At SXSW the Walt Disney of memes fights for characters' rights

Michael del Castillo

Upstart Business Journal Technology & Innovation Editor

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Ben Lashes is a talent agent representing some of the biggest names online. His most successful clients make the high end of six figures annually off of licensing deals and guest appearances. His title? Meme Agent; his coveted clients: Keyboard Playing Cat, Nyan Cat, and Blake Boston, aka Scumbag Steve.

Or course, technically, the 34-year-old former rocker, who was once contracted with Columbia Records, doesn’t actually represent these memes (Internet phenomena) but the people behind them. Like one of the great character creators of all time, the playful manager with the "Keep it cool" mantra is damn serious about protecting the trademark and copyrights of theses characters who are rapidly becoming household names.

“There’s lot of various licensing agreements, that in essence look like any other kind of licensing agreement,” Lashes told Upstart Business Journal Thursday while he was waiting on one of his clients, Grumpy Cat, to film a commercial for Friskies in Austin, Texas, where they're attending SXSW 2013.

“The subject matter might be a little more silly, or a little more weird but I say, If Walt Disney was just coming on the scene now, and he created Mickey Mouse, and he put it on YouTube, and all of a sudden it became a sensation, what would he then do with it to keep the brand going, and keep people happy, and at the same time be able to make money off it so he can keep doing it?”

Lashes says memes are the pop culture art of our time, and he thinks of his clients as artists. Which he says means he’s also open to other people using his clients' intellectual property to create other art, or memes based on his clients', within reason.

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