files of child erotica
. Investigators believe Kutzner had downloading child porn for at least eight years, but because he used software to delete the files before the search warrant was executed, he couldn’t be charged for greater crimes.

“The CBLDF legal team has been tracking trends in customs here in the U.S. and abroad that show authorities searching, and,in some cases, seizing the computers, portable devices, storage devices, and other items of travelers who have adult comics material stored on those devices,” Brownstein told Comic Book Resources. “The ACLU is tracking similar customs abuses from a privacy point of view. There’s a recent incident about which we’re not at liberty to discuss specifics involving this trend, where we were asked to provide information and letters of support. Because this is a pending matter, I’m not at liberty to discuss further specifics at this time.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office said Steven Kutzner, 33, had downloaded more than 70 animated cartoon pornographic images on his computer. Many of them depicted child characters from The Simpsons.

Kutzner was a former middle school teacher at Lake Hazel Middle School in Meridian. He resigned immediately after the search warrant was served at his home.

Sentencing will be held in January. He faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison and up to $250,000 in fines.