@ceceandherpups/TikTok
- TikToker Cecelia Fales claims BarkBox stole her video and shared it on Instagram without her consent.
- "I told the company they could not post the video without paying me for their work," she said in a TikTok.
- A BarkBox spokesperson told Insider there was "a miscommunication on our team."
A TikToker is accusing BarkBox of stealing her content and sharing an altered version of it on the dog toy company's Instagram account.
In a now viral TikTok, which has been viewed more than 5 million times, Cecelia Fales, who goes by the username @ceceandherpups, claims that BarkBox edited one of her original videos and posted it to the company's Instagram page last month — even though she initially refused permission when the company reached out.
"They removed my watermark, they removed my voiceover, and they put their own music behind the video to make it seem more original and like their video," she said in the video posted earlier this month. "They then posted it to their Instagram account even though I told the company they could not post the video without paying me for their work."
Fales said she was subsequently blocked by the BarkBox social media team after an email back-and-forth about the incident, calling out the company in her video for its "extremely unprofessional behavior."
A BarkBox spokesperson told Insider the company has "not been able to identify any such blocking and we would never do that" as it "is against BARK policy."
In a followup video, Fales shared screenshots of conversations between herself and the BarkBox team regarding the video. When she expressed she wasn't comfortable with the company using her video without compensation, she said she was connected with the brand's team to discuss rates.
But she said the company did not end up paying her and posted her video to Instagram anyway without her permission. "I was furious. I had created so much free content for their brand, simply for them to go and disrespect me like that," she said in the video.
A BarkBox spokesperson told Insider there was "a miscommunication on our team," calling the since-deleted Instagram post "a situation that we take seriously."
"Like many companies, BARK regularly teams up with creators, providing free samples of our products and syndicating content featuring those products on our channels," the spokesperson said. "We have a process of aligning with creators on any special terms ahead of posting. However, due to a miscommunication on our team, we briefly posted this creator's content in error without aligning on terms."
The spokeperson continued: "BARK tagged the creator in the post, which featured a BARK toy, so there was full attribution and immediate notice to the creator of the posting. BARK honored the creator's request for the content to be taken down minutes after it was posted and sincerely apologized for the error. We are working directly with the creator to resolve this matter."
Followers have since rallied behind Fales, calling out BarkBox on its various social media accounts.
"Deleteing all my TikTok's of my dog in case barkbox steals it," wrote one user on BarkBox's latest TikTok video.
"Canceled. Yall know better," wrote another on a BarkBox Instagram post.