Activision hits viral TikToker with lawsuit after he threatened to sue the corporate for utilizing his content material

WTF?! Activision is suing a TikToker after he tried to sue the corporate for utilizing audio from one among his movies. The unusual case includes TikTok creator/music critic/YouTuber Anthony Fantano, who makes use of the title TheNeedleTok or The Needle Drop, Crash Bandicoot, and pizza slices.

The story started with a TikTok Duet, which permits customers to publish movies side-by-side with movies from different creators, that Fantano made in 2021. The clip reveals somebody slicing a pizza into more and more smaller slices, prompting him to ultimately yell, “It is sufficient slices!”

The clip went viral and was a meme. Activision claims that a whole lot of 1000’s of TikTok customers added the audio (often the “it is sufficient slices” line) into their very own movies, which Fantano celebrated and boasted about.

Plainly Activision believed this meant it may additionally use the audio clip, in a TikTok video selling Crash Bandicoot sneakers. Fantano disagreed, claiming it constituted a “false endorsement” of the sneakers and will mislead viewers into pondering he accepted of or was in any other case linked to the sneakers, a violation of the 1946 Lanham Act, writes IGN. He contacted the writer demanding it’s eliminated or else he would sue, which they did “to keep away from litigation, and with none admission of legal responsibility.”

Fantano contacted Activision once more to say he was nonetheless ready to file a lawsuit in New York, regardless of neither occasion residing there. Activision says it spoke to Fantano’s lawyer the subsequent day and was instructed he was demanding “a six-figure sum” as a settlement. The lawyer additionally allegedly claimed that different corporations had beforehand reached related settlements with Fantano “to keep away from the expense of litigation”.

Activision has pointed to different TikTokers’ use of the audio, referred to the platform’s ToS that states customers “could […] extract all or any portion of Consumer Content material created by one other person to supply extra Consumer Content material,” and famous that Fantano made the audio accessible in TikTok’s audio library intentionally for others to make use of.

Now, it is Activision that’s suing Fantano, to stop his lawsuit from progressing. It seeks a jury trial in California and needs the court docket to declare that Activision shouldn’t be in violation of the Lanham Act. It additionally seeks “charges and prices in bringing and pursuing this motion.”