Vibes are just about everything to a content creator. The world they create in their videos tells the audience who they are. The clothes they wear, the color palettes they choose and the way they speak are important aspects of their desired “aesthetic.” But as more and more creators battle for attention, how can they protect themselves from copycats?

Sydney Nicole Gifford, a TikTok creator, turned to the legal system. In April, Gifford filed a lawsuit accusing fellow creator Alyssa Sheil of copyright infringement, among other claims. Whether or not Sheil stole content from Gifford, the decision in this case will greatly affect how creators protect themselves in the future.

Mia Sato, a reporter for The Verge, wrote about the case after speaking with both creators. She joined Marketplace’s Kristin Schwab to break down the complexities of this case and what an outcome could mean for the creator community. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kristin Schwab: So tell me who is suing who in this copyright infringement case and what’s going on? What’s the evidence there?

Mia Sato: So, in this case, Sydney Nicole Gifford is suing Alyssa Sheil — her competitor. So, part of the documents that Sydney filed to the court include something like 70 pages of side-by-side screenshots of like, here’s my video and here’s Alyssa’s video. Here is my post on Amazon and here’s Alyssa’s post. Here’s my photo on Instagram and here’s Alyssa’s photo, and it’s meant to show the similarities between the two women’s content. But also, Sydney says that Alyssa’s posts were always coming after hers. So, a few days or a few weeks or a few months after, and this happened, allegedly, for months. Over and over and over. And Sydney’s suit says that she actually experienced a loss in sales, a loss in earnings and commissions, because Alyssa was making content that was very similar to hers.

Schwab: I guess the counterargument here, though, is this is how social media works. It’s about trends. Once you see one thing on your Instagram or TikTok, you see it over and over. Tell me about how the algorithm complicates the story in this case.

Sato: So, in the piece I write about several different algorithms that I think are at play, at least partially. One is obviously the Amazon recommendation algorithm. If you browse on Amazon for beige things, the platform will show you more beige things, right? It thinks that you like that. And so, there’s that shopping element. There’s also the social media recommendation system, where, if you again watch videos from Amazon influencers that say here are my five favorite fall sweaters, the algorithm will show you more content like that. That is sort of the essence of how platforms like TikTok or Instagram or Facebook work right now. I also want to point out that Amazon has a guiding hand in all of this. Amazon actually suggests to influencers what products that they could feature in their videos. So Amazon certainly is not just like a hands-off entity on the sideline. They tell influencers what’s trending. So, the algorithms, they’re working from various angles and all sort of guiding creators towards the type of content that they end up making,

Schwab: Well, this case is really about protecting influencers’ work. So how could a ruling change what they do, how they create content and what we actually see when we open up our phones?

Sato: So, Sydney’s lawsuit includes several really interesting and novel claims. For the purposes of this piece, I wanted to drill in on Sydney’s claim that Alyssa infringed on her copyright. But in this case, Alyssa never reposted Sydney’s content. She just posted images that looked similar, and Sydney’s argument is that this is infringing on my copyright. Now, if Sydney is successful in this, it’s likely, or very possible, that there would be a wave of other lawsuits like this, where influencers are going after someone else. But I think the takeaway of the story is really that this suit gets at a complaint that a lot of content creators have. It’s not rare where content creators have disputes going back and forth, saying you copied my style, or you copied my content or you are mimicking what I’m doing. But there’s not really a legal avenue, and I think this lawsuit is Sydney’s effort to try to find a way to solve this problem. However, it could significantly expand copyright law.