The American Hockey League has been sued for music copyright infringement

The American Hockey League is now caught up in an alleged copyright infringement case. Sony and APM (a music production company owned by Universal) both say the AHL has engaged in “rampant” copyright infringement with unauthorized use of music in social media posts. They claim that the AHL failed to license any of this music properly.

The league isn’t the first entity to be hit with this lawsuit. Last week, Sony and APM went after Johnson & Johnson, the pharma/home products giant for exactly the same thing. Back in July, the NBA had its own similar problems. And in another case, Marriott Hotels was nicked for the same thing by Sony.

Back to the AHL. Defendants include the companies that run the following teams: Utica Comets, Hershey Bears, Ontario Reign, Syracuse Crunch, Tucson Roadrunners, Colorado Eagles, Cleveland Monsters, Rockford IceHogs, and Belleville Senators. Collectively, they appear to have a social media following of about 3.25 million. Just the one Canadian team–Belleville–is mentioned in the lawsuit.

I quote from the lawsuit: “[The parties] became aware that AHL teams, on team-specific social media channels, had engaged in rampant infringement of the Recordings by exploiting them in connection with numerous promotional postings”.

The lawsuit demands $150,000 in damages per song (the standard amount asked for in these cases) and a trial by jury.