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At The Daily Beast, Alex Jones ordered to pay Furie.
Fringe conspiracy-theory outlet InfoWars settled a lawsuit Monday over their use of cartoon character "Pepe the Frog," paying $15,000 to Pepe's creator and promising never to use the cartoon again.
Pepe—a morose, previously apolitical character created by cartoonist Matt Furie—was co-opted by far-right groups and Trump supporters during the 2016 election. Furie has since tried to regain control over the character's image, pursuing legal action against a series of websites.
The InfoWars lawsuit, filed last year, centered on a poster sold by InfoWars featuring Pepe alongside Trumpworld personalities like Roger Stone, InfoWars founder Alex Jones, and pundits "Diamond & Silk."
Before settling, InfoWars tried a novel legal strategy of suggesting, without evidence, that Furie had actually based Pepe on an Argentinian amphibian cartoon character named "El Sapo Pepe." But on Tuesday, InfoWars agreed to destroy all remaining copies of the poster, and pay back the $14,000 it made from the poster sales—along with an additional $1,000.
It's the principle, not the money.
Furie is donating the extra $1,000 to amphibian conservation group Save the Frogs.
"It's a charity dedicated to frog preservation," Tompros said. "Real frogs, not cartoon frogs."
Also at: NPR and The New York Times.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @05:00PM
It is a win. I think everyone agrees copyright lengths are stupid long and the laws are overly restrictive, but few people say they need to disappear altogether. People should be able to protect their creations from misuse, and at least this ruling is against intentional misuse for profit.
I actually think the settlement is perfect. The assholes can't martyr themselves very well over $15k. They'll probably do some 1st Amendment huffing for the serious rubes.