One of the Internet's Most Beloved Memes Gets Its Day
If you've spent any time online in the last decade, you've almost certainly seen it: a cartoon dog sitting calmly at a table, coffee in hand, while everything around him is engulfed in flames. "This is fine," he says. The image, created by webcomic artist KC Green, has become the defining meme of our era — a shorthand for denial, chaos, and the slow-burn disasters of modern life.
Now, Green has reached an agreement with AI startup Artisan after the company used his iconic artwork in advertising materials without his consent. According to a report by TechCrunch, Artisan has taken down the offending ads as part of the resolution.
Who Is KC Green?
KC Green is the cartoonist behind Gunshow, the webcomic where the "This is fine" strip originally appeared in 2013. The two-panel comic — officially titled "On Fire" — depicts a dog sitting peacefully in a burning room, refusing to acknowledge the disaster around him. It struck a nerve almost immediately, and over the years has been repurposed endlessly to comment on everything from climate change and political dysfunction to tech industry excess and global crises.
Despite the meme's extraordinary cultural reach, Green has had to fight repeatedly to ensure he receives credit — and compensation — for his work. He's sold official merchandise, licensed the image, and publicly pushed back against unauthorized commercial use.
The AI Industry's IP Problem
Artisan's use of the meme without permission is emblematic of a broader tension between the AI industry and creative professionals. AI companies have faced mounting criticism and legal challenges over their use of copyrighted material — both to train models and, in this case, to promote their products.
Using a beloved piece of internet art in advertising without the creator's knowledge or consent raises obvious ethical questions, and increasingly, legal ones too. For artists like Green, whose work lives online and spreads virally, unauthorized commercial use is a recurring and exhausting battle.
The fact that an AI startup — a sector that has already drawn significant ire from the creative community for scraping artists' work to train generative models — was the one to misappropriate Green's art added a particular sting to the situation.
A Small Win in a Big Fight
The details of Green and Artisan's agreement have not been made public, but the outcome — the ads coming down — represents a concrete, if modest, victory for creator rights in the AI age.
For many artists watching from the sidelines, moments like this matter. The creative community has been sounding alarms about AI's impact on livelihoods, copyright, and artistic ownership for years. Legal frameworks are still catching up, and most individual creators lack the resources to pursue full litigation against well-funded tech startups.
Green's case serves as a reminder that pushback is possible — and that even the most meme-ified, widely-shared art belongs to someone.
As the dog in the comic would say: this is fine. Except, this time, someone actually put out the fire.
Source: TechCrunch
