Within the newest in a rising variety of lawsuits over unauthorized use of music in social advertising and marketing, Common Music Group (UMG) has sued the proprietor of US Tex-Mex restaurant chain Chili’s for allegedly infringing its copyrights in quite a few social media posts.
In a grievance filed in a federal courtroom in Dallas on Tuesday (October 8), document firms and music publishers owned by UMG mentioned Chili’s proprietor Brinker Worldwide “did not pay… for the music that serves because the soundtrack for Chili’s social media adverts” posted on Fb, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
The grievance claimed publishing and recorded music copyright violations on songs by ABBA, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Shania Twain, and the Spice Women. It additionally cited alleged recording copyright violations on tracks by The Weeknd and Lana Del Rey, in addition to a publishing copyright violation on Free’s All Proper Now, amongst others.
As of mid-2024, Chili’s had 1,214 places throughout the USA, the overwhelming majority of which had been company-owned, and 344 places exterior the US, most of them franchises. Brinker reported $4.42 billion in income for the fiscal yr ended June 26, 2024.
In complete, the grievance listed 38 alleged recording copyright violations, and 42 alleged publishing copyright violations. Beneath US copyright regulation, the 80 complete infringements may depart Brinker answerable for as much as $12 million in statutory damages.
The plaintiffs within the lawsuit embrace recording firms Capitol Information and UMG Recordings, and publishers Common Music Corp., PolyGram Publishing, Songs of Common Inc., Common Music – MGB NA LLC, and Common Music – Z Tunes LLC.
Brinker is “effectively conscious of [UMG] and their music catalogs and have obtained licenses for sure musical works, together with as not too long ago as 2023. Regardless of this historical past and information, nevertheless, defendants used scores of [UMG’s] works with out permission or fee,” said the grievance, which could be learn in full right here.
The grievance described the alleged infringements as “willful,” and mentioned Brinker Worldwide contains “profitable firms selling a number of restaurant franchises with their very own authorized departments and defending their very own mental property pursuits.”
UMG additionally accused Brinker of getting “no efficient procedures for making certain that the social media content material posted for his or her Chili’s industrial restaurant companies doesn’t violate others’ copyrights.”
UMG’s grievance asks for a everlasting injunction stopping Brinker’s companies from persevering with to make use of UMG’s music, in present or future social media posts, and for damages “in quantities to be confirmed at trial.”
The lawsuit was filed the identical day that Sony Music Leisure and Marriott Worldwide collectively withdrew a copyright infringement lawsuit that accused the resort chain of utilizing Sony music with out authorization in its social media posts.
It was unclear from courtroom paperwork whether or not Sony and Marriott had reached an out-of-court settlement. Sony declined to touch upon the matter.
Lawsuits over unauthorized use of music in social media posts have proliferated lately.
This previous summer time, 14 NBA groups had been sued by Kobalt Music Publishing, Artist Publishing Group, and others over alleged use of unlicensed music on their social media channels and on the NBA.com web site.
In September, Related Manufacturing Music (APM), which is collectively owned by Sony Music Publishing and Common Music Publishing, sued the American Hockey League over alleged “rampant” copyright infringement of their social media posts.
Additionally final month, APM sued pharma and family items large Johnson & Johnson for allegedly violating copyrights in promo movies the corporate posted on Fb and YouTube.
In late 2023, Sony Music sued cosmetics model OFRA – which has 1.7 million followers on Instagram alone – for what it mentioned was “blatant, willful, and repeated copyright infringement” of “tons of” of Sony’s songs.Music Enterprise Worldwide
