Five months after filing a copyright infringement lawsuit against hotel giant Marriott, Sony Music Entertainment appears to have settled the lawsuit.
In a joint motion filed Tuesday (October 8) in federal court in Maryland, Sony and Marriott asked that the lawsuit be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be refiled. I asked for it.
Court documents do not indicate whether the companies have reached an out-of-court settlement.
Sony, along with its affiliated labels Sony Music Latin, Arista Music, Arista Records, Ultra, LaFace, Record Label LLC, and Remas Entertainment, home of Bad Bunny, have signed a ” filed suit last May, alleging copyright infringement. in a social media post.
Sony lawyers said they had identified 931 instances in which Sony music was misused in social media posts from hotels owned, managed or franchised by Marriott. They argued that the hotel chain’s infringement was not limited to music owned by Sony.
Under U.S. copyright law, this number of infringements would expose Marriott to approximately $140 million in statutory damages.
Marriott International is the world's largest hotel chain by number of beds. We own, manage or franchise hotels under the Marriott, Sheraton, Westin, Ritz-Carlton, and Le Méridien brands.
Sony’s complaint against Marriott (which can be read in full here) alleges that the hotel chain’s use of Sony’s music in social media posts is sometimes carefully designed to capitalize on the popularity of a particular song or artist. Marriott claims he was “well aware” of the incident. ” On the influence of music on the visibility of promotional social media posts.
“It is no coincidence that Marriott Video uses some of the most popular sound recordings in Sony Music’s library,” the complaint states.
“On algorithm-driven social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, if you add a popular sound recording to a post, it will appear in the feeds of users who are interested in your music, and who would otherwise encounter Marriott’s post. Maybe not…
“The inclusion of these popular sound recordings allows users to discover your posts when searching for content on the platform that incorporates specific artists, songs, or music-related tags.”
In recent years, Sony has faced a number of lawsuits over the alleged misuse of its music in advertising.
In 2021, the company filed a lawsuit against fitness apparel brand Gymshark for allegedly infringing the copyright of 297 recordings included in the advertisement. The two companies settled the lawsuit out of court in 2022.
In 2021, cosmetics brand OFRA sued Sony for allegedly infringing copyrights on “hundreds” of its songs.
OFRA “succeeded through blatant, intentional, and repeated copyright infringement of various content owners’ sound recordings and musical compositions,” Sony alleges in the lawsuit, which is still pending. world music business
