Lawsuit over YouTube persona Poppy ends in settlement

Poppy is a YouTube persona specializing in adorably offbeat yet creepy ASMR-esque vignettes, like a prototype robot overloaded with coy marketing psychology. The increasingly ironic videos ("I am not in a cult") turned out, a la iamamiwhoami, to be a PR campaign for successfully-launched music act. Think Gary Numan via Ladyhawke and Alison Goldfrapp, but pretty much anything anyone might get nostalgic about is in there somewhere.Mars Argo (AKA Brittany Sheets) is a singer-songwriter focused on YouTube. She claimed earlier this year that Poppy was a knockoff of her act. In a lawsuit filed against Poppy's creator, Corey Mixter (AKA Titanic Sinclair), she alleged she and Mixter were in a relationship, that he was abusive during and after it ended, and that Poppy actress Moriah Pereira is effectively cloning the act she developed while with him.Mixter had a simple reponse: that he "invented Mars Argo" too. For her part, Pereira, also sued by Sheets, said that Ms. Sheets claims of stalking, harassment, and abuse directed at Mr. Mixter are preposterous projections of her own actions."This week a judge dismissed Argo/Sheets' lawsuit following a settlement agreement between the parties. The Verge's Megan Farokhmanesh writes that it's one of the stranger IP cases of late, heightened by serious accusations of violence and stalking.

The case was complicated: it touched on topics of copyright infringement of an internet persona as well as serious abuse charges. In the original lawsuit filed in April, Sheets alleged to have endured severe emotional and psychological abuse and manipulation from Mr. Mixter, also known online as Titanic Sinclair. The lawsuit also pointed to Poppy actress Moriah Pereira as a knowing accomplice to Mr. Mixters unlawful actions. It claims that Poppy was created as a Mars Argo knockoff, one that copied Mars Argos identity, likeness, expression of ideas, sound, style.