{"id":7646,"date":"2025-09-03T21:55:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T21:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/tiktok-creator-of-charli-xcx-apple-dance-settles-roblox-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T21:55:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T21:55:52","slug":"tiktok-creator-of-charli-xcx-apple-dance-settles-roblox-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/tiktok-creator-of-charli-xcx-apple-dance-settles-roblox-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"TikTok Creator of Charli xcx ‘Apple’ Dance Settles Roblox Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tA<\/span> TikTok influencer who created the viral dance to Charli xcx\u2019s hit song \u201cApple\u201d has reached a settlement with Roblox to resolve claims that the gaming platform featured her choreography without permission.<\/p>\n

\n\tLawyers for Kelley Heyer <\/strong>and Roblox jointly agreed in a Wednesday (Sept. 3) court filing to dismiss the lawsuit that Heyer initiated earlier this year. The attorneys had been in settlement negotiations since at least June. They told a federal judge last month that they\u2019d \u201cexecuted a settlement agreement that should completely and finally resolve this action without need for further litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tTerms of the deal have not been publicly disclosed. In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, Heyer and Roblox say they \u201care pleased to report that they have amicably resolved\u201d the dispute. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMs. Heyer and Roblox find common ground in their support and appreciation of independent artists, as it is the work of these artists, like Ms. Heyer, that enrich the virtual world in which users of the Roblox platform can develop their own creativity and imagination,\u201d says the statement.\u00a0\u201cThe parties wish each other every success in their creative pursuits and encouraging the [creative] pursuits of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cApple\u201d dance went viral last summer after Heyer posted a TikTok video of herself set to the Charli xcx Brat <\/em>track, which ultimately spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Heyer\u2019s choreography was emulated by scores of influencers and celebrities and became a fixture of Charli\u2019s live shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeyer sued Roblox for copyright infringement in April, claiming the online gaming platform hadn\u2019t compensated her for using the dance as an \u201cemote\u201d in a Charli-themed version of its Dress to Impress <\/em>game. The lawsuit alleged that while Roblox did reach out to Heyer about licensing out the choreography last August, the parties never finalized an agreement.<\/p>\n

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\n\tRoblox responded in court filings that it did, in fact, enter into a $9,000 licensing agreement with Heyer before releasing the \u201cApple\u201d dance emote. The gaming company said Heyer was merely trying to use the lawsuit to \u201crenegotiate terms to which she had already agreed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCharli xcx was not named in the lawsuit or accused of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s become increasingly common in the last few years for viral dance creators to sue online video game companies for featuring their moves. Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air<\/em>, sued Fortnite owner Epic Games in 2018 over the use of his heavily-memed \u201cCarlton dance.\u201d The mother of Russell Horning, the so-called Backpack Kid who helped popularize the viral \u201cFloss\u201d dance, did the same in 2019. And just two months ago, dancer Fefe Burgos sued Epic for using his choreography from a Rauw Alejandro music video.<\/p>\n

\n\tJudges have been skeptical of these cases, often questioning whether simple dance moves are even copyrightable. But in 2023, a federal appeals court issued a first-of-its-kind ruling saying dance copyrights must be analyzed holistically and that \u201creducing choreography to \u2018poses\u2019 would be akin to reducing music to just \u2018notes.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A TikTok influencer who created the viral dance to Charli xcx\u2019s hit song \u201cApple\u201d has reached a settlement with Roblox to resolve claims that the gaming platform featured […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[464,5573,6409,4353,303,5575,322,182,5574],"class_list":["post-7646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-apple","tag-charli","tag-creator","tag-dance","tag-lawsuit","tag-roblox","tag-settles","tag-tiktok","tag-xcx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}