9gag gets graped in the mouth by TheOatmeal

As always 9gag reposts content from another site without giving proper credit, so the admin from The Oatmeal pays them a visit and posts the following:

The post was removed, but it was one of TheOatmeal’s latest comic strips titled “What is like to have no internet.” TheOatmeal is a really popular website, so I don’t understand how somebody could confuse theoatmeal.com with oatmeal.com, especially when the strips are watermarked with the actual website address…

Here’s the link to the facebook post.

That alone was incredibly funny, especially the number of likes.

Many “angry” 9gag users started complaining to TheOatmeal on their facebook page, most of them repeating the same story that “without 9gag they would have never found out about the site, 9gag gives TheOatmeal ‘free publicity,'” and that” 9gag is just an ‘image sharing site’ and he should shut up because that’s how the internet works.” This kind of thinking is simply wrong on so many levels.

I shouldn’t even have to do this, but let me explain why TheOatmeal is right. I know 9gag is a popular site, but many of their users can’t seem to grasp the concept of crediting the OC creator and internet etiquette. Most of the content uploaded to 9gag has the original watermarks stripped off by the users themselves, and sometimes they even deface the content by replacing the character’s heads (on comic strips) with rage faces, and then slapping their user account as watermark in a visible place, like it’s their own work to begin with. After uploading, 9gag’s API automatically adds its own watermark, as if they had rights to the content or something.

The Oatmeal has all the right to tell any website to take their content down because that’s why the guy has his own website and sharing buttons to begin with. If one day he sends me a message to take his content down I’d do it, why would I start a fight about something that’s not mine to begin with?

As for the 9gag users who think it’s a free sharing site, sorry but it’s not. Imgur, photobucket, imageshack, twitpic, and similar werbistes are free picture sharing sites; 9gag is an online community that makes money through advertising. Boom! There you have it, I hope you can handle the truth!

I have a feeling this is not over and it will end up like FunnyJunk vs TheOatmeal.