Charles Carreon is a sensitive character. Not only did he represent FunnyJunk in a defamation case and not only did he go after Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, in a separate case, but now he has also gone after the creator of charles-carreon.com, a new parody website.

In a letter dated Friday, June 21, 2012, Carreon accused the owner of that domain, which was originally registered as private, of trademark violation and cybersquatting and asked him to cease-and-desist. In the letter, he threatened to amend his (already once-amended) complaint to name Doe 2 as Satirical Charles, the nom de blog of the website’s owner.

“Register.com did disclose the identity of the cybersquatter, so I have that, and I notified [Register.com] that they wouldn’t be sued,” Carreon told Ars on Tuesday, adding that he had retained counsel in Phoenix, but did not say whether he or the new attorney would bring legal action against Satirical Charles.

Register.com is the registrar of the charles-carreon.com domain name, and appears to have revealed the identity of its owner, which previously had been registered as a privately-held domain name. Satirical Charles told Ars on Tuesday that he did not know that the domain's data had been revealed until Ars contacted him.

Register.com did not respond to Ars' repeated requests for comment, but the company's privacy policy states: "Register.com may also disclose your Personal WHOIS Data or otherwise take any other action which Register.com deems necessary in the event of the following: If a Private Registration Domain is alleged to violate or infringe a third party's trademark, trade name, patent or copyright interests or other legal rights of third parties."

In response, Satirical Charles, whose identity is known to Ars, has retained pro bono counsel to defend his right to parody Charles Carreon, who has previously referred to himself as an "attorney with extensive experience with tantric lifestyles."

"Free speech is under attack"

“Charles Carreon sent a dumb libel demand letter,” said Paul Levy, an attorney with the advocacy group Public Citizen, in an interview with Ars on Tuesday.

“But I don’t have any particular beef with Charles Carreon. We’ve been on his side over copyright issues. But people do have a right to use trademarks to address what they’re talking about and that’s what’s happened here, and that’s why we’re supporting the person that registered that domain to create a parody of Mr. Carreon.”

Satirical Charles said he’d been following the FunnyJunk/The Oatmeal case online for some time but waited to create his satirical site until after Carreon had already filed suit against Inman, which he did last week.

“I didn’t realize that free speech in this country is under attack,” Satirical Charles told Ars on Tuesday. “I decided to make a website based on Carreon to show people that this is ridiculous... There’s a lot of people who don’t realize what’s going on, or who up until last week didn’t realize what’s going on. [Some] people are using legal threats to shut them up—everyone deserves a voice.”

While Satirical Charles was grateful that Levy and Public Citizen were taking on the case pro bono, the site owner has spent money already—around $30—to set up and maintain the blog. He will also have to reimburse Levy for any expenses incurred.

“I’m willing to defend my rights to this site in order to maintain my free speech,” he added. “Setting up the domain and everything was more money than I wanted to spend, but I really felt it was necessary to talk about this guy. I’m not a man of great means, but it’s worth it to protect my right to free speech and others’ rights to free speech. I don’t want to leave my son a country where he can’t stand up for what he believes in.”

New legal showdown seems likely

Levy cited two prominent cases that would appear to bolster his argument for the right to parody a trademark holder. One is a 2005 case known as Lamparello v. Falwell, in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided against the trademark holder, Jerry Falwell, the conservative Christian preacher and pundit. In that case, Christopher Lamparello created the site fallwell.com, as a way to speak out against Falwell. The court found there was no “likelihood of confusion” between the parody and the official site, nor was there any “initial interest confusion” trademark infringement for non-commercial sites.

The other was a similar case known as Bosley Medical Institute v. Kremer, where the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that another website holder was not liable for copyright infringement on a site that disparaged Bosley’s medical services.

Levy also said that he planned on seeking declaratory judgement and that he was “prepared to litigate” in the case.

Ars has also discovered a second supporter website, charlescarreon.us, which based on Carreon’s litigious nature, may also be subject to his legal (and perhaps rhetorical) wrath. This site simply links back to the original letter from Carreon, as well as the BearLove campaign.

That site’s owner, who wishes to stay anonymous, wrote to Ars to say that he had registered the domain names charlescarreon.us and funnyjunk.us as a way to protest Carreon’s actions and had planned on taking them down.

“However, since then, Carreon's litigious and censorious nature made me deeply concerned for the freedom of expression (on the Internet and elsewhere), so I've decided to keep the site running indefinitely simply to protest his (and his wife's) actions,” he wrote to Ars on Tuesday.

“Inman's battle may not be my battle, but I deeply disagree with Carreon's hypocrisy about free speech (let's not forget the political statements on his website). I can't tolerate this looney of a lawyer try to shut everyone up with his baseless lawsuits.”