We all know Elon Musk. He has been the subject of many headlines, and a lot of them aren't that flattering. It doesn't help that his activities on Twitter are magnets for controversy. Now it's costing him- $1 billion dollars to be exact.
The tech mogul posted a meme with a popular manga character, the Crying Aya Asagiri girl. The artist behind the manga, Kentaro Sato, demands payment for the unpermitted use of the artwork, as mentioned in Kotaku.
The Manga and the Meme
The people of the Internet have been creative with memes, and most of the time, we don't even know where they grabbed them from. Although Musk wasn't the first to post it, he is one of the famous people who used it, and it caught the attention of the artist. The joke was that the Crying Aya Asagiri girl was asking a variation of the Yes Chad meme to turn on Google Maps. The Yes Chad meme then responded that Ancient instinct will guide him.
Jokes often lose their value when you explain them, yet some say that the joke wasn't even funny in the first place. The tweet where Sato quoted Musk was originally in Japanese, but Google has translated it. It stated that Musk has reprinted the picture without permission, so he should give $1 billion as a usage fee. The manga artist then posted a manga panel showing the origins of the Crying Aya meme. Sato also posted a link from Amazon, which leads to the original manga's first volume.
件の絵の漫画です。#魔法少女サイト pic.twitter.com/E7cggvKWQk
— 佐藤健太郎 (@310manga) November 8, 2022
Musk and Twitter
It's not new for Musk to be involved in a squabble in his newly bought platform. It seems that he isn't all that concerned about how people would react to what he posts. In fact, he always has an army of admirers ready and waiting to defend his actions.
A verified Twitter user, @Narutakun_, stated that if you upload an image to Twitter, there is no copyright problem and Twitter users can post it how much they like. However, the verdict is still out on whether Sato is entitled to compensation, as it is a legal matter for copyright.
Musk's lack of care for his tweets can set a bad example, especially now that he owns the platform. There have been reports of people becoming bolder with their opinions, and it's the kind that leans more on the offensive than a hot take. In late October, there have been an influx of tweets that had derogatory terms and slurs.
The news even came from Yoel Roth, Twitter's head of safety and integrity, as mentioned by The Verge. He expressed that 300 accounts participated in an organized effort, yielding over 50,000 tweets stating a particular slur. A research institute also mentioned that the use of the N-word skyrocketed to nearly 500%. This may have been a result of the Tesla CEO's efforts to implement "free speech" on the platform.
