Sony has issued proceedings against the University of Southern California (“USC”) for copyright infringement arising from the latter’s alleged infringing use of Sony-owned music in promotional social media posts for its various ‘Trojans’ sports teams. The songs in question include ‘Beat It’ by Michael Jackson, Beyonce’s ‘Run the World (Girls)’, and ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey.
In its filing with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, Sony cited numerous TikTok, Instagram and other social media posts by USC that utilise songs from the Sony catalogue which, according to Sony, USC has “repeatedly failed” to obtain licences for. The complaint reportedly cites over 250 posts in total.
In its statement in response to Sony’s filing, USC asserted that it “respects the intellectual property rights of others and will respond to these allegations in court”. It remains to be seen whether USC will be able to successfully defend Sony’s claim, should it get that far, or if the parties might reach some form of settlement.
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