Who owns TikTok memes? Anthony Fantano and Activision are debating that question.

Anthony Fantano is known for sharing pointed musical opinions on his Needle Drop channel, but his latest beef has nothing to do with hip-hop. Fantano has been sued by Activision after contesting the publisher’s decision to use his voice in one of its TikTok videos.

It all started with some over-sliced pizza.

To understand the dispute between Fantano and Activision, we have to travel back to 2021, when the critic reacted to a pizza video on his TikTok account. As the pizza is cut into quarters, then eighths, then sixteenths, Fantano becomes increasingly incensed. By the end of the video, he’s screaming “enough slices!”

@theneedletok Reply to @nyoung051 ♬ original sound – TheNeedleTok

That two-word exclamation became a popular meme on TikTok. According to Rolling Stone, “enough slices” has appeared in 54,000 videos, including some follow-ups published by Fantano himself. “Since making this audio wider to the greater TikTok public, the whole thing has taken on new life,” Fantano said in a 2021 video.

Does the creator of a meme deserve to profit from its reuse?

That question lies at the center of Fantano’s dispute with Activision. In June, the publisher behind video game franchises like Call of Duty and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater uses the “slices” audio in a TikTok video to promote a pair of Crash Bandicoot-inspired sneakers.

According to Activision’s lawsuit, Fantano began making his own legal threats shortly after the sneaker video went live. The critic allegedly demanded that Activision “either immediately pay him substantial monetary damages or be prepared to defend a lawsuit.” Fantano’s financial ask is defined in the lawsuit as a “six-figure sum.” The Needle Drop host purportedly told Activision that other companies had previously paid him “to avoid the expense of litigation.”

Activision’s suit argues that Fantano knowingly profited off “enough slices” by adding it to TikTok’s Audio Library. “With Fantano’s approval and encouragement, hundreds of thousands of TikTok users have incorporated the Slices Audio into their own videos over the past two years,” reads the suit. “Fantano has embarked on a scheme whereby he selectively threatens to sue certain users of the Slices Audio unless they pay him extortionate amounts of money for their alleged use.”

There’s not much precedent here (but it seems to favor Activision)

The publisher is seeking a declaratory ruling that would prevent Fantano from suing entities that reuse the “slices” audio. Fantano himself has not yet provided a public comment on the case.

If the dispute does in fact make its way to court, it could rewrite the rules surrounding meme ownership rights. So far, courts have often defended users who repurpose preexisting content, even when the creator of the original content maintains intellectual property rights.

A famous example of that type of ruling came in 2015, when Pennsylvania mother Stephanie Lenz fended off a legal challenge from Universal Music Group. Lenz had used a few seconds of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” in a video featuring her baby. A U.S. appeals court ultimately decided that Lenz’s soundtrack choice qualified as fair use.

Though fair use is a notoriously complex doctrine, Activision could argue that its Crash Bandicoot video is a substantial transformation of the original “slices” clip. If the court buys that reasoning (or any other argument Activision puts forth), Fantano may need to give up his crusade and focus on his contrarian takes.