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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: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:07PM (5 children)
This seems like fair use. But I guess political climate will make that opinion unpopular.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:10PM
I would have posted this with unpopular puffin link but I hear that puffin has good lawyers now.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:28PM
It's just like the fucking Commies to try to cease the MEMEs of production. But they will lose eventually, they always do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 11 2019, @08:47PM (2 children)
You consider selling somebody else's trademarked idea to make $14,000 profit "fair use"? Get out of here.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday June 12 2019, @05:28AM (1 child)
what you are saying is very true.
OTOH the frog was made famous by the alt right. Infowars is a representative of it. The judge has taken it into account... hophopfully.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12 2019, @03:44PM
I've seen you be stupid before, but at this point there is a 99.9% chance you're memory has been permanently corrupted.