The claim
A California engineer has taken a viral fitness clip to federal court. Shahin Khazey filed a complaint on October 15, 2026 against creator Dylan Granger, who posts as “Cassie Millz,” accusing Granger of reusing his gym video without permission and presenting it as a pre-transition clip.
The disputed Reel allegedly opened with Khazey’s footage in full under the caption “Me before I became a girl,” then cut to Granger with “Me now.” Khazey says the edit misled millions of viewers about who he is.
One Reel, almost all the reach
The filing says the Instagram Reel drove the reach: 3.3 million views, 30,800 likes and 83,900 reshares as of the filing date. The four reposts on TikTok and YouTube Shorts added only about 20,000 views combined, so the damage was concentrated in one edit.
- Instagram Reel (May 28): 3.3M views, 83.9K reshares
- Secondary TikTok (May 28): 12.3K views
- Primary TikTok (May 29): 5.7K views
- Secondary TikTok (May 30): 2.6K views
- YouTube Shorts (July 9): 3.3K views
Khazey also alleges Granger pinned a “Check my highlights” comment to the Reel, and that the highlights linked to an OnlyFans account. That link is the commercial center of the case.
Why it matters for growth teams
The case runs on two tracks. Khazey registered the video with the US Copyright Office within three months of first publication, which can preserve his ability to seek statutory damages of up to $150,000 for willful infringement of a single work. The complaint then adds right-of-publicity, false light and Lanham Act claims, arguing that using the clip to route viewers to paid adult content made it an advertisement, not a repost.
That distinction is the practical framework: platform reach is separate from commercial intent. A viral view count does not transfer rights, and a pinned link can turn borrowed content into a marketing funnel.
PPC Land also reported a mirror-image case one week earlier, in which a North Carolina creator sued brand R5 Brands over paid Meta ads that reused her videos. Here a creator is accused of turning a private person’s face into a traffic source. Both cases pair a registered copyright with a likeness claim.
What to do before you reuse a clip
Treat every short-form video as a rights question. Ask creators for provenance: who shot it, who appears in it, and whether they hold a licence or model release. If you create original content, register it early and answer removal requests immediately. In the filing, Granger’s alleged reply that the video was viral and “it’s obvious we’re not the same person” is framed as intent, not as a take-down.
The case is at its first stage: Granger has not answered, and no judge has ruled. But for agencies and brands buying short-form placements, the lesson is already clear: the person holding the phone and the person in the frame can be different, and both can sue.
Source: PPC Land
