Posted on 03/06/2018 11:51:09 AM PST by nickcarraway
Matt Furie says his "peaceful frog-dude" was co-opted in a poster featuring Pepe alongside InfoWars founder Alex Jones, President Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos, and others.
Matt Furie says his "peaceful frog-dude" was co-opted in a poster featuring Pepe alongside InfoWars founder Alex Jones, President Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos, and others. The legal campaign to take Pepe the Frog back from the alt-right is now in California federal court as artist Matt Furie has filed a copyright lawsuit against InfoWars.
Furie says he created Pepe as a "peaceful frog-dude" at the beginning of the century with the catchphrase, "Feels good man." His anthropomorphic creation then became a meme on the internet and was tweeted by Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, and Buzzfeed.
"But beginning in 2015, various fringe groups connected with the alt-right attempted to coopt Pepe by mixing images of Pepe with images of hate, including white supremacist language and symbols, Nazi symbols, and other offensive imagery," states the complaint lodged in court on Monday. "Furie has worked hard to counteract that negative image of Pepe, including collaborating with the Anti-Defamation League on the #SavePepe campaign to restore Pepe as a character representing peace, togetherness, and fun."
The lawsuit pinpoints one poster in particular as a source of copyright infringement. The poster features Pepe alongside InfoWars founder Alex Jones, President Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge, Roger Stone and others with the text "MAGA," short for Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
Furie, represented by attorney Rebecca Girolamo at Wilmer Cutler, says he didn't authorize such use of Pepe. He alleges the poster is being sold by InfoWars in its online store.
Here's the full complaint.
Should InfoWars attempt to argue fair use, the case could become provocative. Copyright law isn't supposed to make value judgments. (See for example the time that Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" triggered a lawsuit.) But then again, the purpose and character of use as well as the effect of the use on the potential market are two of the four factors comprising a potential fair use.
In this case, Furie says he has licensed intellectual property rights for card games and stuffed dolls. Further exploration of the impact of political co-opting could be forthcoming. The lawsuit also notes that Donald Trump Jr. posted an image of Pepe in a modified version of a movie poster for the film "The Expendables," labeled "The Deplorables."
Furie needs to be focusing on the Reddit users.
The weird frog image is as common as dirt on Reddit.
Didn’t he attempt to sue “infringers” before?
Uh, this is a joke. Everyone on the internet uses Pepe. Trying to take this back from the “alt-right”?
Should be dismissed with prejudice - the image was used in the public domain as a meme MILLIONS of times before it was co-opted for Trump memes.
Furie enjoyed the meme use before because it furthered his popularity and never tried to sue or shut down the illicit use before so it’s become, defacto, a public domain item.
Copyright law here is clear - once the cat is out of the bag there’s no putting it back in.
If Pepe is outlawed only outlaws will Pepe.
Show me where the bad person drew your Pepe
I think you can change an image 3 ways and it’s OK to use (I may stand corrected).
>Show me where the bad person drew your Pepe
I don’t care who you are, that’s some funny right there
Kenneth Grahame called him in 1908 Mr Frog
Mr frog = Mr. Toad
Copyright law here is clear - once the cat is out of the bag there’s no putting it back in.
What you are actually talking about in this case is clearly trademark, and that's a completely different kettle of fish, which is the only thing that makes your statement even somewhat true. With trademark, you most protect it or you can lose it. That's the whole basis of the kleenex thing from so many years ago.
Copyright is completely different. You can't copyright a character such as Pepe. A particular image or representation can certainly be copyrighted, but that's a different thing.
What this fellow seems to be attempting to do is stuff the genie back in the trademark bottle. If there is any justice at all in the world he wouldn't be able to do that because he made no effort to police the mark when all that stuff was going on.
Mickey Mouse isn’t a trademark.
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