LIVEPepe the Frog’ cartoonist shutdown $4m NFT collection over frog copyright
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Artist Matt Furie is best known for creating “Pepe the frog,” the well-intentioned cartoon frog that, upon being co-opted quickly devolved into an alt-right meme and mascot.
Furie drew the green character for an innocent online comic in 2015, but it quickly grained traction on MySpace and 4Chan for more sinister purposes. By 2015, Pepe had become one of the most popular memes on the internet, primarily used to symbolise the alt-right movement and white-supremacy.
A frustrated Furie took legal action in 2017, when a former educator published an alt-right children’s book using Pepe’s image. With the help of a pro-bono lawyer, Furie managed to halt the distribution of the “racist, Islamaphobic and hate-filled” book, forcing the author to donate all profits to Muslim advocacy organisations. Two years later, Furie won $15,000 in a legal battle with InfoWars over their improper use of his illustration.
