No fake news here — Alex Jones’ InfoWars is being sued by the creator of inadvertent alt-right mascot, Pepe the Frog.
Cartoonist Matt Furie filed suit against conspiracy theorist Jones’ InfoWars on Monday, alleging that his amphibian creation was used without his authorization.
“Artist Matt Furie created the Pepe the Frog character in the early 2000s. Pepe is an anthropomorphic frog often depicted with large, rounded, red/brown lips, bulging eyes (often with multiple white stars in the pupil), puffy eyelids, and a human-shaped body,” the suit, filed in federal court in California, reads. “At his creation, Pepe was a ‘peaceful frog-dude’ — a kind and blissful cartoon character, who lived alongside three animal roommates, and became famous in part because of his catchphrase, ‘feels good man.'”
However, the suit notes, in 2015, factions associated with the alt-right attempted to co-opt Pepe “with the image of hate, including white supremacist language and symbols, Nazi symbols, and other offensive imagery.”
At specific issue in Monday’s suit is a poster (see image at left) which Furie says is being sold by InfoWars “that contains a copy of Pepe the Frog, featured alongside an image of InfoWars founder Alex Jones, President Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Ann Coulter, among other figures, with the text ‘MAGA’ — short for the Trump campaign slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’ — printed on the bottom:”
“Furie did not authorize the use of the Pepe image or character in this poster, and does not approve of the association of Pepe with Alex Jones or any of the other figures shown in this poster, or with the ‘MAGA’ slogan,” the suit asserts.
The suit, which alleges copyright infringement, is asking for an injunction preventing InfoWars from infringing on Furie’s copyright, as well as unspecified damages.
In a statement to TheWrap, Jones called the lawsuit “nothing but a PR stunt.”
“It is our researched view, that this lawsuit is nothing but a PR stunt. The poster that we’ve been selling is the work of an artist, showing iconic images from the 2016 campaign, and thus, is protected speech,” Jones said. “But beyond that, the suit claims that we have produced the poster, when all Infowars Store is, is a reseller of the poster. And that is why, in our researched view, the lawsuit appears as nothing more than a publicity stunt, so that my name could be attached to the alt-right, and the person filing the lawsuit can talk about how they are distancing themselves from extremism that Infowars has nothing to do to begin with. So it is just that, a publicity stunt.”
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
White Nationalists Seek to 'Top' Charlottesville and 7 More Shockers From Vice News Doc (Photos)
Monday night's episode of "Vice News Tonight" on HBO took a deep dive into the violent white supremacist rallies that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. The short documentary has gone viral, featuring interviews with white supremacist leaders as well as with victims and activists in Charlottesville. Scroll through for the eight biggest shockers from the doc.
Vice News/HBO
1. White supremacists are proud of their violence.
"Of course we're capable [of violence]," said Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacist speaker for "Unite the Right." "I'm carrying a pistol, I go to the gym all the time. I'm trying to make myself more capable of violence."
2. White supremacists want a leader who is more racist than Donald Trump.
"I'm here to spread ideas, talk, in the hopes that someone more capable will do that," said Cantwell. "Someone like Donald Trump, who does not give his daughter to a Jew... A lot more racist than Donald Trump. I don't think you can feel about race the way I do and watch that Kushner bastard walk around with that beautiful girl, OK?"
Vice News/HBO
3. The alt-right wants to mimic "camaraderie" of the left.
"We don't have the camaraderie, we don't have the trust level that our rivals do," said Cantwell. "And that camaraderie and trust is built up through activism, and that is one of the tactics that we are adopting."
Vice News/HBO
4. The alt-right is ready to come out of the online woodwork.
"We are stepping off the internet in a big way," said Robert Ray, a writer for the white supremacist site Daily Stormer. "For instance, last night at the torch walk, there were hundreds and hundreds of us. People realize they are not itemized individuals, they are part of a larger whole because we have been spreading our memes, we have been organizing on the internet... as you can see today we greatly outnumbered the anti-white, anti-American filth... We're starting to slowly unveil a little bit of our power level. You ain't seen nothing yet."
5. White supremacists think their freedom of speech is under threat.
"We had a federal court order to have this rally... They don't want our speech because we're telling the truth," said David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK. "We're talking about the ethnic cleansing of America and the destruction of the American way of life and a new Bolshevik-style society, with no freedom, no freedom of speech in this country. That's really where we're going in America and that's gotta change."
Vice News/HBO
6. Charlottesville residents feel unprotected in their own city.
"We told city council we did not want them here," said Timothy Porter, a Charlottesville resident. "They let them come. We told the police we did not want them here. They let them come. I had to jump out of the way, I almost got hit by the car my f---ing self... This is my town. We did not want those motherf---ers here, and now we got bodies on the ground."
Vice News/HBO
7. Violence harkens back to civil rights era of 1960s.
"I have a great-grandfather who literally has told me the same stories of what I have experienced today," said Montae Taylor, a student activist at the University of Virginia. "And the fact that I can look at what's going on and see what my grandfather was talking about--it's not scary, but it's appalling."
"This has always been the reality in Charlottesville," said local activist Tanesha Hudson.
Vice News/HBO
8. The alt-right want to "top" what happened in Charlottesville.
"I think [the car plowing into the crowd] was more than justified," said Cantwell. "The amount of restraint that our people showed out there I think was astounding... I'd say [the next protest] is going to be really tough to top but we're up to the challenge... I think that a lot more people are going to die before we're done here, frankly." Watch the Vice News doc here.
Alt-right members say they’re just getting started
Monday night's episode of "Vice News Tonight" on HBO took a deep dive into the violent white supremacist rallies that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. The short documentary has gone viral, featuring interviews with white supremacist leaders as well as with victims and activists in Charlottesville. Scroll through for the eight biggest shockers from the doc.