copyright internet intellectual-property
Does Matt Furey own the Pepe variants?
<p>If you frequent the internet for any greater amount of time, you may have seen Pepe the Frog around. You may have also seen a merger between Donald Trump and the meme frog <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/VuyE9.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/VuyE9.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>My question then is, are these variants similar enough that the creator of Pepe the Frog, Matt Furey, owns the rights to them/ do they count as infringement on his copyright for Pepe? </p>

<p>EDIT: At what point does the variant become its own separate character/intellectual property?</p>

<h2>No he doesn't own them</h2>

<p>As derivative works he has ownership of only the original content, the derivative artist owns the derived content.</p>

<p>However, as the original owner he has the right to decide by whom and under what conditions derivatives may be made (subject to fair use/dealing). So the derivative may breach his copyright and give him remedies but appropriating the other artist's work is not one of them.</p>
