A legal campaign has been brought to the California courts in order to take back Pepe the Frog from the al-right's misuse of his image and likeness. Matt Furie, the man behind the cartoon, has filed a copyright lawsuit against the notorious InfoWars collective who have appropriated his animated figure in an unfavourable manner.
Furie initially conceived Pepe to be a "peaceful frog-dude" with the catchphrase "Feels good man." The artist's anthropomorphic creation eventually began to spread all over the Internet, having been tweeted by the likes of Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and Buzzfeed, among countless others.
A court complaint filed by Furie's lawyer notes how "beginning in 2015, various fringe groups connected with the alt-right attempted to co-opt Pepe by mixing images of Pepe with images of hate, including white supremacist language and symbols, Nazi symbols, and other offensive imagery. Furie has worked hard to counteract that negative image of Pepe, including collaborating with the Anti-Defamation League on the #SavePepe campaign to restore Pepe as a character representing peace, togetherness, and fun."
The lawsuit zeroes in on one particular appropriation of Pepe on a poster with InfoWars founder Alex Jones, Donald Trump, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopolous, Matt Drudge, Roger Stone and other alt-right figures alongside the "Make America Great Again" slogan. Furie is looking to re-contextualize his creation in a positive light once again, and stop the sale and circulation of Pepe in political propaganda.