Garry's Mod DMCA Battle: Legitimacy in Question

Garry’s Mod creator, Garry Newman, allegedly received a DMCA notice from someone who initially appeared to be connected to a company that claims copyright ownership over Skibidi Toilet. Read on to learn more about the dispute and its irony.

Skibidi Toilet Files DMCA Against Garry’s Mod

Skibidi Toilet’s Takedown Notice

On July 30, Garry Newman, creator of Garry’s Mod, allegedly received a copyright claim, from currently an unknown source, to take down "unauthorized Skibidi Toilet Garry’s Mod games," wherein the sender claimed that "there is absolutely no licensed Steam, Valve, Garry’s Mod content related to Skibidi Toilet."

Initially when reports surfaced of Newman’s claim, it was alleged that Invisible Narratives, the studio handling Skibidi Toilet’s movie and TV franchises, sent the notice. However, the identity of the DMCA sender has since then been rebuked as a Discord profile appearing to be the Skibidi Toilet creator has claimed that they didn’t send the DMCA notice, as first spotted by the news site Dexerto.

"Garry’s Mod" is a mod created by Newman for the cult classic shooter game, Half Life 2 by Valve, and it allows players to create and join custom game modes. "DaFuq!?Boom!," a YouTube channel run by Alexey Gerasimov, ports over assets from Garry’s Mod into Source Filmmaker, an animation tool published by Valve, to create the Skibidi Toilet YouTube series. The said video series cultivated a massive following that led to it becoming a Gen Alpha meme. Because of its popularity, it spawned merchandise and a movie and TV series, set to be made by Michael Bay and Adam Goodman’s studio, Invisible Narratives.

Counters to Skibidi Toilet's DMCA Claim

Garry Newman first revealed the DMCA claim on the s&box Discord server today. "You know what’s worse than the Nintendo DMCA?" Newman posted. "Skibidi Toilet guys sent a DMCA too… Can you believe the cheek?" He then sent a screenshot of the claim in the Discord chat.

Invisible Narrative asserts in the notice that characters like "Titan Cameraman, Titan Speakerman, Titan TV Man, and Skibidi Toilet are all registered copyrights" unique to their brand. They then pointed to the YouTube channel, DaFuqBoom, as the original source of "’Skibidi Toilet’ characters".

The move comes as a surprise given the meme’s origins. Skibidi toilet itself was made using assets from Garry’s Mod, making the copyright infringement claim all the more ironic.

While Garry’s Mod was also developed using other people’s assets–Half Life 2 in this case– Valve has given Garry Newman their blessing, seeing as the company published the game as a standalone release in 2006. Between Valve and Invisible Narratives, Valve would have a stronger case because they own the assets used in Garry’s Mod. Since Valve is the original owner of Half Life 2, they then would have a stronger claim over the unauthorized use of their assets by DaFuq!?Boom!

After Garry Newman publicly talked about the DMCA strike on his Discord server, DaFuq!?Boom! took to the s&box Discord to deny any involvement, as the people had started to speculate he had struck Garry’s Mod. "Is there a way to contact Garry? I did NOT strike Garry’s Mod and I’m trying to understand what else is written in the letter!” the creator posted.

As the situation is currently understood, the DMCA notice was sent by an unknown source "on behalf of copyright holder: Invisible Narratives, LLC". The assets being claimed was also copyrighted by the said company in 2023 under "Titan Cameraman and 3 Other Unpublished Works", which includes Titan Speakerman, Titan TV Man, and Skibidi Toilet.

It remains unconfirmed if DaFuq!?Boom!’s statement is true, but this is not the first time the Skibidi Toilet content creator has faced scrutiny over copyright claims.

Skibidi Toilet Copyright Strikes Other YouTubers

Last September, DaFuq!?Boom! escalated his previously-logged copyright claims by targeting other YouTube channels, including GameToons, a YouTuber that creates content similar to DaFuq!?Boom!’s.

GameToons initially attempted to resolve the issue amicably, reaching out to DaFuq!?Boom! for a potential agreement. However, their efforts fell on deaf ears as DaFuq!?Boom! doubled down on the claims by filing two more copyright strikes against GameToons. If these strikes were upheld, it could have resulted in the deletion of GameToons’ entire YouTube channel.

A week later, GameToons reached an agreement with DaFuq!?Boom! and worked with YouTube to resolve the copyright issue. Little is known about what agreement the two made, but many thought it distasteful that there was a copyright claim in the first place.