Nothing on him? He has stuff on them - namely, copyright infringement (which may or may not be covered by the DMCA safe harbor). And he didn't start a war with their lawyer, it was the other way around.
Inman has really screwed up. The personal attack against Carreon was an over reaction and largely unnecessary.
An over reaction can be justified by stress, but it is not excused. And in this situation, Inman is going to be held accountable for his actions.
I agree. I hope he gets what's coming to him for raising over $100k in charitable donations.
If not, then the lawyer has no one to blame for the harassment he has earned, other than the individual harassers themselves.
And if we're talking about rational, appropriate reactions: the right reaction for Carreon is to apologize for what he did. It's the first step in reconciliation and it's normal human behavior. Carreon apologizes and comes to an understanding with Inman, who tells everyone about it and the outrage cools off.
Carreon's reaction isn't rational, it's calculating and vengeful and probably greedy. The harassment is unfortunate and where illegal, it's appropriate to punish. But that's not what he's doing.
Seriously? Am I suddenly living in a world in which people can be 'held accountable' for drawing a picture of someone's mom seducing a Kodiak bear? When did this happen?
Besides, nothing in Inman's blog post indicates the attack to be directed against Carreon, he just assumed it was. In fact, seeing as he uses phrases like "your website", it makes more sense to assume the attack is against FunnyJunk and/or its owners.
Because you think that a picture is slander. A picture is libel, which is a related but separate concept. Both slander and libel involve defamatory statements, but slander is restricted to transitory (i.e., spoken) statements whereas libel refers to published (i.e, written or drawn) statements. Video is either libel or slander depending on how the defamatory statements are presented .
Now I might be wrong but that's the impression I have had for years.
Where I'm a little hazy is in my reading of 17 USC § 411(c) - I believe that you can only sue for copyright infringement within 3 months of the work being "first transmitted" (which I assume also includes publication), and 48 hours after the work has been "transmitted".
Not sure if there is some other part of the U.S. Code that applies though.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think 411c applies in this case. That subsection refers to works whose transmission and fixation are simultaneous, which I believe is specific to live broadcasts and performances. I'm not entirely clear on how all of the timing language there is supposed to work, but I don't think any of it applies to webcomics anyway.
What would apply, however, is section 412 below that, which basically says what I outlined above; if you want to sue for anything beyond actual proved damages, you have to have registered either before the infringement, or within 3 months of creating the work.
"Except for an action brought for a violation of the rights of the author under section 106A (a), and subject to the provisions of subsection (b), [1] no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title. "
Copyright is automatic, but the right to actually litigate a copyright is dependent on manually registering a work. If you register prior to infringement, you are eligible for very generous "statutory damages", which are roughly $100k per act of infringement. If you register after the infringement, you are only eligible for the actual damages (i.e., lost sales or the defendant's ill-gotten earnings from the infringing uses) that you prove in court.
Copyright protects your articles, illustrations, posts, photographs, videos, and other works of creative expression from the time that they are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. It gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to the work, for a limited time.
That is the true definition of copyright, the second you put pen to paper. You do not need to register with a copyright office.