Almost 6 months after issuing proceedings against Marriott International (“Marriott”) for alleged copyright infringement, Sony Music Entertainment (“Sony”) has seemingly resolved its dispute with the hotel chain, which is reportedly the largest in the world by number of beds.
Sony had purportedly detected 931 examples of infringing use of music for which it owns copyright across numerous social media posts from hotels within the Marriott company umbrella (including franchised and partnered hotels). Per US federal copyright provisions, the volume of infringements identified would have entailed statutory damages approaching $140 million.
It was alleged that Marriott was capitalising on the popularity of particular songs or artists at the given times in order to boost the visibility of its promotional materials. In its submissions, Sony stated “It is no accident that the Marriott Videos use some of the most popular sound recordings in Sony Music’s library”, continuing “On algorithm-driven social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, adding popular sound recordings to a post causes it to appear in the feeds of users who are interested in the music and might not otherwise come across the Marriott posts”.
In a joint filing with a Maryland federal court, the parties requested the case be dismissed “with prejudice”, which prevents Sony from resurrecting its claim in future. This is not the first instance of Sony enforcing its copyright in recent times, having issued proceedings against fitness giant Gymshark and cosmetics brand OFRA.
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