Summary
Activisionis suing TikTok star Anthony “TheNeedleTok” Fatano over a pizza meme of his that the company attempted to incorporate into one of its ads without the creator’s approval. This development arrives mere months after the gaming giant last found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit, with theUS government suing Activision Blizzardback in April.
RELATED:FTC Could Pause Microsoft Activision Blizzard Acquisition Trial to Pursue Settlement Talks
The audio from the clip, which amassed over 5.7 million likes to date, was later repurposed by Activision in an ad for a pair ofCrash Bandicootsneakers. Fatano demanded compensation for the publisher’s appropriation, citing a figure thatActivisionlabeled “extortionate.” While the company promptly pulled its TikTok ad, it also decided to challenge the very notion that repurposing all TikTok content requires compensating its original creators. As first reported by Billboard, Activision hence filed a lawsuit against Fatano with a federal court date set in California for July 24.
A key part of Activision’s legal argument against the famous music critic revolves around the fact that he deliberately added his pizza-slicing commentary to the TikTok audio library, thus making it freely accessible to users. As a result, no one who chooses to use that particular soundbite should be required to compensate Fatano, Activision argued. Apart from demanding a ruling stating that the content creator cannot sue users for repurposing the meme, theCall of Dutymaker also wants Fatano to reimburse its legal bills stemming from the case.
Activision alleges that Fatano was emboldened by the fact that he successfully strong-armed some other entities into “unjustified” settlement payouts over their own use of the pizza soundbite. Should the complaint actually reach a courtroom, which not many cases do, there’s a chance for it to become irrelevant before yielding a verdict, not least because of theongoing bipartisan push to ban TikTok across the United States.
The Chinese social media app has so far proven to be a fairly lucrative platform for many content creators. This was most recently illustrated by theabsurd amounts of money some TikTok stars earned with bizarre NPC livestreams.
