Who owns ‘brain rot’?: inside the international legal drama over a beloved meme

Copyright law in the US only applies to human-made creations, but AI characters like Tung Tung Tung Sahur are challenging that One of the most beloved characters in an absurdist genre of online video content has become the center of an international legal battle that could determine where human creativity ends and artificial intelligence begins.

Tung Tung Tung Sahur, also known as Triple T, was created in 2025 by an Indonesian teen who goes by the username Noxa, using OpenAI’s image-generation tool. Based on a kentongan – a type of drum used to wake south-east Asian Muslims for their pre-dawn meal during Ramadan – the character is an anthropomorphized version of the instrument with a broad smile and a vacant stare.

He sits under the umbrella of “Italian brain rot” internet videos. Since his creation, Triple T has become a global sensation: YouTube and TikTok host dozens of videos with hundreds of millions of views starring the character. People dress like Triple T at cosplay conventions and lovingly create fan art and animations of the stick-like creature, and his likeness…