Two influencers meet at a fancy hotel in Austin to collaborate on some social media posts. That’s how the story started but it quickly goes bad as this “influencer vs influencer” article outlines from the NY Times. After experiencing frustration and a dip in her affiliate Amazon sales due (allegedly) to similar content from another influencer who “copied her vibe” the first one decided to sue.
The entire story may seem like a fight between two people you probably don’t care about over something that doesn’t really matter, but many observers are declaring this a “landmark” case that may determine what can (and can’t) be copyrighted. It’s a thorny question as the article notes, since “the very nature of successful trendsetting requires some degree of replication.”
So can you copyright a vibe? And if you can, what does this mean about remixing culture and the idea that we’re all, to some degree, stealing ideas from one another regularly?