Patrick Moxey’s independent music publishing company has filed an amended copyright lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment and a number of its subsidiaries, including Ultra Records and AWAL.
The original lawsuit, filed in New York in November on behalf of Ultra International Music Publishing LLC (UIMP) and Ultra Music Publishing Europe AG, centered on allegations of copyright infringement over Sony and its affiliates’ alleged use of Moxey’s company’s compositions without a license.
Last month, Sony Music Entertainment asked a court in New York to dismiss the lawsuit, calling the copyright action “an ill-conceived effort” to “retaliate against” Sony Music for taking legal action over “Moxey’s unauthorized use of the ULTRA trademark after SME bought Moxey’s share of Ultra Records from him in 2021.”
SME already owned 50% of the Ultra Records label, which it acquired from Moxey in 2012. After that, 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.
Moxey’s publishing company (UIMP) was sued by Sony-owned Ultra Records in December 2022 over Moxey’s continued use of the ‘Ultra’ name.
In December 2024, a jury found that Moxey’s music publishing company had breached the trademark. A couple of weeks ago, in February, a US federal court gave Moxey’s independent publishing company (UIMP) 180 days (approximately six months) to change its name to something other than “Ultra.”
In an order issued on February 25, Judge Arun Subramanian gave the company the right to refer to itself as “formerly known as Ultra International Music Publishing” on social media for 18 months following the order. The judge’s order can be read in full here.
In an amendment to Ultra Music Publishing’s copyright complaint against Sony Music, Moxey’s publishing company hits out at the argument made in Sony’s motion to dismiss last month that the lawsuit was filed against SME in retaliation for Sony Music’s legal action over the Ultra trademark.
In the amended complaint, filed on Monday (March 10) obtained by MBW, Moxey’s publishing company claims that Sony Music “has misrepresented this lawsuit as a hasty ‘revenge’ tactic that purportedly was filed by Plaintiffs in response to a trademark dispute between the parties”.
“One of the fundamental roles of a music publisher is to protect and defend the work and the rights of the songwriters we represent. This lawsuit demonstrates our ongoing commitment to these principles.”
Patrick Moxey
The preliminary statement of the 21-page document, which you can read in full here, continues: “This is a copyright lawsuit that does not involve trademarks or any sort of ‘revenge’.”
It adds: “It was filed to protect Plaintiffs’ songwriters and copyrights. This lawsuit is the inevitable result of Sony Music’s unabated, massive, ongoing, and willful infringements of Plaintiffs’ copyrights for more than two years.”
It is also claimed within the preliminary statement of the amended filing that the allegations in the complaint “are substantiated by a voluminous evidentiary record of Sony Music’s unlawful acts which Plaintiffs have carefully and meticulously collected”.
Filed along with the amended complaint is a document titled Exhibit A, listing 101 compositions the publishing company alleges, have been infringed by Sony Music.
In the original complaint, Moxey’s publishing company accused Sony Music of “underpayment and non-payment of royalties” to the publisher and its songwriters. The publishing company said it had “been engaged in an audit of Sony Music Entertainment and its affiliates” for a number of years.
The complaint also claimed that Sony “admitted the audit uncovered credit errors and miscalculations of payments”, but that Sony “wrongfully refused to pay the Ultra Plaintiffs and their songwriters the monies that the Audit revealed they are owed”.
Sony Music argued in its motion to dismiss last month that the copyright lawsuit was filed “on the eve of trial in the trademark lawsuit” by Moxey’s company “in an attempt to gain settlement leverage over” Sony in the trademark dispute.
The motion added that Moxey’s 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.”
In its new amended complaint, Ultra International Music Publishing claims that it “informed” Sony Music on January 19, 2023, “that they will not grant licenses to Sony Music on a going-forward basis until the audit issues are resolved” and that “thereafter, the Ultra Plaintiffs repeatedly asked Sony Music, in multiple letters, over the course of two years, to stop infringing their copyrights”.
UIMP claims that “Sony Music rebuffed these clear and unequivocal requests” and that the music company “continued — and to this date continues — to exploit unlicensed recordings that infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights”.
The complaint claims: “For many months, the Ultra Plaintiffs have repeatedly requested that Sony Music provide them with any licenses that Sony Music claims to have for the infringing works at issue in this case.
“If any licenses existed, it would be easy for Sony to provide them. However, Sony Music has failed to provide any license whatsoever for any of the one-hundred-plus works at issue in this lawsuit.”
MBW has contacted Sony Music for comment and will update this story if and when we receive a statement on the record.
Patrick Moxey issued the following statement in response to a request for comment: “One of the fundamental roles of a music publisher is to protect and defend the work and the rights of the songwriters we represent. This lawsuit demonstrates our ongoing commitment to these principles.”Music Business Worldwide
