Toronto Maple Leafs' AHL affiliate among teams sued for copyright infringement by major music label

What could Donald Trump, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Utica Comets have in common? You might not believe it, but all have had copyright infringement lawsuits filed against them this year over the alleged unauthorized use of music without permission from the song owners.

The latest to file is Associated Production Music (APM), touting an enormous library of over 650,000 tracks. APM, which holds the exclusive rights to license those recordings, filed a lawsuit last Thursday in a California federal district court. The lawsuit names the American Hockey League (AHL) and nine of its teams, the Toronto Marlies included, accusing them of using APM's music on their social media platforms without permission. Rick Westhead shared the details.

APM said the AHL and its teams have committed "rampant infringement" by posting videos featuring their music on sites like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. According to APM, it identified more than 230 specific instances when their songs were used without permission. Most social media sites have policies that require users to get copyright clearance on material they post and outline processes for owners of works to request the takedown of unauthorized content. More recently, the UFC, NFL, and NBA have called on increasing legal action taken against piracy of their events online.

Although most infringing videos have now been taken down, many remain online. For example, APM noted that a video on the Tucson Roadrunners' social media includes the song "Back in Business." In addition, APM is seeking monetary damages in the form of a share of the profits earned from the infringement or the statutory award of $150,000 per infringement, as well as an injunction against the AHL and its teams from using its music in the future without proper licensing.

Similar skirmishes have dogged Donald Trump over his use of music at his campaign rallies and in campaign promotion. Recently, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash banned Trump from using the song "Hold On, I'm Coming," following a lawsuit by the estate of Isaac Hayes.

With the AHL and the teams preparing their defense, they might argue that they were licensed to do this, or alternatively, that this would be considered fair use since limited reproductions for news reporting, parody, or criticism are permitted. However, fair use here would be hard to establish since such videos likely would be seen as marketing tools and thus much more than purely informative content.

The above cases reflect the complexity of music licensing and ongoing litigation over the use of copyrighted works within new media. In turn, music is increasingly used by organizations to reach an audience across digital platforms.