Balloon v. Bot: Filipino Cartoonist Sues Memes.ai for Floating His Stick Figure to Ad Clients 🎈

A Filipino cartoonist has filed a copyright suit against the operator of AI ad generator Memes.ai, alleging that the platform made his best-known comic available as a template for paying advertisers without permission. Elmer Saflor, who works under the handle "Superelmer," submitted the complaint on July 1 in the Central District of California, naming Memes Apps as the defendant.

The work at issue is "Running Away Balloon," a two-panel strip Saflor registered in 2024. In the comic, which was originally posted to Facebook in April 2017, a grey stick figure reaches for a balloon labeled "opportunities" while a pink character marked "shyness" holds it back. According to the complaint, the artwork was offered in Memes.ai's template library under its own name and was searchable by subscribers.

Memes.ai markets its service to brands, agencies and marketers, offering monthly plans priced from $40 to $199 with quotas of up to 1,000 meme ads. The platform's website tells customers that generated ads "are yours to use for your business," including in paid advertising, the lawsuit states. Saflor's filing frames the alleged infringement as willful, pointing to Memes.ai's marketing language urging customers to "fire your ad agency" while the company itself claims copyright over its website.

The case does not take up the narrower fair-use question raised in the Stability AI and Midjourney litigation, which has run through federal courts since 2023 over whether ingesting copyrighted works to train AI models is permissible. Instead, Saflor pleads standard claims of unauthorized reproduction and public display. He is seeking a permanent injunction, an accounting of profits and disgorgement, and statutory damages capped at $150,000 per work under the Copyright Act for willful infringement. In comments to Ars Technica, the artist said his primary aim is to obtain discovery and to "raise broader questions about how AI-powered platforms use creators' work."

Internet law scholar Eric Goldman, also speaking to Ars Technica, said a ruling against Memes Apps could extend to every meme generator on the market. He cited a 2024 federal appeals court decision holding that Steve King's presidential campaign infringed the "Success Kid" meme by deploying it in fundraising posts, a precedent he read as offering little protection for meme use in advertising. By targeting the template supplier rather than individual advertisers, Goldman added, Saflor's lawsuit could create "a whole host of other legal dilemmas" for the broader meme-generation industry.