Sony Music scores partial victory in copyright infringement lawsuit in opposition to Bang Vitality

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Final 12 months, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment filed separate lawsuits in opposition to Bang Vitality dad or mum firm Important Prescription drugs over the alleged infringement of their music in social media adverts.

Sony Music scores partial victory in copyright infringement lawsuit in opposition to Bang Vitality 1

In July, a Florida court docket discovered that the agency had violated Common Music Group’s copyrights through the use of its music in social media adverts with out permission.

In that ruling, the court docket granted UMG’s movement for partial abstract judgment as to the problem of legal responsibility for direct infringement, i.e. movies posted on Bang’s personal channels, however not for contributory copyright infringement, for movies posted by influencers on their accounts.

This week brings information of the ruling in Sony Music’s lawsuit in opposition to Bang Vitality.

In line with an order revealed by a Florida court docket on Wednesday (September 14), and obtained by MBW, Sony Music’s movement for partial abstract judgment has been “granted partly and denied partly”.

SME initiated its legal proceedings in opposition to Bang in August 2021. Common launched its personal proceedings in April 2021.

SME’s Important Prescription drugs lawsuit followed one other copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Sony Music in July 2021 in opposition to UK-born health attire model Gymshark, additionally over the usage of copyrighted recordings in adverts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

In line with the ruling revealed this week, the defendants within the most-recent lawsuit, Bang Vitality, “have instantly posted no less than 286 movies that embody the recordings at subject” varied social media accounts throughout TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Triller.

The doc provides: “There are not any licenses from Plaintiffs to Defendants to commercially use the recordings.

“Nor are there licenses from Plaintiffs to any of the platforms that may allow finish customers of any of the platforms to make use of the recordings for business functions.”

The ‘Omnibus Order’ filed in a Florida court docket this week, and signed by U.S. District Choose William Dimitrouleas, states that Bang has bought over 100 million items of its vitality drinks and generated over $1 billion gross income since 2017, making the model the third-largest promoting vitality drink within the US.

The submitting notes that “Bang’s success is backed by its advertising methods that enchantment to its customers” and that the corporate spends “tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} yearly on its promotion via social media”.

Throughout the doc, which you’ll be able to read in full here, the court docket explains that it determined to grant Sony Music’s Movement for partial abstract judgment as to ‘Rely I’, on “the problem of legal responsibility on their claims in opposition to Defendants for direct infringement”, i.e. for movies posted instantly by Bang by itself channels.

On this primary depend, for direct infringement, the order says that Bang doesn’t “dispute that they’ve instantly posted roughly 264 movies using parts of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works”.

Bang did attempt to dispute Sony’s “proof of direct infringement with respect to 22 of roughly 286 movies”, nonetheless.

The drinks firm argued that 22 of the movies characteristic “remixes, comprise a unique tempo, are sung by an artist completely different than the artist within the authentic work that Plaintiff produced, should not a part of the uploaded video, are of a really quick period, and/or are unrecognizable within the video”.

The court docket discovered the argument to be inadequate, noting that, “primarily based on the foregoing, it’s undisputed that Defendants instantly posted roughly 286 social media movies using parts of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, works neither Defendants nor the social media platforms had been approved to make use of for business functions”.


On ‘Rely II’, Sony argued that Bang is liable “for contributory and/or vicarious copyright infringement” for movies posted by influencers containing Sony’s music.

The Courtroom addressed every of those arguments in flip and located that Sony is entitled to abstract judgment “as to the problem of legal responsibility on their claims in opposition to Bang for vicarious infringement, however should not entitled to abstract judgment as to the problem of legal responsibility on their
claims in opposition to Bang for contributory infringement”.

In line with the court docket doc, on the latter declare, concerning ‘contributory infringement,’ Sony claimed that Bang is “responsible for contributory copyright infringement as a result of the undisputed info display that Bang knew or had purpose to know of the Influencers’ infringements and in reality materially contributed to the Influencers’ infringements”.

Bang Vitality argued, nonetheless, “that data of the movies shouldn’t be the identical as data of the infringement and there may be proof from which an affordable juror might infer Bang moderately believed that the Influencers’ use of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works was not prohibited”.

The Courtroom agreed with this argument and determined to not grant Sony abstract judgment for contributory infringement.


On the problem of Sony’s claims in opposition to Bang for “vicarious infringement”, for which Sony was granted a abstract judgment, the court docket famous that “Vicarious infringement requires each a direct monetary profit from the direct infringement and the ‘proper and talent to oversee a celebration answerable for direct infringement’”.

Bang argued that Sony introduced “no proof that may have a tendency to determine that Defendants have any form of authorized proper, not to mention sensible capacity, to cease influencers from posting the allegedly infringing movies”.

Primarily based on “undisputed materials info”, the court docket disagreed with this argument. The court docket additionally famous that “it’s obvious from the document that Bang earned a direct monetary profit from the infringement”.


Lastly, the court docket denied Bang Vitality’s movement for summery judgment. The Courtroom disagreed with Bang’s argument in its personal abstract judgment movement that Sony “can’t present precise damages nor a causal relationship between the infringement and Bang’s earnings, and subsequently that Plaintiffs can’t get well damages” beneath copyright regulation.

The court docket mentioned that Sony has “submitted adequate proof of a causal connection between the infringement and Bang’s earnings to outlive abstract judgment”.

It added: “Defendants’ arguments that these earnings are attributable to different elements could be extra correctly argued to the jury at trial. Furthermore, Defendants haven’t cited and the Courtroom is unaware of any authority requiring Plaintiffs to proffer an skilled on causation to outlive abstract judgment.

“Accordingly, Bang has not proven that there isn’t a real dispute of fabric reality as to precise damages or causation and subsequently abstract judgment is because of be denied.”Music Enterprise Worldwide

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