Who Owns AI Art? The “Italian Brainrot” Lawsuit Could Decide — What It Means for Your AI Creations

Introduction: A Wooden Stick Worth Millions

If you’ve ever generated an image with Midjourney, DALL·E 3, or Ideogram and wondered “do I actually own this?” — a California courtroom is now working on your answer. On August 21, 2026, NPR reported on a legal battle over a cartoon wooden stick named Tung Tung Sahur — an AI-generated character at the center of one of the year’s most-watched copyright fights, with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.

The case asks the question every AI tool user faces eventually: when a model paints the picture, who — if anyone — owns the result?

What Is Italian Brainrot?

Italian brainrot burst onto the youth internet in early 2025: absurd, AI-generated characters with faux-Italian names — a cow with the body of planet Saturn called La Vaca Saturno Saturnita, a tutu-wearing coffee cup named Ballerina Cappuccina. Grown-ups find them baffling; kids love their Dadaist energy — and the characters have jumped from memes into YouTube empires, merchandise, and video games. When characters generate real money, someone inevitably asks who gets paid.

The Lawsuit: Roblox Hit Game vs. Character Creators

On one side is Do Big Studios, maker of Steal a Brainrot — a hit Roblox game where players grab brainrot characters off a conveyor belt and steal them from each other. Its creator, Sam Brakta (known online as SpyderSammy), received a letter from Mementum Lab, a French startup representing several brainrot creators, asking to enter licensing negotiations for Tung Tung Sahur.

Rather than pay, Do Big went to court. In an amended complaint filed in July, the company argued: “Mementum’s claimed rights do not exist. Under established law, copyright protection requires human authorship, and AI-generated material does not qualify.” Its lawyer, Aaron Moss of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, told NPR the characters “are not protectable — they’re not owned by anybody.”

Mementum Lab countersued for trademark infringement. Co-founder Eben Jeda’s position: “if these characters become global entertainment franchises, the original creators should be part of that success.”

Seven Prompts in Fifteen Minutes

Here’s where the case gets genuinely interesting for AI tool users. According to court records, Tung Tung Sahur’s creator is a young Indonesian man, Fernanda Bagas Indrastata, who goes by “Noxa” online — and he made the character in fifteen minutes, using just seven prompts in an AI image generator.

But Mementum’s lawyers argue the character isn’t really a wooden stick at all. It’s a kentongan — a traditional Indonesian drum struck during Ramadan to wake families for sahur, the pre-dawn meal. The “tung tung” sound of the drum became the character’s name. That cultural specificity, they argue, is human authorship. As Mementum’s U.S. lawyer Steven Stein of Greenberg Glusker put it to NPR: “If I sat here right now and drew a picture of something and spent 30 seconds doing that, that could be copyrightable.” The other side’s answer, per Moss: “The U.S. Copyright Office has been clear that simply typing prompts into an image generator is not authorship.”

Copyright vs. Trademark: The Legal Chess Move

Mementum is leaning on trademark law partly because it has not tried to register a copyright for Tung Tung Sahur in the United States. Trademark protects brands and source identifiers — think Coca-Cola — while copyright protects creative works. Stein says the trademark route targets damages directly while “preserving its full suite of rights to pursue claims abroad.” Moss reads it differently: the other side pursues trademark “because it knows it will lose under current copyright law.”

UCLA law professor Mark McKenna, who co-directs the university’s Institute for Technology, Law and Policy, calls the trademark fallback “a misuse of trademark law” — yet he also thinks Tung Tung Sahur “could have a shot” at a U.S. copyright, and that the day will come when AI-assisted drawings, stories, and songs are protected. The open question is how much human involvement the law will demand.

Where AI Art Law Stands in 2026

In other words: the direction of travel is clear (more AI involvement accepted over time), but no system yet protects a raw, unedited model output.

How to Protect What You Create With AI Tools

Until the brainrot case — and cases like it — settle the law, here’s a practical playbook if you’re building characters, logos, or brand assets with AI generators like Leonardo.Ai or Midjourney:

• Add real human authorship. Edit, redraw, recompose, and refine the output. The more demonstrable human creative choices, the stronger your claim — this is exactly the line Mementum is trying to walk with the kentongan story.
• Document your process. Keep prompt histories, layered working files, and sketches. If authorship is ever challenged, the paper trail is your evidence.
• Protect the brand, not just the art. Trademark protects names and characters used commercially even where copyright fails — the exact strategy playing out in this case. Logo makers like Looka typically bundle trademark screening for exactly this reason.
• Choose tools with an IP story. Adobe Firefly is trained on licensed content and marketed for commercial safety — relevant if your clients demand indemnification.
• Compare the generators before you commit. Our guide to the best AI image generators breaks down ownership terms, pricing, and commercial rights side by side.

Frequently Asked Questions