A business used your music to sell. How much could you be owed?

When a business uses your music to sell on TikTok or Instagram, and has no licence for it, that use could be worth money to you. Maru Music is a rights management company with an investment arm, and licensing enforcement is one of our services. We pay for and do the work of registering your copyrights at the US Copyright Office. We find businesses using your music commercially without a licence, document each use, and have specialist music lawyers pursue what the use should have paid. You never pay us: we take a share of what a business pays, and that is new money, money you were not receiving before.

How much could a claim be worth?

US law lets a court award up to $150,000 for each work a business wilfully infringes, where the work was registered first. The ordinary range is $750 to $30,000 for each work, again where the work was registered first. These sums are in section 504(c) of the Copyright Act.

Music Business Worldwide reported that Sony Music's case against Marriott covered 931 posts: 913 from its hotels and 18 by paid influencers. It put Marriott's exposure at close to $140 million.

The upper sums are ceilings set by law, and the Marriott figure is one reported exposure. What a claim is worth depends on how many uses, over what period and in front of what audience.

Isn't this already covered by the platform's music licence?

Usually not when a business uses the music to sell. As Complete Music Update explains, the platforms' deals with the music industry usually cover only non-commercial use, typically videos uploaded by individuals. It says brands putting music in videos they upload need to negotiate sync deals with the relevant labels and publishers, unless the music has been explicitly pre-cleared for that kind of commercial use.

On 28 April 2021, Universal Music and its affiliated labels sued Bang Energy, an energy and lifestyle brand, over promotional TikTok videos. Nixon Peabody's write-up of the case notes the songs had been picked from TikTok's own music library. Bang told the court it believed TikTok had extended a licence to use the music. The US District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted Universal partial summary judgment and said that belief was, "at most", "relevant to the issue of damages, not to the issue of liability", as Bloomberg Law reported. The brand's belief could affect what it paid. It did not make the use licensed.

Fans, creators and personal accounts are a different matter. Their videos are good for an artist, and we do not pursue them. We also exclude uses that were cleared through the platforms' commercial music libraries.

Why don't the platforms or my distributor flag these uses?

None of them is set up to catch these uses at the scale they operate. Your distributor delivers your recordings, your publisher registers your songs, and the platform licenses its users. A business's own promotional video falls between the three.

Flagging a use is not the same as being paid for it. A takedown removes the post and pays nobody.

How do you find sped-up versions, re-uploads and rips of my tracks?

We start from your catalogue and look across TikTok and Instagram for every version of each track: the official audio, sped-up copies, re-uploads under another name, and rips. A version uploaded as a business's own sound can carry no title, artist or credit, and a search by name will not find that post. We identify your track from the audio itself, so we can match the video to your recording when nothing in the post names the song.

We then separate posts by businesses and brands from posts by individuals. On the catalogues we take on, we keep monitoring and pick up new uses as they appear.

What evidence do you capture, and why before anyone contacts the business?

For every use we confirm, we capture the video, the account that posted it, the date and the audience figures the platform shows that day. We do it first because a business that has been contacted can delete its posts. Each capture is hashed and dated, so anyone reviewing it later can see the file has not changed since we took it. We tie the audio in the post to the specific recording in your catalogue. We then identify the business behind the account and confirm the rights in that song and that recording. Nobody contacts the business until that file is complete.

Digital Music News reported that in Universal Music's dispute with Bang Energy, Universal sought sanctions over videos it said had been deleted. If the only record of a use is a screenshot or a link that no longer works, there is little to put in front of a lawyer.

Each post gets its own record, because a claim can cover hundreds of them. When Sony Music sued Marriott, Music Ally reported that the complaint covered 913 social posts from its hotels, and that Sony said it had been notifying Marriott since 2020. Music Ally later reported that the case had been settled and that the terms were not made public.

Who approaches the business, and what does a settlement look like?

The specialist music lawyers we work with make the approach. We hand them the complete file and we collaborate with them to deal with the business directly: the first letter, the correspondence after it, any filing proceedings and the settlement.

A settlement depends on what the file shows. Nothing counts as recovered until the business has paid.

What does this cost me, and what do I keep?

Money never goes from you to us. There is no fee for the scan and no retainer. We take a share of what a business pays. That is new money, money you were not receiving before. The cost and the risk are ours. If nothing is paid, you owe nothing.

You keep your distributor and your publisher. Nothing about your current distribution or publishing has to change.

Do I have to sell you anything?

No. Maru is a rights management company that also invests in catalogues, and this service does not depend on a sale. Using it does not mean one is expected. We say openly that we invest, and if you ever decide to sell, we would welcome that conversation. The aim is to realise the value of your catalogue, alongside you, whether we are the owners of the music or you are.

What happens next?

When we hear from you, we run a quick check. We do not take on every catalogue. Where the check finds business use worth pursuing, a scan follows, sent to you as a page where you can get started. Any agreement comes later, on your scan page, and only if you choose.

If we have already sent you a scan, getting started and the agreement are on your scan page.