Music lawsuits against brands over social media posts, case by case

Music companies have taken businesses to court in the US over music in their social media posts 22 times since April 2021. Sony, Warner and Universal brought most of the suits. A production music library, music publishers and one band brought the rest.

The money is counted per work, and one song can be two works: its recording and its composition. An owner does not have to prove what it lost. It can instead ask a US court for damages set by law: $750 to $30,000 for each work infringed, where the work was registered first.

Where the business knew it was infringing, or recklessly ignored the owner's rights, the ceiling rises to $150,000 a work. The law calls that wilful infringement. Most of these suits ask for up to $150,000 for each work. On Warner's suit against Luxottica, Music Business Worldwide calculated a ceiling of $64.05 million: $150,000 for each of the 427 works cited.

Which businesses have music companies sued over social media posts?

The publishers' suits against 14 NBA teams count as one row here, and as one of the 22. Counted separately, there are 35 lawsuits.

Sony sued through several of its record companies, and Warner and Universal through several of their label and publishing companies. The table gives the group's name.

To look a suit up, use its court and case number below. All are US federal courts. A closing date in the table with no link comes from the court's records.

• Southern District of Florida: Universal v. Bang Energy, 0:21-cv-60914; Sony v. Bang Energy, 1:21-cv-22825; Warner v. Bang Energy, 1:22-cv-22951; Sony v. OFRA Cosmetics, 0:23-cv-62073
• Central District of California: Sony v. Gymshark, 2:21-cv-05731; Warner v. Iconic London, 2:22-cv-08602; APM v. Major League Soccer, 2:23-cv-01173; APM v. Johnson & Johnson, 2:24-cv-07579; APM v. American Hockey League, 2:24-cv-07803; Sony v. Designer Brands, 2:25-cv-07285; Warner v. PacSun, 8:25-cv-02677; Sony v. Kroger, 2:26-cv-09358
• Northern District of California: Universal and Concord v. Quince, 3:26-cv-03244
• Southern District of New York: Beastie Boys v. Brinker, 1:24-cv-05221; Sony v. University of Southern California, 1:25-cv-02042; Warner v. Luxottica, 1:26-cv-08965; and the 14 NBA suits, one per team: Atlanta Hawks, 24-cv-05453; Cleveland Cavaliers, 24-cv-05454; Denver Nuggets, 24-cv-05455; Indiana Pacers, 24-cv-05456; Miami Heat, 24-cv-05457; Minnesota Timberwolves, 24-cv-05458; New Orleans Pelicans, 24-cv-05459; New York Knicks, 24-cv-05460; Orlando Magic, 24-cv-05461; Philadelphia 76ers, 24-cv-05462; Phoenix Suns, 24-cv-05463; Portland Trail Blazers, 24-cv-05464; Sacramento Kings, 24-cv-05465; San Antonio Spurs, 24-cv-05466
• Southern District of Ohio: Warner v. Designer Brands, 2:25-cv-00479; and DSW's own suit against the music companies, below, 2:25-cv-00765
• District of Delaware: Sony v. Marriott, 1:24-cv-00598
• Northern District of Texas: Universal v. Brinker, 3:24-cv-02535
• District of Utah: Warner v. Crumbl, 2:25-cv-00316
• A federal court in Michigan: Eight Mile Style v. LaFontaine Ford St Clair, case number not found

DSW also sued the music companies itself. Warner had sued it two months earlier, and Sony, Universal and BMG had sent it demand letters. On 9 July 2025 DSW, Designer Brands and Topo Athletic asked a federal court in Ohio to rule that their posts infringed none of those companies' copyrights. They argued that the platforms' licences covered them. A brand brought that suit, so it is not among the 22. Its claims against Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music and BMG are still before the court.

If you know of a suit this table lacks, or a later step in one it lists, write to us at hello@marumusic.net.

Where do the multi-million-dollar figures in the headlines come from?

They are the publications' own arithmetic: a count taken from a complaint, multiplied by $150,000. The complaints name no total.

Warner's complaint against Crumbl names at least 159 recordings and compositions. Music Business Worldwide's $23.85 million is the $150,000 maximum for each of those 159 works. That is a fair measure of the ceiling, because the law sets damages per work.

Sony's complaint against Marriott counts 931 infringements, and the same publication wrote that they could expose Marriott to "up to nearly $140 million". That figure multiplies infringements, not works. A song used in ten posts is still one work to the law, so a total built on infringements can run above the ceiling the law sets.

No figure on this page is a sum anyone paid.

What have the courts actually decided?

Of the 22 suits, only two have reached a ruling on whether the brand infringed: Universal's and Sony's against Bang Energy. Both came from the same judge in the Southern District of Florida in 2022. Neither needed a trial, because the facts that mattered were not in dispute. Neither set what Bang would pay. Bang's parent company declared bankruptcy in October 2022, the trade press reported.

