Claiming that the eyewear company has used hundreds of its works in social media advertisements without paying for the rights, Warner Music Group (WMG) has launched a lawsuit against Ray-Ban‘s parent company.
According to Billboard, the complaint accuses Italian eyewear conglomerate EssilorLuxottica of infringing on 427 copyrights owned by WMG. Totaling $64,000,000.00, the music company is seeking the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per work.
The Warner Music Group alleges that EssilorLuxottica, which owns Ray-Ban, Oakley and Sunglasses Hut, has consistently used unlicensed music in ads to its more than 36,000,000 followers across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, featured recordings by such artists as Dua Lipa, Drake, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Travis Scott.
According to the lawsuit, the advertisements have been “wildly successful” in selling sunglasses and have earned the company billions of dollars.
“Defendants used the Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works to build their brand profiles and drive sales without paying any compensation to Plaintiffs.” “Defendants not only failed to pay for the use of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, but by including these works in the Luxottica videos without Plaintiffs’ consent, Defendants deprived Plaintiffs and their artists and songwriters of the ability to control how and where their art is used,” reads the lawsuit.
Not the first such instance, in recent years, music companies have launched a large-scale legal crackdown on the use of unlicensed tracks by brands on social media, and while platforms like Instagram and TikTok have blanket licenses in place that allow individual users to soundtrack their videos, commercial accounts are required to purchase a ‘sync license’.
Brands including Chili’s, Marriott, and Designer Shoe Warehouse have settled legal cases over this issue.
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Author: Al Dente
Photo: Uploaded to Commons by Xeworlebi, self created – Public Domain