‘Running Away Balloon’ Artist Sues AI Meme Generator Over Ad Templates

A Filipino cartoonist has sued the company behind AI ad generator Memes.ai, alleging it sold access to his best-known comic as a template for advertising. Elmer Saflor, aka “Superelmer,” filed the complaint on July 1 in the Central District of California, claiming Memes Apps offered “Running Away Balloon”—a two-panel strip he registered in 2024—to paying subscribers.

In the original, posted to Facebook in April 2017, a grey stick figure reaches for a balloon labeled “opportunities,” held back by a pink character marked “shyness.”

Memes.ai markets itself to brands, agencies and marketers, with plans from $40 to $199 a month and quotas of up to 1,000 meme ads. Its site tells customers that generated ads “are yours to use for your business,” including in paid advertising, according to the complaint.

Most artist suits against AI firms argue over whether ingesting works to train a model is fair use—the question that has ground through the Stability AI and Midjourney litigation since 2023. Saflor’s filing does not raise it. He pleads ordinary reproduction and public display, alleging the artwork sat in the template library under its own name, searchable by any subscriber.

The complaint leans on the company’s own marketing to argue the infringement was willful, noting it urges customers to “fire your ad agency”—agencies that license the content they use—while claiming copyright in its own website.

What’s at stake

Saflor wants a permanent injunction, an accounting of profits and disgorgement, plus statutory damages the Copyright Act caps at $150,000 per work for willful infringement—but his main goal is to push for discovery and raise “broader questions about how AI-powered platforms use creators’ work,” the artist told Ars Technica.

Internet law scholar Eric Goldman told the tech publication that a ruling against Memes Apps could reach every meme generator. A federal appeals court held in 2024 that Steve King’s campaign infringed the “Success Kid” meme by using it in fundraising posts, a ruling Goldman read as leaving meme use in ads unprotected. In his lawsuit, Saflor is targeting the supplier rather than the advertiser, something that Goldman argued could create “a whole host of other legal dilemmas.”