Featured Image Credit: Creepy Pixel Studio
We warned you that the issue of copyright and artificial intelligence was about to become even more complicated, with a soaring number of court cases seeing judges and lawyers alike arguing over AI-generated creations.
While it's obvious that Disney owns the rights to Darth Vader, what happens when you use AI to churn out Garth Nader as a raspy villain swinging a light-up sword? Even then, it’s unclear who’d own the 'rights' to this new creation. Would it be as a user or the AI platform that helped you make it? More than this, if the House of Mouse came to sue, who would be in the firing line for potential copyright infringement?
Making some of us (including this writer) feel older than ever, the trend of Italian brainrot memes continues to take over, and with it, we're wading further into an AI copyright minefield.
The most iconic Italian brainrot is Tung Tung Tung Sahur, an anthropomorphic wooden log that can be traced back to Indonesian TikTok creator @noxaasht (Noxa). As Tung Tung Tung Sahur comes from an AI-generated image, it is ineligible for copyright protection in jurisdictions including Indonesia and the United States.
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This hasn't stopped Paris-based company Mementum Lab from claiming copyright, which led to bizarre court cases that put Epic Games and Roblox Corporation in the firing line over Fortnite and Roblox.
Steal a Brainrot is a popular multiplayer game created by SpyderSammy and released on Roblox. Owned by DoBigStudios, Steal a Brainrot is the only Roblox game to have passed 25 million concurrent users, and is so popular that a movie about it is even being made. Elsewhere, Fortnite has had its own official crossover where we could splash our V-Bucks on Tung Tung Tung Sahur and Ballerina Cuppucina.
Similarly, Epic Games' officially licensed Steal the Brainrot broke the record for a Fortnite Creative Island with a 400,000 concurrent user peak.
imagining a 74 year old judge reading this after a long week pic.twitter.com/xJDf433Pgt
— ben 🏴🏆 (@bnwkr) June 29, 2026
In September 2025, Spyder Sammy voluntarily removed Tung Tung Tung Sahur due to a dispute with and Mememtum Lab, but in return, threatened to sue the latter over copyright infringement.
Spyder Games LLC v. Mementum Lab is a hotly contested case involving character designs and branding, with a seven-day jury trial scheduled for November 8, 2027.
Sypder Games LLC has also filed to have numerous Steal a Brainrot copycats removed, all while Mementum Lab argues that it holds ownership over the likes of Tung Tung Tung Sahur and Ballerina Cappucina.
If you're confused, you aren't alone. Over on X, one person shared court documents from the Spyder Games versus Memetum case, writing: "Imagining a 74-year-old judge reading this after a long week."
The documents state: "Defendant [Mementum] claims that it owns copyrights to over a dozen brainrots in the Game [Steal a Brainrot] that were generated by artificial intelligence tools (and more than 50% of the entire 'brainrot universe').
“For example, defendant contends that it owns or controls the copyrights to brainrots known as 'Tung Tung Tung Sahur' and 'Udin Din Din Dun Ma Din Din Din Dun'."
For those who don't know, the latter is a gym-obsessed orange. Lamenting at the whole idea of going to court over these AI characters, one person said: "At least they are honest with the naming. ‘Brainrots’ seems fitting. Idiocracy was high science and intellectual achievement compared to what we are actually experiencing. 😅🤣."
Another chuckled: "All those years of law school for this?"
A third said: "Things like this are why I don't beat myself up for spending a lifetime as a deeply un-serious person."
We can only imagine the brains of aliens or even people 100 years ago imploding as they try to decipher the case of Brainrot copyright, and to be honest, we can feel our brains rotting already.
Even though the filing reiterates that the law currently states AI-generated creations can't be copyrighted, it doesn't seem like cases like this are going to slow down.
