Activision has sued the American music critic Anthony Fantano. According to the company, he threatened to file a lawsuit against her himself if Activision did not pay a six-figure sum for using an audio track from his TikTok video.
The conflict flared up in June after Activision added an audio track from a video in which Fantano comments on cutting pizza into many small pieces to a TikTok video about Crash Bandicoot sneakers. According to the lawsuit, Fantano told the company that she violated copyrights and at the same time misled viewers. Allegedly, now people may think that he is cooperating with Activision.
@theneedletok #duet with @luwe_themk want some Za? 🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 #pizza #yummy #fypシ #meme #fantano
In response, Activision informed Fantano that TikTok’s rules do not prohibit the use of other users’ content. Nevertheless, she agreed to delete her video, but even after that, the music critic continued to demand monetary compensation.
Fantano posted a video about pizza in 2021. Since then, it has collected 5.7 million likes and has been uploaded to TikTok. Activision estimates that the audio from the video was used by hundreds of thousands of users.