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Comment by grabeh | Hacker News Reader

Personally speaking, I don't think it's necessary to send a letter of this length to rebut what is a spurious claim by FJ. The Oatmeal's lawyer has analysed the case well and is aware of its flawed nature, but this didn't need to be stated in the letter, as it would have sufficed to relay his analysis to OM.

I am fairly confident FJ's lawyer is aware of the flaws in his case and although an easy target, he is likely to be aware of relevant case law.

The point is that FJ's lawyer's letter was more akin to a shakedown used to obtain leverage, rather than a legitimate letter before claim detailing the full extent of the accusations present.

I would have responded in a blunt fashion denying their claims and asking them to prove loss to the value of $20,000.

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Free* advertising and publicity for The Oatmeal. I found the letter quite entertaining, further embedding The Oatmeal in my mind since even his lawyer appears to have a sense of humor.

*I know lawyers aren't free, but he'd be paying a lawyer regardless of the letter's style.

It's possible (although I have no idea how plausible) that Mr Balasubramani could have written that letter pro bono, which would be excellent advertising given the coverage this is getting, and since he's on the Good Team, it's probably more valuable publicity than that of the other fellow.

I speculate (at the risk of demonstrating my ignorance) that this letter, at 1 page of background and ~4 pages of analysis, may not actually have taken all that long to prepare, especially for someone with intimate knowledge of DMCA and libel/defamation case-law.

Of course, it's a lot more complicated if he has arranged representation rather than just letter-writing, and the contact telephone at the end perhaps suggests he has, so it's quite possible I'm wrong.

Since Mr. Balasubramani has some background in writing (as mentioned above), it might just be a unique bonus to the service he offers.

The informal language and entertainment value of the letter seems to me to be a direct nod to the value of the Streisand effect in matters like this. The Oatmeal manages to make them look even worse in the most easily digestible format possible.

Although you are right, there would be a substantial difference between the cost for a letter of that length versus a brief rebuttal (although of course the underlying legal analysis would have still been undertaken, committing that legal analysis to paper would have taken additional time).

I do take your point that it is good publicity and on a related note, it is an interesting tactic to publicly disclose the legal response. It obviously will feed into the public support that the Oatmeal is receiving.

I'm not taking anything away from the letter itself - it was a good read - it's just that I don't think FJ's letter warranted or indeed deserved such an in-depth response.

You think FJ's lawyer is aware of the flaws in his case? I really didn't get that. I read his letter and ended up thinking "this guy is a total gristlehead". It scanned like a letter from a ten year old who knew a tiny amount of legalese.

Edit: I get that he's a high-profile lawyer and was respected for the work he did with sex.com, but the letter didn't seem like it was all that great. "Punch it into Google" was a phrase he used. Seriously?

Play the psychological game. Your attack can't seem tentative; if it does, you're telling your target how to defend themselves. Minimizing effort maximizes gain.

I think the letter was brief and to the point. Lawyers are criticised for excessive legalese and impenetrable prose. Contrary to this, the phrase you mention is easily understood by the reader and serves its purpose.

In terms of his awareness of the flaws, I would say that they would be apparent to most people with an awareness of the basic facts of the case. Obviously in reality, I have no idea of his awareness but I would be surprised if he wasn't.

"Punch it into Google" does not illustrate the complexities of Google Search. Was he logged in and thus subjected to local and personal results? Was his IP tagged as being from a certain country and thus served results based on that regional information?

I understood that the initial criticism was that the phrase 'Punch into Google' was not sufficiently clear or at least was too informal for legal correspondence.

Even if this was restated in formal terms the same deficiency you describe would still be applicable.

If the original criticism was that the phrase did not disclose sufficient information to identify the particular circumstances surrounding the search results, then the reality is that even if this information was supplied, it would not assist.

The appearance of a post in search results is not the actionable matter, but rather the underlying cause of such appearance (for example a defamatory post referring to x, which then appears in search result for x).

Here, the alleged issue was the reference to FJ on The Oatmeal's site which was in fact completely legitimate.

Disclosing the specific circumstances surrounding the search would only have served to dilute the point of the letter, which as has been mentioned was intended more as a shakedown (albeit a completely flawed attempt at a shakedown).

That's the point: I don't think he's very aware. I don't think he knew how popular The Oatmeal was. I don't think he knew anything its fans (of which I am not one, incidentally).

I also don't think he fully appreciates the complexity of how the web works. I'm sure through his sex.com case he's pretty familiar with how domain names work and the legal recourse for dealing with those, but he just seems totally out of his depth discussing libel.

As for the "punch it into Google", it's hilariously colloquial at best and ignorant of the way which Google works at worst.

Heh, perhaps I do give the guy too much credit.

On the language point, considering the nature of the language I use in my letters and agreements I draft, I found his letter to be quite refreshing (at least in terms of the language used rather than its intention!).

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