Infowars will pay $15,000 to the Pepe the Frog cartoon creator Matt Furie.
On its online store, Infowars had for sale a stylized poster which depicted numerous personalities and icons linked to the Trump 2016 Presidential Campaign such as Milo Yiannopoulos and President Trump himself. One of the icons on the poster happened to be Pepe the Frog. There was only a small picture of the cartoon amongst multiple images on the poster. The poster was created by a third-party and not Infowars.
Last year, Furie filed the lawsuit for copyright infringement. The Pepe creator and his legal team which happen to be part of a Hillary Clinton law firm aimed for a jury trial and sort over USD $2 million in damages. Last month, the judge ordered that the lawsuit go to a trial. It was found that some copyright queries should be resolved by a jury.
However, On Monday, Matt Furie’s attorneys reached a settlement for what can be described as a “licensing fee” for $15,000. This has saved Alex Jones and Infowars thousands of dollars in potential legal fees.
The terms of the settlement included that Alex Jones and Infowars may not sell any merchandise with or featuring Pepe the Frog. They also have to destroy any current merchandise featuring the cartoon.
A statement from lawyer Free Speech Systems Lawyer Robert Barnes said:
“Happy to announce the folks suing Infowars over Pepe the Frog have agreed to settle, and accept a licensing fee of $15,000. We were originally sued for millions. Some people thought we wouldn’t fight the case. We did. We would only pay an honest licensing fee, and nothing more…
The other side may have spent over a million in legal fees themselves. They wanted millions. They thought we wouldn’t fight. They thought we wouldn’t win in court. They thought wrong….We will always stand up for the rights of the people, and will never be bullied by lawsuits, even those brought by big corporate law firms with $1000/hour lawyers. They would have made more money if they went and waitressed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for a few months. So, the Pepe trial is over. We made our point.”
