People on reddit or 4chan getting upset because IP rights are not being respected? Sorry I think my hypocrisy meter just exploded.

You conflate attribution with pirating? What specifically about IP rights are you referring to? Also, the aforementioned communities you are talking about are tens of millions of people.

Nice word - conflate. I had to look that up. I never said anything about piracy - you said that, not me.

If you're going to copy photos and paste funny text on them without considering whether you have legal rights to use the photo, then who am I to stop you? I like memes. But then if are going to cry "IP rights" when somebody else takes the same photo plus your funny text and uses it in some other way - then in my book you get filed under H for Hypocrite.

I think what that is, people showing their true colors about respect for other's work. If it's convenient to use something then it's fair-use and the IP owner can go screw himself. But if somebody takes OUR stuff, then bring the vengeance of the Internet upon thee with furious anger!

You're right. I don't see footers on each Fry meme attributing the character to Matt Groening. And yet, when you add 24-point Impact font saying something witty, you own it all of a sudden? Give me a break.

If it's fair use to put the text on the image in the first place, then it's fair use to use the image with the text. People can be upset all they want about it, but it's not going to change the fact that the entire spread of memes occurs without respect for (and in fact despite) copyright law.

1. Point taken.

2. Even under fair use? How do sites like memegenerator, knowyourmeme, and others get away with it? They make money. My project was free.

Fair use is a fickle beast and not something to rely on. I have no idea how those sites exist without lawsuits but I would not consider them shining examples of web success.

My advice is to contact "memegenerator, knowyourmeme, and others" and ask them what licensing agreements they have with the copyright holders that allow them publish the content. You may be surprised to learn how much or how little money changes hand.

I spoke with the founder/owner of campusmemes.com asking the same questions. He basically said, "We operate business as usual until we get a C&D. Remove the image. Life goes on."

Hmm, The Monetization of Copyrighted Content without any Licenses sounds more like a service than a software product. Maybe try to obtain license agreements from the copyright holders and put the funding for agree'ed to licenses in the Kickstarter campaign.

They take a lot of the same flak. I expect it died down somewhat once they (at least, I use knowyourmeme) became vaguely reliable and useful.

What does it mean that "memes are not public domain?" Of course that's the case if the image used in the meme is copyrighted, but does it go beyond that? Can the "pattern" or "recipe" for a meme be copyrighted? For example, would copyright protect the very idea of placing text describing an awkward social encounter on an image of a penguin?

Ideally that could be classified as a derivative work, which one could argue is fair use. But, that argument will happen in a court after you have been sued. The "Kind of Bloop" affair should give you an example of what I'm talking about: http://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/

Honestly though this is just couch-analytics from me. I'm not sure how copyright applies to meme pictures and am fascinated by related court cases. Anyone else have interesting meme/copyright-related court case suggestions?

A different penguin on a different colored background might still be a trademark violation, based on trade dress or being confusingly similar.