The University Of Southern California is on the receiving end of the latest lawsuit filed over the uncleared use of music in promotional videos posted to TikTok and Instagram. Sony Music has sued for more than $25 million claiming that the university used over 170 unlicensed tracks in 250+ videos posted to promote its sports teams.
University sports, of course, is big business in the US. “USC has one of the most lucrative college sports programmes in the world, realising over $200 million annually in revenues from its participation in a multi-billion dollar college sports” business, Sony says in its legal filing.
And yet the university “repeatedly failed to obtain licences for its use of Sony Music sound recordings”, despite being put on notice that it was infringing the major’s copyrights by using uncleared tracks from Harry Styles, SZA, Mariah Carey, Elvis Presley, Lil Nas X and Travis Scott, among others.
Although platforms like TikTok and Instagram have their own wide-ranging licences from the music industry, those only cover user-generated content.
When companies or brands post videos using music, they either have to negotiate their own sync licences with the relevant record labels and music publishers, or only use music that has been specifically cleared by the platforms for brand use, such as tracks in TikTok’s Commercial Music Library.
The majors have been suing brands who fail to secure the right licences for their TikTok and Instagram videos for a few years now. Meanwhile the industry at large is getting more proactive at looking for such videos and seeking settlements from brands and companies that have used their music without getting permission.
In the last year both the Beastie Boys and Eminem’s music publisher have also filed lawsuits over uncleared music in social media content.
In its new lawsuit, Sony says it started notifying USC about its use of uncleared music in June 2021. Negotiations to settle Sony’s legal claim seemingly began last year, but without resolution and, the major claims, copyright infringing videos continue to be posted.
“Rather than cease [its] infringing conduct, USC chose to flout copyright law”, Sony claims, by “repeatedly posting new videos to the USC social media pages that use Sony Music sound recordings knowingly and willfully and without permission”.
Responding to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for USC told Billboard that the university “respects the intellectual property rights of others”, adding that it “will respond to these allegations in court”.