Court weighs who owns a ‘vibe’ after online influencer sues another for copying her look

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Who owns a vibe? That question is at the heart of a lawsuit where one online influencer is suing another for copyright infringement; 24-year-old Sydney Gifford claims that Alyssa Sheil, a 21-year-old fellow influencer, knowingly replicated her aesthetic and her posts on social media.

  Amna Nawaz spoke to Sandra E. Garcia of The New York Times, who has been covering this story extensively.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Sandra E. Garcia, welcome to the "News Hour." Thanks for being with us.

• Sandra E. Garcia, The New York Times:

  Hi. Glad to be here.

• Amna Nawaz:

  All right, so let's start with these influencers, Sydney Gifford and Alyssa Sheil. Just tell us a little bit more about who they are.

• Sandra E. Garcia:

  Alyssa Sheil is a 21-year-old influencer who uses her time to suggest things that her followers should buy off of her Amazon Marketplace. Sydney Gifford is similar to her in that way. They're both young women looking for items to inspire people to buy on their social media accounts.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And their vibe, their aesthetic is what? How would you describe what it is that they're putting out to their followers?

• Sandra E. Garcia:

  The way they would describe it themselves is very minimalistic, beige, not very busy, cool girl, oversized sweaters, chunky knits, clear sort of plastic Amazon basics.

  They like things to look very clean and neat.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And what is the relationship between these two women? They have actually professionally collaborated before? Is that right?

• Sandra E. Garcia:

  They were influencers that followed each other at one point and they met up to hang out, and they took some pictures of themselves to post and to brainstorm things that they could post on their social media accounts.

  And then their relationship sort of dissolved when Alyssa Sheil unfollowed Sydney Gifford.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So the idea that you can sue someone over an aesthetic, how does that work? Like, what is the case that's being made in federal court right now?

• Sandra E. Garcia:

  Well, Sydney Gifford noticed that Alyssa's post started looking a lot like hers a year after their initial hangout, whether that is the aesthetic, the vibe, the minimalistic style, the clean style, even at some point, some poses and some outfits she details in her lawsuit that she filed.

  The lawsuit basically says that she got her vibe, her whole look from Sydney Gifford. And Sydney is saying that she has infringed on her profit, right, because they use their social media accounts to promote their Amazon Marketplace, where they can influence people to buy things off of Amazon and Amazon pays them a commission to do so.

  And because of that, Sydney has brought this lawsuit in federal court against Alyssa.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And in your reporting, you quote a professor of intellectual property law, who explains that, in this whole online space, there's an idea that you are both a creator and a borrower.

  So how hard is it to lay claim to an aesthetic, something intangible, like a vibe?

• Sandra E. Garcia:

  It is such a layered issue.

  The algorithm feeds you similar posts, similar creators, similar influencers. If I see a rug and I take a picture on that rug and it just so happens that another influencer took a picture on the rug a similar way, we could have both reached that last photograph by following a lot of different influencers, celebrities.

  And so it's hard to say that an aesthetic was reached because of one other influencer, especially when it's such a popular aesthetic. The minimalistic, beige, concrete, neat, clean girl look is very popular right now. And the algorithm is feeding followers and influencers the same kind of posts.

  And so it's hard to say that this one influencer copied the other, as opposed to the algorithm fed her a million other posts that got her to that endpoint.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And as you have noted in your reporting, there is an entire economy built around this kind of content creation.

  So when it comes to this legal case, what's at stake here? What's the potential impact of how this case goes?

• Sandra E. Garcia:

  It is an unprecedented case and it could really change the content creator world and the economy, because influencers can now be beholden to copyright law, and they would have to be careful how they arrange things.

  If one person owns an aesthetic, then another person can say they own another aesthetic. And suddenly we're not building on these different vibes and social media looks. We are sort of stifling the content creator world if this case moves forward and it's ruled in favor of Ms. Gifford.

• Amna Nawaz:

  It's a fascinating case. We're going to be following your reporting to see how it goes.

  Sandra E. Garcia of The New York Times, thank you for your time.

• Sandra E. Garcia:

  Thank you.