The Hidden IP Time Bomb Sitting in Your Marketing Stack

Your agency is producing the content. Your influencers are growing your brand. Both just used unlicensed music. But, your brand is the one going to court, and no indemnity clause is stopping that.

In May 2024, Sony Music filed suit against Marriott International over 931 unlicensed tracks. The infringing content was not produced at Marriott HQ. It was posted by hotels owned, managed and franchised by the brand, plus a smaller volume of paid influencer content. Marriott carried the liability anyway. Statutory exposure approached $140 million. The case settled within months. Reports since suggest Marriott is now attempting to recover those costs from its franchisees via the very indemnity clauses brands are told to trust.

Sony then went after DSW for $150,000 per track over influencer-led TikTok and Instagram posts. Music publishers filed against fourteen NBA teams over unlicensed music in social highlights. Settlements ran into the hundreds of millions. Different brand, same problem. The entity that benefits commercially from the content is the entity that pays for it, and copyright is a strict liability offence, so good faith is no defence.

Our new cheatsheet breaks down the four myths most marketing and legal teams still believe, the recent cases rewriting the enforcement playbook, and why around half of your licensed assets are probably invisible to your rights workflows right now.