Right-wing conspiracy website Infowars paid the creator of the internet meme Pepe the Frog $15,000 in a settlement for using its likeness on a poster it was selling.
Infowars, headed by Alex Jones, had featured the frog in posters alongside figures like Roger Stone, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Diamond and Silk. The company made about $14,000 off of sales of such posters and agreed to pay that back to Pepe’s creator, Matt Furie, after he filed a copyright lawsuit.
The Pepe meme, created in the mid-2000s, has become a frequent image used in memes supporting President Trump. But some white supremacists and neo-Nazis also began co-opting the cartoon amphibian.
Furie has pushed back on the use of his frog in hateful memes. His lawyer, Louis Tomporos, told the Washington Post that Furie wasn’t trying to make money, but rather a point.
“From [Furie’s] perspective, the goal of this was not really about making money and certainly not about going after Alex Jones,” Tompros said. “The goal is to make sure the use of Pepe in association with hateful images and ideas stops, and if anybody thinks they’re going to make any money by selling Pepe hate merchandise, they won’t.”
After the settlement, Infowars lawyer Robert Barnes called the agreement a “strategic victory” for Jones. He claimed that Furie had actually sought millions, although Furie’s lawyer denied that.
“Happy to announce the folks suing Infowars over Pepe the Frog have agreed to settle, and accept a licensing fee of $15,000,” Barnes said. “They thought we wouldn’t fight. They thought we wouldn’t win in court. They thought wrong.”
Jones, 45, is known for claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 20 children and six adults was a “giant hoax,” among other false and conspiratorial claims.
Despite the settlement, Furie’s lawyer said that the Pepe creator would continue to push back on the use of his cartoon.
“Matt [Furie’s] going to enforce his copyrights aggressively to make sure nobody else is profiting off associating Pepe the Frog with hateful imagery,” Tompros said.
