TikTok is Becoming a Legal Battleground

Dance trends aren’t the only thing shaking up this app.

There are some industries that seem a little too trigger-happy with enacting copyright infringement lawsuits, and the music industry is definitely one of them. So it seems only natural, that TikTok, an app built on creating social media content off of clips of copyrighted sounds, sooner or later got companies sent into the court system.

Here are some of the latest examples of TikTok related litigation:

Sony v. Bang Energy

Just this past week, Sony Music sued Bang Energy for willful copyright infringement. In order to reach the younger generation, many companies have begun to market on TikTok by participating in the apps latest trends.

Unfortunately, while Music brands may not mind 16-year-olds dancing to copyrighted sound bytes, they definitely do have problems with other companies using those same sounds to profit off of. Sony Music grouped together more than 200 of Bang Energy’s TikTok videos, accusing them of infringing on their corporate rights.

The Sony lawsuit also claims that when Bang Energy uses TikTok sounds for marketing, they do “irreparable harm” to Sony and its artists. While other energy drink sellers like Monster Energy, license Sony music for marketing, Bang does…