Goldman told Ars that although the copyright meme case is niche, the significance of a win for Saflor could resonate beyond the meme ecosystem and inform some of the biggest AI copyright fights.
It matters that the meme generator’s outputs include actual copies of Saflor’s original work, Goldman said. In some of the most high-stakes AI copyright fights, a “big contention” among model makers that’s key to their defense is that original works are not included in outputs, Goldman pointed out.
“And we’ve seen where the copyright owners are able to replicate identical outputs, that actually makes the cases much higher stakes for the defendants,” Goldman said. “And so at best, this case could possibly have an impact for those cases where the copyright owner has got the smoking guns of original index material coming out identically.”
However, “I don’t even think it’s likely to do that,” Goldman said, since “meme generators are just such a niche because of the fact that they’re memes,” which inherently only work when they’re copied without permission.
“If someone creates a visual image and tells the world, ‘Please make this into a meme,’ that would never work,” Goldman said. “Memes that grow organically from the multiple individual decisions to copy it without permission, so copyright law and meme law don’t really play together very nicely.”
Saflor thinks that AI’s rise in popularity is the perfect time to change that and “recognize that behind every iconic meme is a real creator,” Saflor told Ars. “Respecting copyright encourages creativity and ensures artists aren’t left behind as technology evolves.”
Saflor uses AI tools and does not believe that AI itself is the problem. Goldman pointed out that his arguments against Memes Apps would be largely the same even without the AI aspect. But Saflor considers Memes Apps’ platforms to be examples of irresponsible AI products, where the operators problematically advertise that you can “fire your ad agency” and replace all creative work with a meme generator.
“My goal is simply to protect creators when their work is allegedly commercialized without permission,” Saflor told Ars. “I hope this case helps start a broader conversation about respecting artists’ rights as AI-powered platforms become a bigger part of Internet culture.”
