A live performance from Flavour, one of the songwriters allegedly contacted by Sony Music amid a legal battle with Ultra International Music Publishing. Said battle now includes an ongoing trial as well as a separate infringement action from Ultra Publishing. Photo Credit: Ameyaw Debrah
Sony Music Entertainment (SME) is “willfully committing blatant, ongoing, and massive piracy” – at least according to Ultra International Music Publishing, which has fired off a copyright complaint against the major label.
Ultra Publishing only recently submitted the straightforward suit to a New York federal court, filing specifically via the mentioned Ultra International Music Publishing as well as Ultra Music Publishing Europe. On the opposite side of the action, Sony Music proper, Ultra Records, AWAL, and a number of other subsidiaries are defendants.
Spanning a relatively short 15 pages, Ultra Publishing’s to-the-point complaint represents the newest development in a years-long dispute between the parties. Just to recap, SME bought 50% of Ultra Records (excluding the publishing unit) back in 2012.
From then until early 2022, when Sony Music scooped up the remaining stake, founder Patrick Moxey (in keeping with the terms of the appropriate agreement, which allegedly left name-licensing decisions up to Ultra Records) continued to operate the distinct Ultra International Music Publishing under its original name.
Following Ultra Records’ complete sale, the name overlap didn’t sit right with parent company SME, which moved to terminate the name-licensing arrangement and, in the absence of the desired outcome, subsequently sued to remove “Ultra” from the still-separate publisher. Several years and twists later, a jury trial in this courtroom confrontation officially kicked off earlier today.
Now, besides the trial, the ugly legal battle features another dispute yet – filed by Ultra International Music Publishing as opposed to Sony Music’s Ultra Records.
Ultra Publishing, the more recent suit claims, has for years “been engaged in an audit of Sony Music Entertainment and its affiliates to uncover” allegedly unpaid royalties for the use of its (the publisher’s) compositions.
In the end, said audit allegedly revealed concrete evidence of missing compensation, prompting the plaintiffs to cease licensing the works to the defendants, according to the action.
Nevertheless, Sony Music and others have allegedly opted to “engage in knowing, willful, and utterly inexcusable copyright infringement” on streaming platforms, via sync activities, and through physical releases, to name some areas.
ChaudhryLaw-repped Ultra Publishing says it’s “repeatedly demanded in writing” that Sony Music put a stop to the purported piracy – including via an early 2023 letter and then “numerous” follow-ups.
However, SME and its defendant divisions “flatly and unequivocally refuse to do so,” the legal text relays, and the showdown has apparently reached a boiling point.
On top of the alleged infringement itself – which the plaintiffs say extends to multiple works recorded by commercially prominent acts – Ultra Publishing is accusing SME of interfering with songwriter contracts.
“Because the Sony Defendants recognize that they have no licenses for the Ultra Compositions,” the relevant section reads in part, “they wrongfully engaged in direct negotiations with certain songwriters who are published by the Ultra Plaintiffs in an attempt to obtain licenses directly from those songwriters for compositions they wrote.”
Among these songwriters are Flavour, Allie Crystal, Purple Disco Machine, and Rudimental, per the suit, which spells out for good measure that the Ultra Publishing plaintiffs have allegedly suffered damages as a result of the described songwriter negotiations.