Publisher Activision Blizzard is withdrawing its lawyers against TikToker Anthony Fantano in a curious lawsuit.
The bandicoot franchise Crash Bandicoot is one of the most popular on the market. In June, the publisher sued the TikTok star Anthony Fantanoknown as Needletok or The Needle Dropas a result of the content creator’s lawsuit against Activision Blizzard.
lawsuit against lawsuit? But what is it exactly?
It revolves around a TikTok video from 2021 that became famous for the “It’s enough slices!” meme and has again been used thousands of times. The publisher took part of this audio track to market their shoe collection for the trendy bandicoot.
However, the TikToker did not want to be associated with the shoes at the time due to the possible poor quality that could then damage its channel. After all, it is well known that this meme was created by him.
Fantano then sued the publisher for illegal use of his meme to advertise their product. The TikToker is said to have demanded a “substantial” sum due to the possible financial damage. However, Activision Blizzard removed the clip prior to the lawsuit.
According to the terms and conditions of TikTok, the use of TikTok is not a problem for the industry giant, as these even allow the extensive use of content to generate content.
The Terms of Service state: “Extract all or part of the User Content created by another user in order to create additional User Content.”
It is also clear from the publisher’s counterclaim that the TikToker deliberately made its audio track available in the library of the TikTok offering. Activision Blizzard then filed a lawsuit to examine the facts. Surprisingly, however, he now laid down this examination complaint, without comment from the responsible employees.
According to current court filings, “to avoid litigation and without liability of any kind. Plaintiff Activision Publishing, Inc. dismisses the entire action, including without limitation all claims made therein, with prejudice.”
The TikToker Anthony Fantano has not yet commented on this, a resignation of his claim for damages leading to this lawsuit is pending.