Lawyer Charles Carreon's attempt to shut down Web cartoonist The Oatmeal's taunting charitable fundraiser has been denied, according to Indiegogo, the service used to collect the money. Carreon, who threatened to sue The Oatmeal (alias Matthew Inman) for defaming FunnyJunk.com if he didn't pay Carreon $20,000, has complained that the fundraiser violated Indiegogo's terms of service.

Carreon demanded the money as penance for a blog post that Inman wrote stating that humor site FunnyJunk was stealing content from The Oatmeal, Inman's website. Inman responded by pledging to raise the money Carreon requested, and then to donate it in equal parts to the National Wildlife Foundation and the American Cancer Society (also known as "Operation BearLove Good, Cancer Bad").

Carreon received antagonistic e-mails and was sent many copies of Inman's drawing of Carreon's mother attempting to seduce a Kodiak bear by fans of Inman, to his shock and surprise. The lawyer subsequently removed his contact info from his website. Carreon told MSNBC that he believed that the fundraiser violated Indiegogo's terms of use, and "sent a request to disable the fundraising campaign."

"Charles Carreon did indeed reach out to Indiegogo with this complaint," Indiegogo told Ars in an e-mail. The company was working with its lawyer "to make sure everything was legit about the campaign," and determined it hasn't "seen any behavior to cause them to believe that this campaign doesn’t comply with their terms of service."

While that skirmish was lost, the fundraiser surged to $170,000 after just three days. Inman said he will choose two more charities in addition to the initial two among which he will divide the money. The campaign will continue on unimpeded for the 11 days that remain.

Update: Courtesy of reader albeec13, here is a letter from Venkat Balasubramani, an attorney with Focal PLLC, addressed to Carreon on behalf of Inman. The letter asserts that FunnyJunk may be at greater fault for its failure to comply with DMCA practices and categorically dismisses the idea that Inman's blog post was defamatory.