Warner Bros. Accused of Unauthorized Use of Charlie the Unicorn Creator’s Work in MultiVersus Advertisement
Jason Steele, the creator of Charlie the Unicorn, has criticized Warner Bros. for allegedly incorporating audio from his viral internet short into a MultiVersus advertisement without obtaining permission.
The advertisement, which featured Reindog’s Unicorndog skin and was shared on social media before being removed, displayed three Unicorndogs that resembled the characters from Steele’s original video. The audio used in the advertisement was claimed to be directly from the Charlie the Unicorn short.
“MultiVersus is a game developed by Warner Bros, a company with a substantial annual revenue of approximately $40 billion,” Steele stated on X, sharing a tweet from Warner Bros subsidiary Player First Game. “Here they are using my work, without permission, to promote their game.”
“I am open to people using my work for non-commercial purposes. I have previously granted explicit permission for this and will continue to do so,” Steele elaborated in a follow-up Reddit post. “I do not intend to pursue individuals for using excerpts from my work in projects like YouTube or TikTok videos, Twitch alerts, etc. People should have the freedom to use and remix art!
“While I have seen references to my work in projects by large companies, such as the presence of a deceased unicorn named Charlie in World of Warcraft, which is acceptable under fair-use laws, using my audio directly is not considered fair use.
Charlie the Unicorn’s creator isn’t happy with the new Reindog short
by u/Kirbykoopa in MultiVersus
“I understand that it was likely not Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav personally who extracted my audio for this ad. It was probably an underpaid and undervalued member of the social media team. However, Warner Bros is the entity that benefits, and it is Warner Bros that did not allocate the necessary budget to the game’s marketing team to properly license media for their social media ads,” he concluded.
MultiVersus, Player First Games’ debut title, has had a tumultuous development journey since its open beta launch in 2022. With a focus on mobile and free-to-play titles and a shift away from the AAA space, Warner Bros acquired the MultiVersus developer earlier this year.