Mars Argo Lawsuit: Claims, Settlement, and Aftermath

The Mars Argo lawsuit was a 2018 federal case in which YouTuber and musician Brittany Sheets, who performed as Mars Argo, sued her ex-boyfriend and creative partner Corey Mixter (Titanic Sinclair), the singer Moriah Pereira (Poppy), and their production companies for copyright infringement, violations of her right of publicity and California’s unfair business practices law, and domestic violence damages. Sheets alleged that Mixter had turned Pereira into a “Mars Argo knockoff” after their breakup and that he had stalked, harassed, and physically assaulted her. The case settled in December 2018 with no money changing hands and no admission of wrongdoing, but Mixter transferred all rights in the Mars Argo project, including copyrights, the trademark, and every associated web and social media property, to Sheets.¹

Who The Parties Were

Sheets met Mixter in 2009, and the two built both a relationship and a creative partnership.² Together they created the Mars Argo character and ran a YouTube channel called Grocerybag.tv, producing roughly 100 videos including a series called “Computer Show,” original music, and short films. The persona was built around a pop star trapped in the internet, with a distinct visual style: plain white backdrops, doll-like framing, and references to Japanese kawaii pop culture.³

The couple broke up in January 2014. Shortly after, Mixter began directing videos and co-writing music with Pereira under the name Poppy. By March 2015, most Grocerybag.tv content had been taken down. Fans on Reddit and Facebook spent years cataloguing the overlaps between the two projects before Sheets took legal action.⁴

What The Lawsuit Claimed

Sheets filed the complaint on April 17, 2018, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and at the same time asked Los Angeles Superior Court for a domestic violence restraining order against Mixter.⁵

Copyright And Persona Claims

The intellectual property claim alleged that Mixter had “calculatedly” transformed Pereira into a Mars Argo knockoff by copying Sheets’ identity, likeness, sound, style, and aesthetic across videos, music, and live performances.⁶ The complaint catalogued dozens of alleged similarities: a matching platinum blonde bob, an altered higher-pitched speaking voice, copied hand gestures and head-tilt mannerisms, and specific eyeliner placement.³

Specific works were pointed to as well. Poppy released a video called “Delete Your Facebook,” which was the title of a 2014 Mars Argo video. Her debut album and tour were titled “Poppy.Computer,” echoing “Computer Show.” The complaint cited an inflatable white bunny prop, bathtub-and-pink-backdrop imagery, and heart-shaped candy in prescription bottles as replicated Mars Argo concepts, and said Poppy had been photographed wearing one of Sheets’ own jackets. Pereira was named as “a knowing accomplice” to the alleged appropriation.⁷

Domestic Violence And Harassment Claims

The complaint alleged that after the January 2014 breakup, Mixter subjected Sheets to a sustained campaign of stalking and abuse. He repeatedly entered her gated apartment complex, and on November 9, 2014, allegedly climbed through her bedroom window in the middle of the night. In a separate incident he was said to have broken in while she was away, accessed her computer, and blocked her new friends on Facebook. In early 2015 he allegedly broke in again and smashed her wine glasses one by one while questioning her about a Facebook group.³

The most serious physical allegation involved late April 2015. According to the complaint, after Sheets began planning a solo project, Mixter confronted her outside her apartment gate and punched her in the face. The filing also described threatening messages, including a May 2015 text claiming he had taken “11 oxy’s” and an email warning, “You don’t even realize the hole you are digging yourself into.” Sheets alleged Mixter publicly called her a “complete nutcase,” “evil,” and “a compulsive liar” and claimed sole credit for Mars Argo’s creative output.⁵ She said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and left Los Angeles in late 2015.

