Chili's social media accounts used Travis Scott, Justin Bieber and more songs without permission, says UMG in a lawsuit against the restaurant chain.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, the music giant accused Chili’s owner Brinker International Inc. of willfully using unlicensed music in dozens of promotional videos across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.“In order to draw the attention of consumers in the fast-moving world of social media, defendants chose to rely on the use of popular music as an integral part of their Chili’s messaging,” UMG’s lawyers write.
Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok provide huge libraries of licensed music for users to add to their videos. But there’s a key exception: The songs can’t be used for commercial or promotional videos posted by brands. That kind of content requires a separate “synch” license, just like any conventional advertisement on television.
In Tuesday’s case against Chili’s, UMG argued that a sophisticated company with more than 1,600 restaurant locations would have known that it needed sync licenses to use well-known music in ads — or at least that it should have known. “Defendants include successful companies promoting multiple restaurant franchises with their own legal departments and protecting their own intellectual property interests,” UMG’s lawyers write. “Despite defendants’ prior history of licensing music from plaintiffs for use in commercials, defendants did not seek to determine which of the videos at issue in this complaint used plaintiffs’ musical works.
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