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Today’s News

COURT OF LAW

A TikToker is suing Roblox for stealing her Charli XCX dance

The program: Until four years ago, copyrighting dance moves wasn’t really a thing. That changed in 2021, when JaQuel Knight—the choreographer behind hit music videos like Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”—filed to own the rights to moves he’d created.

Now, Kelley Heyer hopes to leverage that precedent to win a lawsuit against Roblox. The creator (who has 313,000 TikTok followers) invented a dance to the chorus of Charli XCX‘s track “Apple” in June 2024, which went viral enough to catch not only the singer’s attention, but also that of both Roblox and Fortnite.

The latter platform has apparently learned its lesson after facing numerous lawsuits from dance creators, because it successfully contacted Heyer and licensed her moves to sell a player-usable “Apple” emote in December 2024.

Roblox seems to have taken a different approach. In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, Heyer says she indicated on August 12 that she was willing to let the platform license her dance—but Roblox didn’t wait to lock in a deal before it began selling an “Apple” emote on August 17. Instead, Heyer claims it “refused to finalize a license agreement” or pay her for usage of the emote, which was allegedly purchased over 60,000 times and generated at least $123,000 in revenue.

The response: Despite the precedent set by Knight, a Roblox spokesperson says the platform is “confident in its position and the propriety of its dealings.” So, where is that confidence coming from?

One argument could give Roblox some leverage: since Heyer didn’t actually file a copyright application until August 30 (after Roblox had already released its emote), the platform could claim that Heyer didn’t yet own copyright and thus didn’t need to consent to the use of her dance. Either way, we’ll be keeping an eye on the case to see how things play out.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema has published a 115-page ruling in which she decrees that Google operates a monopoly in certain sectors of the digital ad industry. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Netflix says it has earned $10.5 billion in revenue since raising subscription prices in January, signaling a 13% year-over-year revenue increase. (The Verge)
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• A lawsuit filed by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin accuses Discord of misleading “parents about the efficacy of its safety controls” and obscuring “the risks children faced when using the application.” (Engadget)
  
  

• Netflix has drawn criticism from viewers over its adaptation of YouTube hit Pop the Balloon, with some commenters arguing that the streamer “watered down” the show’s premise. (Wired)

KEEPING PACE

A first-of-its-kind solution could help advertisers reach kids on YouTube

The product: This month’s IAB PlayFronts included a big reveal from Precise TV. The contextual video ad tech platform introduced PACE—aka Precise Audience Content Evaluator—as “the first comprehensive video advertising solution for audience targeting and measurement for under-18 demographics.”

By applying machine learning to that data, PACE aims to help advertisers reduce spending while targeting young viewers in an efficient and legally compliant manner. In an email to Tubefilter, a Precise TV rep demonstrated how PACE can be used to break down audience segments within the nebulous “under-18” category. For example:

• Ms. Rachel gets 85% of her traffic from viewers aged five and under and has a majority-female audience (55%).
  
  

• Ryan’s World viewership is split fairly evenly between the 2-5 and 6-9 age brackets and has a majority of male viewers (65%).
  
  

• 75% of MrBeast‘s audience is male, and the most common age demographic is teens aged 13-17 (39%).

The context: As U.S. regulators double-down on investigating digital ads that target underage viewers, industry players are getting used to working within the confines of rulebooks like COPPA.

In response, we’re seeing more products designed to fine-tune campaigns that are linked to children’s entertainment. Common Sense Networks, for example, has brought child-safe partnerships to Roblox, and media company Moonbug recently announced its first-ever brand campaign for smash hit nursery school series CoComelon.

PACE may be the most sophisticated targeting and measurement tool introduced into that ecosystem thus far. The data used to train PACE’s models is anonymized and aggregated to comply with COPPA, and parents are present when their kids fill out viewership surveys. Working alongside brands in its beta testing phase, PACE says it has achieved 76% campaign delivery in core demographics, such as boys between the ages of 7 and 12.

REAL TALK

TikTok is turning viewers into fact-checkers

The test feature: TikTok is testing Footnotes, a crowdsourced fact-checking tool that will be powered by a voting system.

In a Newsroom post, Head of Operations and Trust and Safety Adam Presser described the experimental feature as a way for TikTok users to add an “additional layer of context” to videos via “a consensus-driven approach.”

The details: A “bridge-based” voting system will let contributors comment and vote on one another’s Footnotes, which TikTok plans to incorporate into its platform alongside preexisting moderation features. The annotations that rise above a certain voting threshold will be made visible to the general TikTok community.

TikTokers who want to apply to use the new feature must be at least 18 years old, based in the U.S., active on the platform for at least six months, and without violations of TikTok’s Community Guidelines.

The context: As the Trump administration attempts to crack down on what the President sees as overzealous social media rule enforcement, platforms face a Catch-22 situation. If they come down hard on misinformation, they risk turning rule-abiding creators into false positives; if they opt for a more lax approach, fact-checking organizations like Poynter come calling.

In response, tech companies like Meta and X have emphasized Community Notes as an alternative to other forms of moderation. Footnotes is essentially TikTok’s take on that system, and similarly offers the app a potential middle ground when it comes to moderation. With its new fact-checking feature, TikTok has a chance to show U.S. legislators that it can deliver a balanced and effective approach to moderation while accurately serving its impressionable audience.

WATCH THIS 📺

There are 60 things AMP can’t live without. At the top of the list: each other.

The interview: From vlogging icon Emma Chamberlain to Twitch streamer Chen-Ruei Hsu (aka Ray), GQ regularly puts content creators to the test on its official YouTube channel.

The latest stars to hit that hub are AMP members Kai Cenat, Fanum, ImDavisss, Duke Dennis, Agent 00, and ChrisNxtDoor, who sat down with GQ to be quizzed on everything “from their go-to comfort item to their most essential item.”

Among the items they can’t live without: food, God, laptops, allergy medication, and—of course—each other. Find out more about the super group’s must-haves here.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.