Poppy was a YouTube persona specializing in adorably offbeat yet creepy ASMR-esque vignettes, like a prototype robot overloaded with coy marketing psychology. The increasingly ironic videos ("I am not in a cult") turned out, a la iamamiwhoami, to be a PR campaign for successfully-launched music act. Think Gary Numan via Ladyhawke and Alison Goldfrapp, but pretty much anything anyone might get nostalgic about is in there somewhere. Mars Argo (AKA Brittany Sheets) is a singer-songwriter focused on YouTube. She claimed earlier this year that Poppy was a knockoff of her act. In a lawsuit filed against Poppy's creator, Corey Mixter (AKA Titanic Sinclair), she alleged she and Mixter to be in a relationship, that he was abusive during and after it ended, and that Poppy actress Moriah Pereira is effectively a media clone of her. 
Mixter had a simple reponse: that he "invented Mars Argo" too. For her part, Pereira, also sued by Sheets, said that “Ms. Sheets’ claims of stalking, harassment, and abuse directed at Mr. Mixter are preposterous projections of her own actions." This week a judge dismissed Argo/Sheets' lawsuit following a settlement agreement between the parties. The Verge's Megan Farokhmanesh writes that it's one of the stranger copyright cases of late, heightened by serious accusations of violence and stalking.
The case was complicated: it touched on topics of copyright infringement of an internet persona as well as serious abuse charges. In the original lawsuit filed in April, Sheets alleged to have endured “severe emotional and psychological abuse and manipulation from Mr. Mixter,” also known online as Titanic Sinclair. The lawsuit also pointed to Poppy actress Moriah Pereira as “a knowing accomplice to Mr. Mixter’s unlawful actions.” It claims that Poppy was created as a Mars Argo “knockoff,” one that “copied Mars Argo’s identity, likeness, expression of ideas, sound, style.”This idea of pop svengalis being haunted by earlier iterations of their own media personae is fascinating. Humans don't just inhabit these constructs: they inspire them and become them. And there are consequences, emotion and legal, for everyone involved. The following video, from 2014, appears to depicts Argo/Sheets and Sinclair/Mixter telling everyone to delete their social media personas. Good advice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbS-dKD4c9I
