The Battle Over Music in Social Media Videos

In July 2024, Kobalt Music Group, a music publisher and rights management company, filed lawsuits against 14 NBA teams. The allegation was simple: Each team used Kobalt-controlled music in social media posts, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter).

Last week, production music firm Associated Production Music (APM) filed a lawsuit against the medical giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J). That lawsuit claims that J&J used music APM licenses for various social media videos.

This week, APM filed another lawsuit targeting the American Hockey League and nine league teams. Once again, the allegations centered entirely around using music in social media posts.

To be clear, these aren’t the first such lawsuits. In July 2022, the major record labels won a judgment against Bang Energy Drink over similar allegations. In August 2023, Watson Music Group sued several organizations for using the Space Jam theme on social media. Earlier this year, the Beastie Boys sued the restaurant chain Chili’s over social media ads that used their music.

However, the war is clearly heating up. Rightsholders are targeting larger organizations, and lawsuits are coming more frequently. As such, it’s important to know why this is happening, who is involved and what you can do to avoid becoming a target yourself.

The Players Right Now

Though the earlier lawsuits came from various organizations representing different rights, the two biggest players right now are Kobalt Music Group and APM.

Kobalt is an independent music publisher and rights management firm. Like other publishers, it represents songwriters and composers when licensing their music to third parties. However, it specifically targets synchronization rights, which focus on the use of music in other media, most notably video projects.

Kobalt has an extensive library of popular music, including many top 40 musicians.

This is in stark contrast to APM. APM is a production music company with a library of 1 million tracks designed for video productions. It doesn’t license popular songs. It’s “biggest hits” include the Monday Night Football theme, the Theme to People’s Court and Sweet Victory from Spongebob Squarepants.

APM licenses both composition and sound recording for video projects. It also offers plugins for major video editors to access their library easily. APM’s music has been featured in various movies, TV shows and other video productions.

In short, both the companies involved currently specialize in licensing music for video projects. The main difference is that, where Kobalt represents popular artists, APM represents composers of music meant specifically for video productions.

Why Are Companies Being Sued?

To social media users, this might seem odd. Nearly all major social media platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, and Twitch, have inked deals with music companies to license their music. The exception is X, which faces a $250 million lawsuit filed by music publishers.

However, those deals have some major caveats that users, including some large companies, might not be aware of.

The first is that it doesn’t cover the use of music in promotional or advertising content. This was a significant component of the Bang Energy Drink lawsuit and is equally prominent in the Kobalt media lawsuit.

Some companies, it seems, believe that the blanket licenses social media sites have obtained cover their promotional activity. However, it doesn’t. This is partly why, in 2020, TikTok launched a Commercial Music Library for ads.

The second limitation is that those agreements don’t cover any music not licensed under them. Though the agreements include nearly all popular music, as with the APM lawsuits, they don’t include tracks not licensed by the major record labels, publishers, etc.

Much of APM’s music is popular in commercials because it was created to be used in video projects. However, they don’t appear to be a part of any agreement with social media sites.

So, while it’s ok for a regular TikTok user to create a new dance to a popular song, using that same song in an ad for a business could still be a copyright infringement. Likewise, songs and other audio recordings not part of the agreements can still lead to infringement lawsuits.

In short, these agreements are not universal, neither in terms of content covered nor rights offered.

What’s Next?

To be clear, most cases like these are settled. Large companies rarely sue one another with the intent of going to trial. Simply put, there’s too much money to be lost on both sides to justify a long fight, especially if the facts are clear-cut.

RIght now, the targets appear to be large companies: Sports leagues, medical companies, restaurant chains, etc. Individual users and small businesses aren’t the targets, at least yet.

Unfortunately for smaller businesses, that “yet” could be very important. Music companies are cracking down on companies using their music in social media advertisements. Obviously, they’ll target the most egregious and potentially lucrative cases first.

However, that doesn’t mean it will stay there.

As someone who runs a small business, I view this as a warning. Though I don’t post video content on social media, it’s obvious that music companies are tightening the leash in this space. It’s also clear that most social media platforms’ agreements with music companies won’t protect you.

When posting content to promote your business, you must be responsible for licensing any music you use. You can not rely on social media sites’ agreements with music companies. While that has always been the case, now it’s becoming much more urgent.

Bottom Line

In the end, the confusion here is understandable. In an era of Content ID and music licenses, it is easy to feel like everyone has carte blanche to do what they want with music.

However, that is not the case, and it has never been.

While I can understand individual users and small businesses making these mistakes, it’s less understandable when it’s NBA teams and major medical corporations. While they may know something that we don’t, if the allegations are true, it would be mind-boggling.

Normally, I would expect these organizations to have procedures for licensing the content they use. They likely do in other areas. If these allegations are true, they clearly didn’t apply those systems to social media.

And that may be the most important lesson here. Social media is not some separate space alternate dimension compared to traditional advertising and marketing. It’s a core part of it.

Obviously, this has implications for branding and marketing. However, it also means you can’t ignore content licensing and other obligations.

The same as you don’t want a social media representative tarnishing your brand with an inappropriate response, you also don’t want them making you liable by using unlicensed content.

To that end, music companies have thrown down the gauntlet. Companies, large and small, should now be on alert.