A US lawsuit over Tung Tung Tung Sahur, the AI-generated meme character, is putting a difficult question before the courts: how much human input makes an AI-assisted creation protectable? The dispute could help clarify where copyright ends and other claims to a viral character begin.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
The Guardian reports that Spyder Games and Speedy Simulator Gaming, the owners of Roblox game Steal a Brainrot, are suing French creative agency Mementum over the character’s use in the game. Mementum represents the Indonesian creator known as Noxa. The companies say Mementum’s claimed rights do not exist; Mementum has pursued a separate trademark claim, the report says.
The dispute centres on a character made with OpenAI’s image-generation tool. Documents filed in a separate French trademark dispute reportedly describe seven prompts over 15 minutes. That account is relevant to the argument, but it does not settle whether Noxa made enough creative choices for copyright protection.
The Guardian says the US Copyright Office’s 2025 report recognises protection for human-authored expression, including work that uses AI, while leaving the sufficiency of human contribution to case-by-case analysis. The Guardian’s account of the dispute also describes a takedown request under the EU’s Digital Services Act that removed the character from the game.
Why it matters
AI image tools make it easy to produce characters; the harder question is who, if anyone, gets to control and profit from them once the internet remixes them into something far bigger. Here, the original creator’s claim sits alongside arguments that a meme’s value is built collectively by the people who spread and transform it.
Copyright and trademark are different routes, and this case should not be mistaken for a ruling on either. But its outcome could influence how creators document their work, how platforms handle disputes and how game-makers judge the risks of using viral AI characters.
Our read
This is more than a scrap over one meme with an unusually memorable name. It tests whether a handful of prompts and a chosen result can support an individual claim to ownership, while the wider culture that made the character famous may feel it has a stake too. The sensible position for now is to treat both sides’ legal arguments as claims, not settled law.
What to watch
- What the court says about the human contribution behind the character.
- How the separate trademark claim proceeds, and whether it changes the copyright dispute.
- Whether the case produces clearer guidance for documenting AI-assisted creative work.
Discussion spark: If a creator prompts an AI image tool and selects the result, should they control commercial uses of the character, or should a viral meme belong to the wider community that made it famous?
Sources and evidence
- Who owns ‘brain rot’?: inside the international legal drama over a beloved meme – The Guardian (6 October 2026, 14:00 UTC)
- Stop worrying about my AI, says multibillionaire Sam Altman. So we bear the risks and he keeps the money – The Guardian (6 October 2026, 14:00 UTC)
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