Axl Rose wants to get rid of all 'Fat Axl' photos on internet

Rock musician Axl Rose does not want the internet joking about and spreading a 2010 photo of him that has become a meme.

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The singer issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act request with Google to remove all memes containing the photo.

The image comes from coverage of a 2010 Winnipeg, Canada, performance with Guns N' Roses. In the photo, which was taken by Boris Minkevich at the Winnipeg Free Press, Rose is hunched over and wears a red bandana.

Memes of the image have captions that poke fun at Axl's appearance and play on Guns N' Roses lyrics, including those from "Welcome to the Jungle."

Minkevich told Rolling Stone that, regardless of the DMCA request to Google,"the photo was stolen off our website with no permission granted by the Winnipeg Free Press."

This is not the first incident of a muscian request unflattering photos be removed from the internet.

In 2013, BuzzFeed reported that representatives for Beyonce requested that the site take down unflattering images of the singer, although no DMCA request was made.

The Washington Post reported that in 2003, Barbra Streisand tried to have an aerial photo of her mansion removed from the internet, but ended up drawing more attention to the photo, a move that is now known on the internet as the Streisand effect.

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