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Garry's Mod reportedly hit with DMCA by Skibidi Toilet film studio

The creator of Skibidi Toilet claims to have nothing to do with the DMCA, but the Michael Bay studio producing a film about the viral video series may be involved.

TJ Denzer

July 30, 2024 3:33 PM

Image via DaFuq!?Boom!

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The Skibidi Toilet video series began coming out a year ago and became a viral sensation using catchy music and a variety of assets from Garry’s Mod, but it may cause issues for the latter thanks to DMCAs from Michael Bay’s Invisible Narratives studio. The latter is preparing longform TV and movie content based on the viral sensation, and it appears to have launched a DMCA against Garry’s Mod along the way.

Word of the DMCA was reported by Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman, who posted about it in the S&box Discord. It included a screenshot of said DMCA, supposedly filed by a representative of Invisible Narratives, which is Michael Bay’s production studio tied into work on Skibidi Toilet TV series and movies. The company had scored rights to produce content based on the viral video series earlier this July and claims Garry’s Mod uses characters associated with Skibidi Toilet such as “Titan Cameraman, Titan Speakerman, and Titan TV man,” but Newman claims that nothing licensed in Steam, Valve, or Garry’s Mod are related to Skibidi Toilet.

On the contrary, Alexey "Dafuqboom" Gerasimov has credited Garry’s Mod and its community heavily for the creation of Skibidi Toilet, including various altered Half-Life 2 assets. In fact, Gerasimov came into the same Discord to clarify that he had no part in the DMCA hitting Garry’s Mod. However, it seems far more likely at this point that lawyers acting on behalf of Invisible Narratives are mobilizing to restrict access to Skibidi Toilet in any way they can, which would make sense given that Gerasimov’s own YouTube channel featuring original uploads of Skibidi Toilet have had their audio removed, which is also usually the result of copyrighted content.

It's a strange situation to say the least, and there isn’t a lot of clarification on what’s happening just yet. Stay tuned as we continue to follow this story and follow our Garry’s Mod topic for further updates.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.