How Mixter And Poppy Responded

On May 7, 2018, Poppy answered publicly on social media, calling the suit a “desperate grab for fame” and a “publicity campaign.” She wrote that it had been “very painful to read the lawsuit Ms. Sheets filed, and to see the word ‘abuser’ and my own name in the same sentence,” and said she was herself a survivor of abuse. She and Mixter said they first learned of the complaint through TMZ.⁸ Through counsel, both defendants “adamantly denied the accusations” and said they wanted a public forum where a fact-finder could weigh the full evidence rather than the “hand-picked, out of context snippets” in the complaint.⁹

How The Case Settled

The parties reached a settlement in principle on September 7, 2018, and signed a formal “Settlement, Confidentiality and Release Agreement” on December 28, 2018. Sheets agreed to dismiss the federal case with prejudice and drop the state restraining order proceedings. No party admitted liability, no money was exchanged, and each side paid its own legal costs.¹

The core term went to ownership. Mixter quitclaimed to Sheets all rights, title, and interest in the Mars Argo project: the musical copyrights, the “Mars Argo” trademark, and every associated web domain and social media account, including marsargo.com, the Grocerybag.tv YouTube channel, and Mars Argo’s Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Bandcamp pages. Sheets kept all future revenue; Mixter retained anything received before September 7, 2018.

The agreement also imposed behavioral terms. The parties agreed to have no direct or indirect contact. Each side had to scrub direct references to and images of the others from their websites and social media, and Mixter specifically agreed to remove any reference to Sheets or Mars Argo as a “friend” on his site. He was required to destroy any photographs of Sheets in an “undressed, partially undressed, or otherwise compromising manner.” A mutual non-disparagement clause barred all parties from criticizing one another’s name, work, or reputation.

What The Case Did And Didn’t Establish

Because the lawsuit settled, no court ruled on the underlying claims, and it produced no binding precedent. Intellectual property attorneys followed it because the copyright theory was unusual, and legal experts cited in WIRED’s coverage said it could have set significant precedent had it gone to trial. Others questioned the strength of that theory, describing it as a “shotgun” approach that leaned on abstract traits like hair color, makeup, and vocal tone rather than showing that specific fixed works had been copied by other specific works.⁶ Whether an internet persona’s sound, style, and aesthetic can be protected under copyright law remains unresolved.

What Happened Afterward

On December 28, 2019, a year to the day after the settlement was signed, Poppy announced on Instagram that she and Mixter had ended their creative and romantic partnership, and her statement echoed the allegations she had earlier dismissed. “I was never ‘an accomplice’ to this person’s past actions like some believe,” she wrote. “I was a person who suffered similar wrong doings as one of his former partners brought to light.” She accused Mixter of using suicide threats as manipulation, saying that while she was on tour he had “messaged fans before he tried hanging himself” with an item that belonged to her.¹⁰

With the Mars Argo brand and catalog back in her hands, Sheets returned to music through her own LLC. She released “Angry” in April 2022, her first single in eight years, followed by “I Can Only Be Me” in March 2023, and collected the new material on the “I Can Only Be Me” EP released June 24, 2024.¹¹¹²

Mixter stepped away from the Titanic Sinclair persona, later calling it “overproduced,” “condescending,” and “reactionary,” and moved toward a lower-key YouTube format and country-influenced music. In a 2021 interview he said: “Don’t take yourself so seriously and learn to say you’re sorry.”¹³

1
NME. Sheets Settlement Agreement
2
F News Magazine. Mars Argo’s Return to Music
3
TMZ. Sheets v. Mixter Complaint
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Polygon. Poppy Lawsuit Mars Argo Titanic Sinclair YouTube Explained
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The Wrap. YouTuber Mars Argo Accuses Ex-Partner of Severe Emotional and Psychological Abuse in Lawsuit
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WIRED. Poppy Mars Argo Copyright
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The Verge. Poppy Mars Argo Abuse Allegations Lawsuit
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Billboard. Poppy Responds Mars Argo Copyright Lawsuit
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NME. Poppy and Manager Titanic Sinclair Settle Lawsuit With Mars Argo
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NME. Poppy Titanic Sinclair Accuses Manipulative Patterns
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Apple Music. I Can Only Be Me EP
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PM Studio. Mars Argo Angry Single
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Radio DePaul. Titanic Sinclair Transformation in the Age of Cancel Culture