Major legal battles are emerging over the ownership and copyright of AI-generated content. News Corp. is escalating its war against AI scraping by targeting both tech firms like Brave and the clients who purchase scraped data. Meanwhile, in California, Do Big Studios and French startup Mementum Lab are locked in a lawsuit over AI-generated 'Italian brainrot' characters featured in the Roblox hit Steal a Brainrot, testing the legal boundaries of human authorship and trademark law in AI art.
AI-generated content copyright dispute
- ▪News Corp. filed a counter-suit against browser company Brave, alleging that Brave used masked web crawlers to copy and resell News Corp. articles and intellectual property to AI firms.
- ▪News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson announced during an earnings call that the company is expanding its legal actions to target both AI companies that scrape its journalism and the clients who purchase that scraped content.
- ▪Brave initiated legal action against News Corp. in March 2025, asking a judge to dismiss News Corp.'s cease-and-desist letter under the fair use exemption of U.S. copyright law.
- ▪News Corp. is seeking an injunction and damages of up to $150,000 per infringement in its legal battle against Brave.
Italian brainrot meme phenomenon
- ▪The "Italian brainrot" internet meme phenomenon, which emerged in early 2025, features weird, AI-generated characters with faux Italian-sounding names that have become highly popular among children.
- ▪Italian brainrot characters include La Vaca Saturno Saturnita, a cow with the body of Saturn and human feet, and Ballerina Cappuccina, a frothy coffee wearing a tutu.
- ▪Tung Tung Sahur is modeled after a kentongan, a traditional Indonesian drum struck during Ramadan to wake people up for the early-morning pre-fast meal known as sahur.
- ▪The character Tung Tung Sahur was created in 15 minutes by an Indonesian creator named Fernanda Bagas Indrastata, using seven prompts in an AI image generator.
Steal a Brainrot game lawsuit
- ▪Do Big Studios argues in its July amended complaint that copyright protection requires human authorship, meaning AI-generated characters in Steal a Brainrot are not legally protectable or owned by anyone.
- ▪Steal a Brainrot, created by Sam Brakta, is a top-performing game on the Roblox platform where players collect and steal conveyor-belt-delivered brainrot characters from each other.
- ▪Do Big Studios filed a lawsuit in a California court against Mementum Lab to invalidate any copyright claims over AI-generated characters featured in its Roblox game, Steal a Brainrot.
Human authorship in AI art
- ▪A 2024 court ruling established that a chatbot cannot be recognized as the sole inventor of a product or piece of art.
- ▪The U.S. Copyright Office affirmed that AI-assisted work can be copyrighted, but stated that human contributions to AI-generated outputs must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis to determine authorship.
- ▪University of California, Los Angeles law professor Mark McKenna states that copyright law has not yet determined the exact threshold of human involvement required to legally protect AI-generated art.
Mementum Lab licensing claims
- ▪Mementum Lab co-founder Eben Jeda argues that if AI-generated characters become global entertainment franchises, their original creators should share in the financial success.
- ▪French startup Mementum Lab, representing the young creators of several Italian brainrot characters, initiated licensing negotiations with Do Big Studios over the character Tung Tung Sahur.
- ▪Mementum Lab filed a counterclaim against Do Big Studios alleging trademark infringement rather than copyright infringement to focus on damages from unauthorized use of Tung Tung Sahur.
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