More than three years later, Universal Music Group (UMG) and the company behind Republic – the investment platform, not the label – have officially put their legal battle to rest.
The involved parties just recently informed the court that they’d hammered out a settlement in their years-old trademark dispute. As we covered back in November 2021 – when, among other things, non-fungible tokens were still attracting ample investments – a company called OpenDeal operates as Republic.
By its own description, the latter “is a financial technology firm specializing in private market investment services.” And those services, designed to connect startups with individual backers, expanded in October 2021 to also include music NFTs.
Republic declared as much in a formal release touting initial projects from Lil Pump and KSHMR. While it perhaps goes without saying in light of the action, the music expansion didn’t sit right with the Republic Records parent UMG, which promptly called on the platform to “operate its new music-related services under a non-REPUBLIC name,” per legal docs.
Republic/OpenDeal was evidently uninterested in doing so – and willing to spend multiple years defending its position. Several twists and turns later, however, a December 11th, 2024, in-person settlement conference saw UMG and OpenDeal reach a resolution.
Acting on the development, the presiding judge then dismissed the case without costs and without prejudice, indicating that the suit could be reopened within 60 days “if the settlement is not consummated.”
It’s unclear exactly what this settlement encompasses; the terms thereof don’t appear to have been publicly revealed. Focusing on what we do know, Republic’s music-investments page was still live at the time of writing, albeit at a slightly different web address than in October 2021.
(Separately, sometime following the UMG suit’s filing, the main Republic website traded its .co top-level domain for the .com option.)
Despite the Republic trademark showdown’s seeming end, Universal Music remains embroiled in a variety of different suits – including two interesting, relatively new actions. The first was filed by Limp Bizkit and others against the major in October over an alleged failure to pay millions in due royalties. A dismissal-minded UMG fired back in late November, criticizing the $200 million complaint as “fiction.”
Universal Music itself levied the second of the noteworthy actions last month against TuneCore and its Believe parent. The defendant companies, UMG claimed in more words, had committed “rampant piracy” and copyright infringement by distributing and collecting royalties on unauthorized altered versions of various protected recordings.