Copyright Infringement Lawsuits: How to Protect Your Creative Work and Stay Legally Covered

The Wild West days of social media video and content are over. While the early days might have been more loose and undefined, brands—and music companies—have clamped down on the use of their copyright-protected music by businesses of all sizes in their social videos and campaigns.

These days, any company, person, brand, or business is liable to be sued for copyright infringement at any given time. And sadly, even when you might feel that you’ve followed all laws, rules, and regulations exactly right, lawsuits can still happen and can be costly, even if you’re able to win your case.

That’s why it’s more important now than ever before for companies, individuals, and brands of all sizes to be aware of how copyright infringement laws work and stay up to date on how to protect their creative work and stay legally covered with the properly licensed music and other creative assets.

The latest social media copyright infringement cases

Let’s look at a few recent social media copyright infringement cases as examples of how lawsuits can happen at any time, and how these brands could have better protected themselves to begin with.

According to reports in Music Business Worldwide, Sony Music Entertainment has filed a copyright violation lawsuit in the US against the major hotel company Marriott International. SME accuses the hotel company of willful infringement of copyright in social media posts by clearly using notable Sony artists like Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, Miley Cyrus, and more.

Another of the recent examples of copyright infringement in music highlights how a major brand, in this case the restaurant chain Chili’s, had to settle a lawsuit in which it was accused of copyright infringement over a social media ad that parodied the “Sabotage” music video by the Beastie Boys. Universal Music Group (UMG) sought $150,000 in monetary damages and a takedown of the commercials against the parent company of Chili’s.

We’ve also had a major social-focused copyright lawsuit from Warner Music, which is suing Designer Shoe Warehouse and others for a mountain of infringement actions targeting music features in the companies’ social videos.

Warner Music Group is also suing the cookie giant Crumbl over “massive scale” copyright infringement in TikTok and Instagram posts which could have major ramifications for the company as it is reportedly looking to explore a sale at a $2 billion valuation.

These lawsuits are perfect examples of why companies of any size should be wary of using popular music in their social posts and videos without securing the right to do so.

Copyright infringement and AI regulations

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Along with the lawsuits outlined above, we’ve also seen lots of movement in the licensing negotiations between labels and AI music generators. Recent lawsuits allege that AI music generators Udio and Suno trained their models on copyrighted music without obtaining the permission of major labels, including Universal, Sony, and Warner.

We’ve also seen these negotiations attempt to navigate copyright laws in similar deals between OpenAI and major media outlets, such as Vox and the AP. As AI continues to be one of the most important—yet diverse—topics in the music licensing industry, there will undoubtedly be more challenges to how copyright laws are written and enforced.

Avoiding a social media copyright lawsuit: How to keep your social content in the clear

Still, without burying the lede here too much, the solution to avoiding social media copyright infringement lawsuits is always going to be actually pretty simple. Follow the social media copyright guidelines and don’t use any music that you haven’t secured licensing to use. Pretty simple, right?

To expand on this further, there are only three ways in which you can actually be absolutely sure to avoid copyright infringement on social media.

Don’t use any music in any of your social content (including even music in the background)
Only use music that you create yourself
License music legally through music licensing companies

We will guess that out of the three options above, you will lean towards licensing music legally through music licensing companies like Soundstripe. Of course, you can explore other options in this royalty-free music industry (more on that term below).

You could also contact large music companies like Sony Music Entertainment to license songs from the most prominent artists in the world. Still, those licenses will be quite expensive and usually only make sense for the largest companies.

For most people, licensing music from companies like Soundstripe is really going to be the sweet spot where solo creators, small businesses, companies, universities, non-profits, and brands of pretty much all sizes can benefit from the perks of royalty-free music.

If you’d like to learn more about how to license music for ads and projects, here are a few helpful articles that go over the process and different options.

The perks of royalty-free music

What are these perks, you ask? Well, simply put, royalty-free music for social media is the solution to all of your problems. With companies like Soundstripe, your brand can license music directly from us, covering our full library of music and sound effects for all your content needs.

Based out of Nashville, Tennessee, and founded by musicians ourselves, our Grammy-winning artists and producers have compiled thousands of tracks of high-quality music that are fully copyright-protected for you to use in your videos and content.

We have plenty more to read up on about what royalty-free music and how it works, but if you’d like to dive into checking some tracks yourself, here’s our full library. And here are some curated tracks for use on different social platforms:

Using copyrighted music for social video content

Once you decide on the right royalty-free music licensing for your social media needs, you can rest assured that any music tracks or sound effects you select from the Soundstripe library will be fully covered for use in your videos.

So, for example, if you’re a Marriott hotel looking to make a viral video to market a promotion or a solo creator looking to launch your own YouTube channel, you’ll be able to easily browse through tracks and find the right one for you.

If you have further questions about how to know if a song is copyrighted, or about using copyrighted music on any additional social channels, here are some helpful guides for some major ones.

Get started with Soundstripe today

No matter how high your level of concern for potential copyright infringement lawsuits is, any level is too high to risk, as the repercussions can be severe. Trust us, it’s not a path you want to go down—especially if the ways to avoid copyright problems and lawsuits are so easy.

If you’d like to further explore getting started with Soundstripe as the easiest—and best—solution for your music and sound effects, here’s your path to get started today.