[The IPKat] [Guest post] Revisiting the Sylvanian Family Drama: settled and silenced (forever)?

[Eleonora Rosati]

[Guest post] Revisiting the Sylvanian Family Drama: settled and silenced (forever)?

 Eleonora Rosati Thursday, September 04, 2025 - copyright, Georgia Jenkins, Guest post, Parody, Sylvanian Family, trade marks

The IPKat has received and is pleased to host the following post by Katfriend Georgia Jenkins (University of Liverpool), providing an update on the Sylvanian Family Drama case. Here’s what she writes:

Revisiting the Sylvanian Family Drama: settled and silenced (forever)?

by Georgia Jenkins

During the summer The IPKat reported on the developing Sylvanian Family Drama lawsuit. Reels, created and shared on TikTok and Instagram by influencer Thea von Engelbrechen, comprised Calico Critter dolls (a.k.a. Sylvanian Families) engaged in disputes far removed from their wholesome reputation. Inspiration was drawn from iconic films and TV series, and perhaps also the drama-riddled experiences of simply being an adolescent or young adult. Social media users, this Katfriend included, tuned in weekly to witness the drama unfold with false eyelashes, cheating partners, ransoms, illicit drugs, and diet culture. The parodic and referential nature of the reels resonated with many, becoming the subject of public discussion and resulting in an entirely new consumer group. One where dolls formed part of adult collections following the latest Sylvanian Drama reel.

The real drama commenced when von Engelbrechen accepted paid sponsorships (e.g. Squid Games promotion). These controversial reels resulted in von Engelbrechen benefiting from new income streams relating to the unauthorised (and potentially, damaging) use of the dolls. It is this fine line between freedom of expression and IP, namely trade mark and copyright law, that has sparked backlash within the wider community. It also falls within a broader strategy of Epoch, the owner of Calico Critter, to remove unauthorised uses online. Previously @forest fr1ends allegedly changed from using Calico Critters to homemade doll versions when making parodic content. On their social media accounts, @forest fr1ends currently feature an explicit disclaimer that they ‘have ‘no affiliation with sylvanian families’.

The legality of disclaimers aside, the questionable behaviour of von Engelbrechen’s Calico Critter dolls raises important questions surrounding social media platforms, creators, and the strength of commercial expression protection through IP law. In the US, many cite the availability of the fair use defence within copyright law and the parody defence within trade mark law.

However, the EU perspective presents, perhaps, a more piecemeal picture. Freedom of expression that utilises a trade mark or copyright work, depends heavily upon national case law. This is despite the 'autonomous' nature of parody within EU copyright law generally. Though freedom of expression now appears within recital 27 of the Trade Marks Directive and recital 21 of the EU Trade Mark Regulation, there is no clear guidance on whether similar unauthorised uses would escape liability. Additionally, the sheer strength of protection for marks with a reputation, in particular, leaves little room to safeguard freedom of expression.

The position of social media platforms that host and share potentially infringing content like von Engelbrechen’s Calico Critter dolls further complicates the picture. In fact, the EU’s ongoing “fixation” with platform responsibility creates an ideal exam question relating to the liability of ByteDance and Meta. Article 17 of the CDSM Directive incentivises platforms to secure licences for (potentially) infringing user uploads to avoid direct liability of Article 3 of the Information Society Directive. While user safeguards for freedom of expression are required, the CJEU has left a lot of their design to national legislators following the Polish CJEU action, with Germany being a notable user-friendlier outlier. Its legislative design supports user creativity by categorising quotations, caricatures, parodies and pastiches (alongside other uploads) as legitimate posts which should ‘stay up’ during the internal complaints procedure. It further attaches a direct payment obligation by platforms to authors for caricatures, parodies and pastiches of their works which may lessen the ‘profitability’ argument of creators like von Engelbrechen.

In turn, DSA due diligence obligations, such as Articles 14 and 15, require platforms to consider users’ fundamental rights (incl. freedom of expression) and provide transparency reports on content moderation at least annually, respectively. Content moderation decisions by platforms can be challenged via certified out-of-court dispute settlement bodies such as User Rights. However, this combination of ex ante and ex post content moderation measures leave user creativity in a sticky predicament of potentially increased takedowns and decreasing cultural diversity (e.g. YouTube). Conversely, to the extent that YouTube’s copyright transparency reports are reliable, some have described all of this as a marginal outcome for user-generated content on platforms, and await the Commission’s Review of the CDSM.

In the meantime, this problem continues to intensify as platforms integrate third-party generative AI tools to assist content creation, as well as an increasing list of forthcoming internal ones such as Meta’s Movie Gen. It is within scope that von Engelbrechen’s Calico Critters could have simply been prompted into existence (see, Luma Ray 2 Video Model).

The answer, you may ask, like many a student before the exam, TBD. von Engelbrechen has not posted since January 2025, and as of August, the lawsuit was withdrawn with each party responsible for its own costs. In lieu of further guidance or case law, ironically, settlement, in a broader sense, offers a departure point. Alternative dispute resolutions, envisaged by Article 17(9) of the CDSM and Articles 20 and 21 of the DSA, provide potentially helpful building blocks to reach a more balanced outcome by involving users (e.g. Dr Sevra Güzel's Community Review System).

For now, von Engelbrechen has rebranded her social media accounts to ‘Gossip Squirls’ and social media users await new ‘same-same but different’ content. In a world of doom-scrolling and negative news cycles, Sylvanian Drama offered its own escape through nostalgia and humour. One which IP legislation and platform regulation would be remiss to filter permanently.

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