Bang believed TikTok's licence covered its videos. The court in Universal's case recorded what each side wrote before the suit. Bang wrote that its "understanding is that TikTok provides use of these songs and others with a license to all of its members". Universal's lawyer replied in January 2021 with TikTok's own terms, which license no rights in the recordings on the service or in the songs they carry.

The court's ruling of 11 July 2022 found that Bang had infringed, whatever it believed. In copyright, an owner does not have to prove that a business knew or meant to infringe. What Bang believed could at most affect how much it owed. Bang did not dispute, in either case, that the labels had licensed no platform to let its users use the recordings commercially. The ruling in Sony's case records that TikTok's general music library is for "personal, non-commercial use".

In Sony's case the court would not decide without a trial whether the infringement was wilful. A jury could find that Bang and Jack Owoc honestly and reasonably believed the law allowed their use. So the belief that could not stop a finding of infringement could still matter to the money, because wilful infringement is what lifts the ceiling to $150,000 a work.

The ruling in Universal's case left the eight influencer videos undecided. Two months later, with more evidence before it, the court's ruling in Sony's case held Bang responsible for about 98 videos its influencers had posted. Bang could have stopped them by withholding pay, the court said, and it profited: the music drew viewers, a 15% commission tied the influencers' posts to sales, and it never paid the licence fees. That Bang had no access to the influencers' accounts made no difference. Some coverage at the time reported this ruling the other way.

Bang also argued fair use, the US rule that lets some uses go without a licence. In Sony's case the court weighed the four questions the law asks and found that every one favoured the labels.

In Sony's suit against USC, the court threw out Sony's claims that USC was responsible for infringement by other people, the trade press reported. USC did not dispute that its own posts infringed, and the case later settled.

DSW's own suit failed against Sony Music Entertainment. The court threw it out because DSW had filed it only to get in ahead of a suit it expected from Sony. No court has ruled on DSW's argument that the platforms' licences cover its posts.

Kroger is relying on a Supreme Court ruling, Cox v. Sony, which found that an internet provider was not responsible for piracy by its subscribers. Kroger argues that this means it is not responsible for its influencers' posts. There is no ruling on that yet.

Outside the US, the regional court in Frankfurt am Main ruled on 9 September 2026 on a 14-second TikTok advert for a weight-loss app, set to Gala's "Freed from Desire". A rights agency holding the synchronisation rights claimed €95,750: €250 a day for 383 days. The court found that the app's operator had infringed, and had been careless in doing so. It still awarded nothing, because the agency gave no basis for what a licence would have cost. The case number is 2-06 O 424/25.

How do these cases end?

Every suit whose ending is on record ended in a settlement or with the music company withdrawing it. We found no trial and no damages award in any of them, and no settlement's terms have been made public. The suits with a recorded ending were over within fourteen months of filing, Sony's against Marriott in under five months.

The complaints describe warnings, often years before the suit. Sony says it first told Marriott in January 2020, more than four years before suing. Warner sent Crumbl a cease-and-desist letter in August 2023. Two of the businesses had licensed music from the company that later sued them, the complaints say: Brinker from Universal as recently as 2023, and Kroger from Sony at least fourteen times between 2017 and 2025.

Who is suing, and who gets sued?

Sony brought seven of the 22 suits, Warner six and Universal three, one of them with Concord: 16 in all. Associated Production Music, a production music library jointly owned by Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group, brought three. Publishers led by Kobalt and Artist Publishing Group brought the NBA suits, with Prescription Songs, Notting Hill Music and MXM among them. Eminem's publisher Eight Mile Style and the Beastie Boys brought one each.

The businesses run from an energy drink maker and a hotel group to sports teams, a university and an eyewear group. The suits are getting more frequent: seven were filed from 2021 to 2023 and fifteen from 2024 on. Sony's against Kroger names nineteen companies. In half of the 22, the music company also sued over videos by influencers, made for the brand or reposted by it.

What does this mean for music the majors don't own?

The same enforcement is open to it, through us. The majors have large infrastructure for it: technology that finds their music in other people's posts, and lawyers to enforce. They use it for their own copyrights.

Against those 22 suits, one catalogue we searched, a major artist's two decades of hits, had 538 businesses and organisations selling with its songs on TikTok and Instagram, and none had a licence.

We built our own audio fingerprinting technology and brought in specialist music lawyers to do this for our own catalogues, and we now do it for clients. Our technology finds your recordings, and with them the uses of the songs they carry, on TikTok and Instagram, sped-up, slowed-down and renamed copies included. The lawyers then pursue businesses and brands for what each owes, working from posts captured, hashed and dated before the business heard from us. The unlicensed social media service costs you nothing: our share comes out of what the business pays, and if it pays nothing, neither do you.