Sony Music Entertainment has asked a court in New York to dismiss a lawsuit filed at the end of 2024 by Patrick Moxey’s independent publisher, Ultra International Music Publishing.
The lawsuit, filed in November on behalf of Ultra International Music Publishing LLC (UIMP) and Ultra Music Publishing Europe AG, accused SME of copyright infringement over Sony and its affiliates’ alleged use of Ultra’s compositions without a license.
A number of Sony‘s subsidiaries, including Ultra Records and AWAL, were named as defendants.
In a legal document filed by Sony Music‘s lawyers on Monday (February 17) in support of the motion to dismiss, the music company called the copyright action “an ill-conceived effort” to “retaliate against” Sony Music “for pursuing claims based on Moxey’s unauthorized use of the ULTRA trademark after SME bought Moxey’s share of Ultra Records from him in 2021.”
Patrick Moxey is the former owner of Ultra Records, which was fully acquired by SME in 2021.
SME already owned 50% of the label, which it acquired from Moxey in 2012, after which he continued to run the label as its President and co-owner. Moxey left Ultra Records in January 2022, but continued to fully own Ultra International Music Publishing.
In December 2022, Moxey’s publishing company was sued by Sony-owned Ultra Records over Moxey’s continued use of the ‘Ultra’ name.
In January 2023, Moxey/UIMP filed a counterclaim against Sony Music’s lawsuit in the court of the Southern District of New York.
Sony Music said in its motion to dismiss this week that, “in an attempt to gain settlement leverage over” Sony in the trademark dispute, Ultra Music Publishing filed its copyright action “on the eve of trial in the trademark lawsuit”.
The motion added that the independent Ultra Music Publishing company tried “to justify that nefarious timing by claiming this lawsuit stems from an audit of the music publishing royalties that SME paid to Plaintiffs”.
Added SME: “Yet, that audit — which involved payments made by SME to Plaintiffs through 2016 — was settled in principle years ago for a small fraction of the amount claimed, and Plaintiffs never pursued those audit claims any further.”
The motion continued: “In November 2024, mere days before the trial in the trademark litigation began, UIMP and its Swiss affiliate commenced this copyright infringement action, using the long-since resolved audit as a pretext.
SME said that it was “Undaunted by Plaintiffs’ pressure tactic” and “tried its trademark claims to a jury, which returned a verdict in December 2024 finding UIMP liable for trademark dilution and breach of contract, and finding that UIMP had acted in bad faith”. The motion noted that “a final judgment in that case is pending”.
You can read Sony Music’s motion to dismiss in full here.
The independent Ultra publishing companies own and exploit the copyrights in over 50,000 compositions, which have been recorded by superstar artists ranging from Ed Sheeran and Madonna to Rihanna, Katy Perry, Migos, and many others. Ultra songwriters have been nominated for over 100 Grammy Awards and have won multiple Grammy Awards.
The original complaint, which you can read here, alleged that Sony Music and its subsidiaries were infringing UIMP compositions by “upload[ing] unlicensed sound recordings” of the compositions to streaming services and selling “the infringing Sony Recordings as digital downloads and in physical configurations (such as vinyl records)” as well a “wrongfully” syncing them in music videos and ‘lyric videos.”
The lawsuit claimed that “although the Ultra Plaintiffs have repeatedly demanded in writing that the Sony Defendants cease and desist from their infringing activities, the Sony Defendants flatly and unequivocally refuse to do so.”
This week, in the memorandum supporting the motion to dismiss, SME’s lawyers argued that the major music company’s “licensing practices are both appropriate and entirely consistent with the licensing practices of every other leading record label that releases new sound recordings, including record labels that Moxey himself controlled in the past and currently owns.”
“This action was not brought as Plaintiffs claim in their Complaint to ‘protect [their] songwriters’, but to exact revenge and exert settlement pressure on Defendants.”
Sony Music, in Motion to dismiss
They added: “Moreover, Plaintiffs’ own songwriters and producers continue to write songs and collaborate with SME artists with the intention and expectation that the resulting sound recordings incorporating the underlying musical compositions will be commercially released — underscoring the obvious question of whether Plaintiffs’ attempted boycott of SME is in their songwriters’ best interest.
“This action was not brought as Plaintiffs claim in their Complaint to ‘protect [their] songwriters’, but to exact revenge and exert settlement pressure on Defendants.”
Lawyers for Sony Music also claimed in the motion to dismiss this week that the independent Ultra Music Publishing’s “improper motivation in filing this action is underscored by the slapdash manner in which they prepared their Complaint”.
They continue “Plaintiffs do not allege any facts to support their copyright infringement claims, instead resorting to boilerplate language that merely recites the legal elements of those claims.
“Although Plaintiffs purport to assert infringement of “over 50,000” music works and they submit a “non-exhaustive” list of 100 of those works, they fail to allege (i) the identities of the vast majority of those works, (ii) which of the Plaintiffs controls each of those works, (iii) which of the sixteen defendants Plaintiffs chose to sue are responsible for infringements of the vast majority of those works, (iv) what actions any such defendant took to infringe, (v) when those alleged infringements occurred, or (vi) whether those alleged infringements even occurred in the United States such that they may be adjudicated here.”
Meanwhile, addressing what they call the “purportedly infringing conduct” by Sony Music alleged in the Ultra complaint, the company’s lawyers argued that “plaintiffs offer only generalized assertions as to the ‘creation of unauthorized works,’ without providing any concrete facts supporting those assertions”.
They added: “These failures make it impossible for Defendants to discern the claims that are being brought against them, and mandates the dismissal of Plaintiffs’ copyright infringement claims.
“Plaintiffs’ vague allegations also necessitate the dismissal of their vicarious infringement claim against SME. All Plaintiffs allege is that SME ‘profits from, and has the right and ability to control, the infringing activities of the other Defendants’, which merely recites the legal elements of a vicarious infringement claim, and is insufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.
“The unsupported allegation that the other defendants are SME’s ‘subsidiaries’ or ‘affiliates’ does not plead SME’s requisite control and direct financial gain from the alleged infringements by those other entities, as it is well settled that a parent/subsidiary relationship, without more, does not support a vicarious infringement claim. Furthermore, the Complaint seemingly asserts that SME should be both directly and vicariously liable for the same alleged infringements, which is a legal impossibility.”
The Court was asked to dismiss all claims asserted against Sony Music and its subsidiaries, including Ultra Records, “with prejudice”.
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