Artist sues AI meme generator for selling deeply personal comic as ad template
Meme generator may have screwed up by using templates in outputs, expert says.
Artist Elmer Saflor, known online as "Superelmer," has expressed his dismay over the popularization of his comic "Running Away Balloon" as a meme. While it's understandable that the comic has garnered millions of shared views since its inception in 2017, he firmly believes that it's not alright for an AI meme generator to commercialize his copyrighted creation as a template for potentially countless advertisements.
This is the crux of his legal battle against one of the leading meme generators using AI to accelerate the potentially unlawful utilization. The "Running Away Balloon" comic, created by Elmer Saflor, commonly referred to as "Superelmer." Credit: via Saflor The artist, who is based in the Philippines and operates as a digital creator and artist, has recently filed a lawsuit.
In this legal document, Saflor claims that Memes Apps, LCC, the entity operating the content creation platforms Memes.ai and Memes AI Studio, infringed upon copyright law by selling paid subscriptions to an ad generator that produces replicas of his comic without his explicit consent.
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