A North Carolina social media creator filed a federal lawsuit on October 9, 2026 accusing R5 Brands LLC, which trades as True Nutra, of running her face, voice and four copyrighted videos in at least 12 active paid Meta advertisements for a supplement she says she never used, reviewed or endorsed.

In Short

A woman who makes shopping videos online says a supplement company took four videos she had filmed for a different brand and turned them into its own Facebook and Instagram ads. She says this makes it look like she recommends a product she has never tried, and she has asked a federal court in Charlotte to stop the ads and award her money. The case tests what happens when an advertiser treats a creator's video as free ad creative instead of something it has to license.

The complaint

The case, Amber Jordan Holston v. R5 Brands LLC d/b/a True Nutra, was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte Division, under case number 3:26-cv-00856-KDB-MTO. The document runs to nine pages. It pleads three counts: copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501, tortious misappropriation of name and likeness under North Carolina common law, and violations of the state's Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1. A jury trial is demanded under Rule 38(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Holston, according to the complaint, lives in Huntersville, North Carolina, a town north of Charlotte. The filing describes her as "a social media content creator and brand influencer on Tik Tok who creates video content and shares bargain finds, discounts, and shopping tips across a range of products." It lists several accounts: @amber.coupons on Instagram, focused on Target clearance; @ambergenxugc, focused on Amazon home finds; and @amberfindsdeals, which it calls "her short-form video page centered on product bargains." The complaint does not say which platform hosts the @amberfindsdeals page.

The defendant is described as a Wyoming limited liability company with its principal place of business at 30 North Gould Street, Suite N, Sheridan, Wyoming. "Upon information and belief, its members are citizens of Wyoming," the filing states. Nothing in the complaint identifies the company's owners, its revenue or how long it has advertised on Meta.

All of what follows is allegation. No response from R5 Brands is part of the document, and none of the claims has been tested in court.

What Holston says happened

The factual core of the complaint is short. Holston, according to the filing, made four videos "herself for a client, and published them, and retained all copyright interests in and to the Works." Those videos were "created to promote a different company's supplement." The complaint does not name that client or its product.

She then "discovered that Defendant is using her face, likeness, voice, and Works in at least 12 active paid Meta advertisements," according to the complaint. The filing says True Nutra "has taken those videos and is using the Works, and Plaintiff's persona, likeness, image and voice, to advertise and direct consumers to purchase a completely different supplement that she never used, reviewed, recommended, or endorsed. This creates the false impression that she endorses Defendant and its products."

There is a gap here worth noting. The complaint states that 12 ads were active but identifies only four videos. Whether the 12 ads use the four videos in different edits, crops or combinations, the filing does not say. The difference matters for damages, as discussed below.

The screenshot

Page four of the complaint reproduces a single screenshot "of one of Amber's videos in one of Defendant's ads." The image shows a phone interface with a sponsored post from an account named "True Nutra Health," marked "Ad," with a "Shop now" button beneath the video. The visible caption begins "Your blood sugar will be balanced, your cravings..." before being cut off. In the frame, a woman wearing a stethoscope speaks to the camera in a kitchen, with supplement bottles visible on the counter behind her.

The complaint does not comment on the stethoscope or on the blood sugar claim in the caption, and it does not say whether either element appeared in the original client video. It also does not specify whether the 12 ads ran on Facebook, Instagram or both; it refers only to "paid Meta advertisements."

The exhibits

The complaint refers to two exhibits. Exhibit A is said to contain the four copyright registrations, and Exhibit B "true and correct screenshots of the infringing posts." Neither exhibit is part of the nine-page document examined for this article, so the remaining 11 ads and the registration certificates themselves could not be reviewed.

The four registrations

The copyright count rests on timing. According to the complaint, the four works were first published on June 29 and June 30, 2026. The United States Copyright Office then registered them on two dates:

  • Video 1, registered August 25, 2026, under PA 2-601-282
  • Video 2, registered September 2, 2026, under PA 2-602-098
  • Video 3, registered September 2, 2026, under PA 2-602-091
  • Video 4, registered September 2, 2026, under PA 2-602-087

The "PA" prefix denotes a registration for a work of the performing arts, the category the Copyright Office uses for audiovisual works such as videos. The complaint stresses that the works were "registered within 90 days of publication."

That phrase is not decorative. Under section 412 of the Copyright Act, statutory damages and attorney's fees are generally unavailable for infringement that began before a work was registered, unless registration was made within three months of first publication. Registration on August 25 and September 2 falls within that window for works published at the end of June. The complaint does not say when True Nutra's ads began running, but by pleading the three-month window it keeps statutory damages and fee recovery available even if the ads predate registration.

Registration is also a precondition for filing a copyright infringement suit over a US work in federal court. The complaint was filed 37 days after the last three registrations were issued.

