'Skibidi Toilet' studio prevails in copyright fight over multimillion-dollar IP

SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) — The studio behind the viral YouTube series “Skibidi Toilet” will retain ownership rights to the multimillion-dollar meme series, concluding a legal battle that was headed for trial early next year.

Invisible Narratives sued Next Level Apps Technology in February 2025, accusing the Dubai-based tech company of falsely claiming copyright infringement and demanding YouTube remove episodes of the animated videos.

As part of the agreement, 20 copyright registrations asserted by Next Level will be voided. Next Level also concedes Invisible Narratives owns Skibidi Toilet and will stop claiming that Alexey Gerasimov did not create the franchise. Further, Next Level agreed to stop interfering with and forever terminate any involvement in the Skibidi Toilet IP and Franchise worldwide.

Additionally, the parties agreed to dismiss their claims and counterclaims against each other with prejudice, with each responsible for their own attorney’s fees.

U.S. District Judge Noel Wise granted the parties’ joint request for dismissal on Monday after the parties reached a deal on June 9.

The parties did not respond to requests for comment.

In its complaint, Invisible Narratives accused Next Level of trying to steal ownership of its popular IP by gaming the trademark system. Among other claims, it characterized Next Level as experienced “professional scam artists” and “extortionists” using fraudulent trademark applications and the threat of DMCA takedowns of its videos as a way of extracting a settlement from them.

Wise, a Joe Biden appointee, granted Invisible Narratives a preliminary injunction in June 2025, preventing Next Level from initiating any DMCA takedown requests directed at the plaintiff’s YouTube channel.

At a sanctions hearing in February, Invisible Narratives attorney Justin MacLean argued Next Level violated the preliminary injunction, causing the internet series to be removed from YouTube for about a week this past October.

“The episodes are the lifeblood of my client’s business, and you have people coming to YouTube to watch them,” he said.

MacLean said it was unclear how much money was lost during the takedown, but the workload to figure it out would likely exceed the amount lost. He mentioned that compensatory damages after a possible default judgment in their favor should include attorney fees, which were calculated to be more than $100,000.

Next Level attorney Jonathan Lagarenne blamed Google, which owns YouTube, for the takedown and the time it took to put the videos back online, claiming that Next Level did everything it thought it needed to do to comply with the injunction.

A five-day jury trial was scheduled for March 2027.

Skibidi Toilet is a multimedia franchise started in February 2023 by Russian-Georgian YouTube animator Alexey Gerasimov, also known as DaFuq!?Boom!, that has drawn the adoration of Generation Alpha and garnered widespread media coverage from major outlets like The New York Times, Forbes, People, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, CNN and Wired. Even if it makes no sense to older audiences, Skibidi Toilet-related videos online racked up over 65 billion views in 2023 alone.

The 3D-animated video series — which started as a nonsensical internet “shitpost” of a man’s head emerging from a toilet — has evolved into an ambitious, “Terminator”-style narrative about a ruined world, toilet-based invaders and a resistance movement of androids with cameras and speakers for heads. Critics chalk up its success with younger audiences to its shortform storytelling in episodes as short as 30 seconds.

Director and producer Michael Bay was in talks last year to direct a movie adaptation of the series, and action figures of the series’ characters were available to purchase at Walmarts and Targets across the United States. Additionally, Fortnite made a licensed skin for about $20.

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