Warner Bros. Called Out By Charlie The Unicorn Creator For Using His Work In MultiVersus Advertising

When a creator posts their content on the internet, they’re not really expecting that it won’t get shared or repurposed. That’s kind of how art works, after all. That said, there’s a difference between people passing around a meme or creating new things based on someone’s content, and a major corporation, say, snagging a full audio clip from that content to promote something from which they’ll be making money.

When Jason Steele, creator of Charlie the Unicorn, heard audio from his creation in a promotional video for Warner Bros. brawler game MultiVersus, he took issue with it. He then took those issues public, calling out the “company with an annual revenue of around 40 billion dollars” for not asking permission to use his content to advertise their game.

We all play fast and loose with intellectual property law here, but when you’re a billion dollar company advertising your Intellectual Property Horde game you should at the very least get permission to use other people’s work.

— Jason Steele (@FilmCow) December 22, 2024

The original tweet from the MultiVersus account has since been taken down and, as of now, the MultiVersus social team seems to be carrying on as if it were never posted. That said, the internet is the internet, screenshots were grabbed, and one was shared on Reddit, pointing out Steele’s displeasure with the now-gone post, spawning some conversation as to the reasonableness of his reaction.

This prompted a response from Steele on the thread, explaining his view, discussing how U.S. Copyright law is designed to protect large corporations and how Warner Bros. in particular “often uses IP law like a weapon against smaller artists”, even having fair use parody content scrubbed from the internet.

As Steel notes, he has no problems with companies referencing his work. He even points out one such reference in World of Warcraft. He also takes no issue with people using his creations for non-commercial projects. However, in the case of Warner Bros., who “relentlessly enforce copyright law”, he believes they should be subject to the same rules and that someone should have simply asked before creating the video.

In an added bit of reasonableness rarely seen on the internet, Steele closes his post by noting that he’s sure that the Warner Bros. higher-ups weren’t directly involved in the decision process, but rather an “underpaid and underappreciated social media team member” likely made thee post. That being said, he still holds the company responsible as they’re the ones who decide the budget for the team, which determines if they can license media for their social media work.