The three counts

Holston alleges that True Nutra engaged in "downloading, reproducing, publicly displaying and offering for public distribution, as well as derivatizing, Plaintiff's Works." The filing asserts direct, vicarious and contributory liability in the alternative, and states that the company "did not seek a license or consent to use the Works."

The willfulness allegation is pleaded in strong terms. "Defendant's actions were knowing and willful efforts to exploit the Works that it knew it had no authority to use which was done to commercially benefit itself and its products all knowingly done without justification or authority," according to the complaint.

On remedies, the filing makes "a damages election" for statutory damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), while the prayer for relief also asks for actual damages, an accounting of profits under § 504(b), and costs and attorney's fees under § 505. It seeks a preliminary injunction "during the pendency of this action" and a permanent injunction afterward.

Count II: misappropriation of likeness

The second count is where Holston's identity, rather than her footage, is at issue. The complaint alleges that True Nutra "knowingly used Plaintiff's name, likeness, image, voice and/or persona and identity to advertise and sell its commercial products, including to incite users into clicking onto its website or commercial online presence from ads using Plaintiff's likeness, image, voice and persona as well as to close sales."

This claim does not depend on copyright. Even if a court were to find some defense to the copyright count, the use of a recognizable person's face and voice to sell a product without permission is a separate wrong under North Carolina law. The count seeks damages "for dignitary injury," disgorgement of profits, and punitive damages, on the basis that the company "acted willfully, maliciously, oppressively, fraudulently, and in wanton disrespect of Plaintiff's interests and rights."

Count III: unfair and deceptive trade practices

The third count pleads that the conduct "is unfair, immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous and against public policy and is deceptive because it deceives and has the tendency to deceive and has caused proximate injury to Plaintiff." Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-16, damages under the statute are trebled, and § 75-16.1 allows attorney's fees. Both sections are cited in the prayer for relief.

Drafting inconsistencies

Two cross-references in the complaint do not line up with its structure. Count II "realleges and incorporates by reference the allegations of Paragraphs 11 through 23," which are the copyright paragraphs, rather than the general factual allegations in paragraphs 1 to 10 that describe the ads. Count III incorporates paragraphs 1 to 10 and 24 to 29, skipping the copyright count entirely. The signature block also lists the Winston-Salem office of Taylor & Taylor Attorneys at Law with the postal code "2701," one digit short of a North Carolina ZIP code. The PDF's embedded document title refers to a "10.2.2026" complaint, suggesting it was drafted a week before filing. None of these points changes the substance of the allegations.

Jurisdiction and venue

The complaint invokes federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 for the copyright claim and supplemental jurisdiction under § 1367 for the two state claims. It also pleads diversity jurisdiction under § 1332(a), stating that the parties are citizens of North Carolina and Wyoming and that "the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs."

Personal jurisdiction over a Wyoming company in North Carolina is asserted under the state's long-arm statute, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-75.4. The filing says True Nutra "operates an interactive website that willfully infringes Amber Holston's registered copyrights and right of publicity interests and not only is accessible to users within this District but is specifically directed to consumers nationwide including in this District." It adds that Holston "has suffered the brunt of the harm resulting from the Defendant's action in this District, including lost revenues and profits, and injury to her reputation and goodwill." Venue is claimed under 28 U.S.C. § 1400 on the basis that the district "is the situs of the harm."

The complaint's jurisdictional paragraph focuses on a website and nationwide ads rather than on any sales, shipments or targeting specific to North Carolina.

How much is at stake

The complaint states no dollar figure. It pleads that damages "are not yet fully ascertainable" and asks for amounts "to be proven at the time of trial."

The statute supplies a frame. Under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), statutory damages range from $750 to $30,000 per work infringed, and a court may raise the award to as much as $150,000 per work where infringement is found to be willful. Those damages are calculated per work, not per ad. With four registered works, the copyright exposure on the statute's terms runs from $3,000 at the floor to $120,000 at the ordinary ceiling, and up to $600,000 if willfulness is proven. Those figures are a calculation from the statute, not a sum claimed in the complaint.

That is why the 12-ad figure, while it may matter to a jury's view of willfulness, does not multiply the statutory award by itself. The state-law counts are a different matter. Misappropriation damages are not capped by work count, punitive damages are requested on Count II, and any damages awarded under the trade practices statute are trebled. Attorney's fees are sought under both federal and state law.

Counsel

Holston is represented by E. Winslow Taylor of Taylor & Taylor Attorneys at Law, PLLC, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who signed the complaint. Peter R. Afrasiabi and Kurt Schuettinger of One LLP, based in Newport Beach, California, are listed with pro hac vice applications "forthcoming." The complaint does not identify counsel for R5 Brands.

Why this matters for the marketing community

Creator video has become a standard ad format on Meta, TikTok and YouTube, and the creator economy has developed a set of commercial arrangements to govern it. A brand deal pays a creator to make and publish content. Usage rights, licensed separately, let a brand run that content in its own ads. Paid amplification of creator posts, in which a brand buys distribution for a video it did not produce, is a third arrangement with its own terms. Holston's complaint describes a situation that sits outside all three: footage made under contract for one supplement brand, then allegedly run as paid ad creative by a second brand that had no agreement with the creator or, by implication, with the original client.

