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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →George Santos sued Jimmy Kimmel, ABC and The Walt Disney Company over Cameo videos that Kimmel’s show used in a mocking segment. The case is no longer pending: on September 15, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed dismissal, holding that the copyright claims were barred by fair use and that Santos’s state-law claims failed to state a claim.
Why Santos sued Kimmel
According to the court record, Kimmel and associated accounts submitted at least 14 requests for personalized videos through Cameo on December 6 and 7, 2023, and Santos made 14 videos. The show aired five in segments called “Will Santos Say It?” Kimmel presented the segments as a test of whether Santos would say absurd things for money.
Santos alleged that the requests used fictitious names to deceive him, and that the defendants infringed his copyrights and committed other legal wrongs by publishing the videos. The complaint said the segments appeared on television and social platforms, and sought $750,000 in statutory damages. That figure was a demand in the complaint, not an award or a finding of liability.
The complaint also described a December 12, 2023 cease-and-desist demand. The district court’s account says the defendants did not post the remaining videos but did not remove material already online.
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What Cameo’s license terms said
The district court recounted Cameo terms that distinguished personal from commercial licenses. A personal license was limited to personal, non-commercial and nonpromotional uses; the commercial-use license excluded television. Those terms framed the dispute, but the courts did not resolve it by finding that the license authorized Kimmel’s broadcast. The Second Circuit instead held that the show’s use, as alleged, qualified as fair use.
How the courts analyzed fair use
Copyright law’s fair-use test weighs four nonexclusive considerations. As the Second Circuit explained, the factors are “(1) the purpose and character of the use . . . ; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used . . . ; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”
Purpose and character
The appellate court focused on transformation: whether the new use adds a different purpose or character rather than simply republishing the original. It contrasted the messages of the two works. A reasonable observer, the court said, would understand Santos’s videos as conveying “feelings of hope, strength, perseverance, encouragement, and positivity.” The program used them to comment on whether Santos would say absurd things for money.
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The Second Circuit characterized the complaint as depicting sarcastic criticism and commentary, not an attempt to substitute the show for Santos’s commercial rights. It therefore concluded that the pleaded use was transformative.
Nature and amount of the videos
The court considered the other statutory factors as part of the same overall inquiry, including the nature of the copyrighted material and how much was used. Its decision did not announce that every use of an entire Cameo video is fair; its holding concerned the particular use alleged in this case, in the context of the segment’s commentary.
Effect on the market
The market factor asks whether the challenged use harms the existing or reasonably likely market for the work. The appellate opinion read the complaint as alleging a critical, comedic use rather than one that displaced Santos’s commercial offerings. That conclusion formed part of the court’s fair-use ruling, not a general finding that television use falls within a Cameo license.
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What happened to the state-law claims
The district court dismissed Santos’s copyright claim on fair-use grounds and dismissed his state-law theories, including fraud and contract claims. It found no adequately alleged out-of-pocket loss for fraudulent inducement and treated the contract claims as preempted by federal copyright law. On appeal, the Second Circuit’s ultimate conclusion was that each state-law claim failed to state a claim.
Did Kimmel win the lawsuit?
Yes, in the sense that the defendants prevailed in the reported appeal: the Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of Santos’s case. Judge Richard J. Lohier Jr., writing for the court, stated: “Because we agree that Santos’s copyright claims were barred by the fair use doctrine and further conclude that each of Santos’s state law claims failed to state a claim, we affirm.” The ruling was not a damages award against Santos, and it should not be read as a blanket permission to air paid Cameo videos.
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