Sony Music has asked a New York court to dismiss the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against it by Ultra Music Publishing which, it insists, is simply retaliation by Ultra founder Patrick Moxey, previously a business partner of Sony, for its decision to sue Moxey’s Ultra publishing business for trademark infringement.
Sony Music first went into business with Moxey in 2012 when it bought a stake in the Ultra record label. It then acquired the label outright in 2022 with Moxey stepping down from his role running it. The Ultra publishing company was never part of the deal and Moxey continues to lead that business. The trademark dispute centres on whether or not Sony acquired the rights to the Ultra brand within music publishing as well as recorded music when it took full ownership of the label.
Moxey’s copyright lawsuit, filed late last year, was nothing more than “an ill-conceived effort” to “retaliate” against Sony, says its latest legal filing, “for pursuing claims based on Moxey’s unauthorised use of the Ultra trademark”. The copyright claim, it adds, was an attempt to gain “leverage” over Sony “on the eve of trial in the trademark lawsuit”, it being filed “mere days before the trial in the trademark litigation began”.
That attempt failed, continues the major label, because “undaunted” by Moxey’s “pressure tactic”, it went ahead with its trademark action and a jury reached its verdict in December, finding that Ultra Music Publishing was “liable for trademark dilution and breach of contract” and “had acted in bad faith” - though the final judgement in that case is still pending.
Ultra Music Publishing was scathing about Sony in its lawsuit, saying that the major presents itself as a “champion of intellectual property rights” and a “crusader against piracy” while simultaneously committing “blatant, ongoing and massive piracy” of Ultra-controlled compositions “on a global scale, without justification or remorse”.
This - claimed Ultra Music Publishing - was because a past audit had revealed that various Sony-owned labels had underpaid or failed to pay royalties that were due to the publisher and its songwriters when they were used in Sony-released recordings. As a result, Ultra Music Publishing “no longer grants licences” to Sony labels. Despite that, Sony continues to distribute and exploit recordings containing Ultra-controlled compositions, leading the publisher to file its claim for copyright infringement.
Sony is no less scathing in its response, saying that Ultra Music Publishing makes out that its legal action was to “protect its songwriters”, when in fact its aim is to “exact revenge and exert settlement pressure” on Sony in relation to the trademark dispute. And, far from protecting them, Ultra’s lawsuit could negatively impact on the Ultra-signed writers who continue to collaborate with Sony-signed artists.
The audit referenced in the Ultra lawsuit related only to royalties up to 2016, Sony also reveals, and was “settled in principle years ago”, for a “small fraction of the amount claimed”.
Ultra Music Publishing “never pursued those audit claims any further” after that, it says, and the two companies “continued working together after the audit was settled”, with Sony “paying publishing royalties” and Ultra Music Publishing “pitching its compositions for use” by Sony.
Quite apart from Moxey’s external motivations for taking legal action, Ultra Music Publishing’s lawsuit should be dismissed, Sony argues, because - rather than making any solid claims of copyright infringement - the lawsuit was prepared in a “slapdash manner”, using “boilerplate language” that makes no specific claims about what copyrights have been infringed, or what activities constituted infringement.
Rather, it claims, Ultra makes generic claims of infringement in relation to a large catalogue of compositions against an assortment of Sony subsidiaries around the world, with none of the required specificity.
Ultra Music Publishing, Sony insists, “fails to identify any particular infringing acts undertaken by any particular defendant, offering nothing but generalised and vague allegations concerning an undefined ‘distribution chain’”.
“This court should see this action for the ploy it is and dismiss each of plaintiffs’ inadequately pled and fatally flawed claims”, Sony concludes.