For advertisers and agencies, the case illustrates how a creative asset carries at least two layers of rights. The video is a copyrighted work owned, in this case, by the creator rather than her client. The face and voice in it belong to a person whose consent is required for commercial endorsement. Clearing one does not clear the other.

The case also lands in a period of scrutiny of what runs in Meta's ad auction. Meta removed more than 134 million scam ads in 2025, according to figures it shared in December 2025, while internal documents reported the same year projected roughly 10% of 2024 revenue from ads for scams and banned goods. In February 2026, Meta filed five lawsuits against advertisers in Brazil, China and Vietnam, four of them over fake celebrity endorsements; one of the Brazilian defendants was a supplements and cosmetics company. The Consumer Federation of America sued Meta in April 2026 in the District of Columbia, alleging the company misled users about the safety of its ad environment. And on September 16, 2026, a Frankfurt court held that Meta could face up to 250,000 euros per future fake ad using the identity of finance platform Finanzfluss and its co-founder.

Holston's complaint differs from those cases in two respects. Meta is not a defendant; the claim runs only against the advertiser. And the person depicted is not a celebrity whose image is attractive to scammers, but a working creator whose bargain-hunting persona is itself the commercial product. Meta's facial recognition protections for public figures, which the company has said covered more than 500,000 celebrities as of early 2026, are designed around famous faces rather than mid-sized creators.

A pattern in supplement and creator litigation

Supplement marketing on social platforms has attracted litigation from several directions this year. In August 2026, Ledisa LLC faced a proposed class action in California over "GLP-1 Patches" that, according to that complaint, contained no GLP-1, with Instagram posts among the marketing cited. The True Nutra ad screenshot in Holston's complaint carries a blood sugar claim in its caption, though Holston's suit does not challenge the product's efficacy and no consumer is a party.

Copyright claims over social content used for commercial purposes have also become more frequent. Sony Music sued DSW in August 2025 over recordings in the retailer's TikTok and Instagram posts, including a post by a paid influencer. In September 2026, a federal judge in Los Angeles declined to dismiss a contributory copyright claim against Tesla over a video reposted by Elon Musk's account on X.

On the platform side, Facebook in July 2025 said it would reduce distribution and cut monetization for accounts that repeatedly reuse other creators' content without credit, after removing about 10 million impersonating profiles. That policy targets organic posts by accounts, not paid ads by advertisers. YouTube in May 2026 extended its likeness detection tool to all creators aged 18 and over, though it scans uploads to YouTube rather than ads on other platforms. In Europe, Denmark's government on October 8, 2026 tabled a bill requiring publishers to prove consent before making realistic digital imitations of a person public. That bill concerns synthetic imitations; Holston's complaint concerns real footage of a real person, which existing US right of publicity law already addresses.

What none of these tools does is stop an advertiser from downloading a creator's video and uploading it as its own ad. The question Holston's suit puts to the court is what that costs when it happens.

What comes next

Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, R5 Brands will have 21 days from service of the summons to answer or move to dismiss, or 60 days if it waives formal service. A motion challenging personal jurisdiction in North Carolina would be a predictable first step. The complaint also asks for a preliminary injunction, but a separate motion would ordinarily be needed to obtain one; none appears in the filing.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Amber Jordan Holston, a social media content creator from Huntersville, North Carolina, against R5 Brands LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company trading as True Nutra. She is represented by E. Winslow Taylor of Taylor & Taylor Attorneys at Law, with Peter R. Afrasiabi and Kurt Schuettinger of One LLP seeking pro hac vice admission. Meta is not a party.

What: A complaint alleging that True Nutra ran Holston's face, voice and four copyrighted videos, originally made for another supplement brand, in at least 12 active paid Meta advertisements without a license or consent. It pleads copyright infringement, misappropriation of likeness under North Carolina common law, and unfair and deceptive trade practices, and seeks statutory damages, profits, punitive and treble damages, attorney's fees, and preliminary and permanent injunctions.

When: The complaint was filed on October 9, 2026. The videos were first published on June 29 and June 30, 2026, and registered with the Copyright Office on August 25 and September 2, 2026.

Where: The United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte Division, case 3:26-cv-00856-KDB-MTO. The ads ran on Meta's advertising platform.

Why: Creator video is a standard ad format, and the arrangements that govern it - brand deals, usage rights and paid amplification - all assume the advertiser has a contract with the creator. The case tests the cost to an advertiser that allegedly skipped that step, at a time when courts, regulators and trade bodies are scrutinizing what runs in Meta's ad auction. With four registered works, statutory copyright damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c) would range from $3,000 to $120,000, or up to $600,000 if willfulness is proven, before state-law damages are added.