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Abstract

Some legal questions answered in this article on the horizon for the courts and lawyers is how should courts apply copyright law to popular media made by small scale creators and shared on the internet, otherwise known as "memes."

Part II of this article will focus on validity of potential copyright protection in internet memes. It will start by describing the increased monetization surrounding memes and how this monetization calls for greater interest for meme creators to protect their work. It will then describe the merits of individual copyright interests in internet memes.

Part III of this article will focus on how memes have existed without copyright lawsuits from content creators: principally, that internet memes constitute fair use. This section will use an example meme to weigh all four statutory factors of fair use to support the argument that internet memes are highly transformative and do not impact the market of the original copyrighted work.

Part IV of this article will outline how public policy favors copyright protection of memes since copyright protection would not stifle creativity or new meme creations. First, copyright protection of memes would not disrupt the current “meme culture” of sharing memes because social media platforms, the major platform and vehicle for meme creation and sharing, have negated many copyright concerns through their terms of use policies. Next, it will explain how the Digital Media Copyright Act’s safe harbor rule protects social media platforms from being secondarily liable for potential copyright infringements involving meme appropriation. Finally, it will explain how other aspects of copyright law, like independent creation, the idea/expression dichotomy, and the fair use doctrine, will prevent meme creators from “weaponizing” their copyright interests in their memes.

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