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I'm investigating one of the largest creator lawsuits in years. The creator of one of the biggest YouTube franchises, Skippy Toilet, is supposedly being robbed and silenced. Another company claimed it owned the whole thing, got real episodes removed from YouTube, and sent an email with a threat. Negotiate by tomorrow, or the whole channel will be deleted. Now, a settlement has been announced, but it still leaves multiple questions unanswered. So, I'm interviewing someone who says they have evidence. going through the court filings myself and by the end I'll make the creator of Skibbidity Toilet a personal offer. It starts with the amount of money Skippy Toilet is worth. Across YouTube, Skippidity Toilet videos got roughly 65 billion views in one year alone. At
conservative ad rates, that kind of traffic can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from YouTube. Then there's the brand side. poison major retailers, an official Fortnite skin, and a movie reportedly linked to Michael Bay. The exact value of the franchise is hard to know, but it's likely worth millions. And all of that started with one creator, Alexi Gasimoff. A few years ago, Alexi signed a copyright assignment contract with Invisible Narratives, a US entertainment company. That contract transferred the main copyright and trademark rights or Skippy Toilet to Invisible Narratives. Invisible Narratives also reportedly got the exclusive right to run the Duke Boom channel and a portion of the advertising
revenue. Then in late 2024, a company called Next Level Apps registered in a free trade zone in Dubai and filed a trademark application for the name Skibbidity Toilet. But they didn't just file once. They filed dozens of product categories, registered Skibbidity toilet.com, and pushed knockoff Skibbid Games onto app stores. That trademark filing gave them something dangerous. A piece of paperwork they could use to say Skippidity Toilet is theirs. Next Level says one of its co-founders posted a game idea on a Ukrainian forum back in 2020. The ideas were toilets with human heads fighting cameraheaded humanoids.
They also showed a bunch of different visual evidence. So next level's argument is we didn't steal Skippidity toilet. Boom and invisible copied us. But as a lawyer, this is where I separate an idea from ownership. Copyright doesn't protect a general idea like toilets fighting camera people. It protects the actual expression, the art, characters, videos, and story that were created. And Next Level's early materials appear different from what Alexi actually made. So, this ownership argument seems weak. Later, we'll discuss how Alexi has been silenced and how most fans believe something sinister may be going on. But next is the scary part. Next Level submitted this form
claiming it owns Skibbidity Toilet. It's a DMCA takedown notice. It's a legal tool used to tell a platform, "This video stole my work." So if someone re-uploaded the entire Bem movie to YouTube, the creator of the movie could say, "Hey, that's not yours. That's ours. Please take it down." And then YouTube would then have the creator take it down. At the bottom, it says something like, "I declare under penalty of perjury that I am the copyright owner." That means you're legally swearing it's true, but the system doesn't check whether it's true before the video comes down. YouTube has a strong legal incentive to remove the content once the form arrives. Under the DMCA, platforms get something called a
safe harbor, meaning they usually won't be blamed for users copyright infringement if they remove videos quickly after a valid takedown notice. So, if the form looks valid, YouTube usually removes it first and asks questions later. So, the system runs on a dangerous assumption that the person filing the notice is telling the truth. So, YouTube treated the claim like it was real and removed access to Skippy Toilet season 25, the all episode video for that season. Once that worked, Next Level followed up with something even more aggressive. The day after the takedowns, this email arrived. The first line says, "We're the current owners of Skibbidity Toilet. We would like to negotiate by tomorrow." So they gave
them one day to respond and the last line says there will be another takedown before channel deletion. These takedowns are devastating for a channel. A channel at the peak of its season looks like this. It's getting millions and millions of views. So when someone issues a DMCA takedown, those views can drop drastically. Invisible Narratives claims the company lost millions of viewers and significant ad revenue. What makes it even worse is while the real Skibbid was losing millions of views, Next Level started posting knockoff games and clips. And when Invisible Narratives allegedly tried to take down those knockoff uploads by filing their own copyright takedown forms, Next Level filed counter notices to protect the
fakes. Yeah, it was extremely messy. A federal judge in Northern California looked at the whole case, then granted an emergency temporary restraining order, which is a court order meant to stop someone before more damage happens. Judges don't give emergency orders very often. Emergency relief means the court saw a serious risk of harm before the normal process could play out. That's a major early win for invisible narratives. But then the judge turned the emergency order into something stronger, a preliminary injunction. That basically means a longerl lasting restraining order. Next Level violated it anyway. YouTube took down episode 77 because of an old takedown request that Next Level never pulled back. The
episode stayed offline for 57 days. The court found Next Level in civil contempt and they had to pay $160,000. So legally, Invisible Narratives was winning the early fights. But that brings up a stranger question. Where was the guy who actually made Skippy Toilet? The federal lawsuit is Invisible Narratives versus Next Level Apps. Alexis's name isn't on it. He's not a plaintiff. Legal standing means you have the right to bring the lawsuit yourself. And when you give someone else your copyright, you usually give them the right to protect it in court, too. That means Alexi likely couldn't sue Next Level and couldn't file his own takedowns. He probably gave up those rights when he signed the contract. And
this is where I have two opinions at once. Legally, I get why Invisible is the plaintiff. It owns the assigned rights. It's the cleanest party to sue. But personally, I also think fans are right to care about Alexi. Fans didn't subscribe to a copyright assignment. They subscribed to Alexis style, his weird humor, and the world he built one episode at a time. Then the fight moved outside the courtroom. Leaked Discord messages started spreading where Alexi told fans he felt completely isolated from the process. Other screenshots made fans question whether he was even being paid.
