We thought the 21st century would bring us incredible and crazy inventions, but instead, it has given us headlines and technology that we can’t fully comprehend or don’t want to use. This news, which some of us could understand in less than a minute, would be nearly impossible for people of a considerable age. Beware, because five years ago, none of this would have made any sense.
Too many pieces
It all started with Anthony Fantano, a YouTuber specializing in music reviews on his channel, The Needle Drop, with nearly three million subscribers. Like any content creator, Fantano opened a TikTok account to experiment with the format. In 2021, he created a video reacting to another video of someone cutting too many slices of pizza, and it went viral with almost six million likes. And here’s where the trouble begins.
At the end of the video, Fantano shouted, “It’s enough slices!” It became so popular that he added it to TikTok’s library of commercial sounds, where several people used it to do the typical thing that happens on the video-sharing platform: repeatedly copy something that has become popular. I feel old, and I don’t understand anything.
And a couple of months ago, Activision decided to use the said shout to promote some ‘Crash Bandicoot’ shoes. The thing is, Fantano felt that they were using him to promote the game without explicit permission, so he asked for over one million dollars as compensation. The problem is, there was no theft involved: by adding “It’s enough slices!” to TikTok‘s commercial library, permission is granted for its use in advertisements.
So, Activision and Anthony Fantano have ended up in a lawsuit where the video game company believes that the YouTuber is only trying to make money by bending the law in his favor. On the other hand, what is Activision seeking? They want Fantano to pay their legal costs and are preventing him from suing TikTok users for using his clip.
Indeed, in today’s world, it may seem crazy that you don’t need to give consent or support a product for them to use your voice in an advertisement. Explaining all of this without pausing to describe TikTok, Crash Bandicoot, and the concept of “commercial audio” to someone who might not be familiar with these terms can be quite a challenge, especially in 2023, where technology and internet culture are constantly evolving.
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