Alex was not being paid or at least have big problems with getting paid. I spoke with a former employee of Invisible Narratives. What he told me that uh Alex had problems receiving money because he was Russian. When Alex gave the skipped rights to invis in 2023, US sanctions against Russia made it very hard for him to get paid by American companies. Fans also pointed to leaked messages where Alexi allegedly said he felt trapped, scammed, and lied to. He sent messages to some YouTubers and saying that he was not being paid and was almost broke. He also said that he lost control of his YouTube monetization in 2024. So if that is true, then he basically lost his main income from the
channel. Recently, Invisible Narratives renamed his YouTube channel from Defuk Boom to just Skiibbid with no announcement from Alexi. Fans noticed extremely quickly. The hashtag bring Boom back started trending with thousands of posts demanding Alexi get creative control back. Invisible Narratives responded publicly saying Alexi remains an executive producer and continues to earn from the franchise, but we haven't seen his full contract, so we don't really know what he agreed to or what he's allowed to say. And I get why fans are reacting this way. This isn't just a name change. It looks like the creator who built Skiibbidity Toilet had been pushed behind the company now controlling it. Everything what
Invisible Naratives released on defum channel so far has been terrible. There is no there's no even scripted. It's just corporate stop. This explains the emotion behind the backlash to fans. The contract didn't just move rights. It changed who they felt was steering the channel. And legally that makes sense. Alexi signed over the IP and exclusive rights to run the channel to Invisible Narratives. Invisible Narratives has also said parts of the agreement are confidential. So when fans say let Boom speak, they're asking a fair question. Can the original creator explain what happened without
getting hit with a breach of contract lawsuit? A journalist said he spoke with Alexi, but the full interview never came out because Alexi wanted to approve his quotes. According to the journalist, there were some very interesting restrictions in place. He is not allowed to publicly speak on invisible narratives. Skibbity toilet or his contract that backs up what fans are worried about. His silence may not be a choice. It may be part of the contract. Invisible also says it didn't tell Alexi to stay quiet. It says it encouraged him to speak, at least to trusted creators. But one screenshot Invisible published shows Alexi saying he was staying inside
boundaries that were safe for him legally and reputationally. But the question remains, what can Alexi actually say without violating his agreement? Do you think Alexi needs a lawyer? Yeah, I think he definitely needs a lawyer. Fans deserve a clear answer, and Alexi deserves a chance to speak for himself. So, Alexi, if you're watching this, you may have signed something that prevents you from publicly discussing aspects of your contract. But I got good news for you. No one can keep you from talking to a lawyer. Reach out to me. We can see if there's a legal way to help. But this is where the story starts to feel backwards. While Invisible Narratives was fighting copyright strikes in court,
it also started allegedly threatening using copyright strikes on fans. For example, Duter Flouting, a big animation channel, received strikes from invisible natives uh just because uh he did not respond to message about working with them. Creators who had spent months making Skiibbidity fan games, animations, and remix videos supposedly started getting copyright strikes or emails from Invisible Narratives. Another YouTuber, One More Animator, also received strikes, but they don't even reach out to him after he got strikes. He contacted them and asked to remove the strikes and that's when u company say that he need to sign the contract. One DMCA notice went after
Skibbidity Toilet characters inside Gary's mod, the same world Alexi used to make Skibbidity Toilet in the first place. Alexi said he didn't send it. Reports said the notice came from Invisible Narratives. Isn't that exactly what Next Level did to them? Kind of. Invisible takedowns are different because Alexi gave them rights to Skiibbidity toilet. So legally, they're in a stronger position than Next Level. But that doesn't mean every fan use is automatically illegal. Fair use can still matter and copyright enforcement should be careful. They should go after fake official apps, commercial knockoffs, and people who are
confusing fans, not the fans who helped make the franchise valuable because you can end up turning them against you. After we started the Let speak Movement in April, Invisible Natives and their consultant David started sending strikes to skip channels. In total, they sent 27 strikes to 10 channels. As far as I know, they were not striking random Skippy channels. They were mostly striking people who spoke against them. The strangest example I was given wasn't even about a Skippy episode. It was about a screenshot used for commentary. There was also a very strange situation with David. He struck some of my videos because his Discord profile picture
appeared in screenshot that I showed his public Discord profile picture and he claimed copyright ownership of it. In my opinion, showing someone profile picture inside screenshots of commentary is not the same thing as stealing someone's artwork or content. It was part of the context I was talking about. If true, I agree with that. That's where fair use matters. A screenshot used to explain a controversy is very different from stealing someone else's content. Just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean it's the smartest move. A lot of game companies learned this years ago. Some even let creators make videos about their games because they know fan content can help the brand
grow. But imagine being the kid who spent 6 months making a Skippy fan video only to get a copyright strike or email from the company. To a fan, that can feel like betrayal. To be fair, Invisible says that the licensing deals were to form an alliance that was supposed to give some creators a licensed way to build and monetize inside Skiibbody. and they produced a text message allegedly showing Alexi approved of some takedowns, at least back in 2024. And that's what makes this whole case so strange. On paper, it's invisible narratives versus next level. Two companies accusing each other of taking control of a franchise through lawsuits and takeown threats. But underneath all of that is Alexi, the creator who made Skibbidity Toilet
before it became big enough to move from YouTube into a much larger entertainment business. fans didn't fall in love with these corporations. They followed one person's bizarre internet world until it became valuable enough for everyone else to fight over. And now the fans are caught in the middle. Copyright law is supposed to protect creators. It's not supposed to punish the communities that helped support them. So my hope is that this video brings attention to what's happening, pushes everyone involved to stop abusing takedown notices, and reminds invisible narratives what fans are actually asking for. They don't want a brand statement. They want to hear from Alexa.
