TikTok, Instagram & YouTube's Dirty Secret: Platform Libraries Don't Equal Commercial Rights Social media platforms have built their success on user-generated content, and music has become the soundtrack fueling that content.

Beyond the Platform Library: Why Your Brand's Social Media Music Use Might Be Illegal On the surface, social media platforms have made using music incredibly simple.

The $30,000 Mistake: How Unlicensed Music Use on Social Media Became a Copyright Infringement Legal Minefield When Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW) uploaded promotional content to TikTok featuring Becky G's "Shower" on the Fourth of July, the marketing team probably thought they'd crafted the perfect summer campaign.

LinkedIn, Pinterest & the Forgotten Platforms: Commercial Music Use Beyond TikTok The music copyright conversation in 2025 has become dominated by TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube—the platforms where short-form video and trending audio drive engagement.

Facebook Reels and Rights: The Copyright Crisis in Meta's Empire Meta's empire spans Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, connecting billions of users through interconnected platforms that promise seamless content sharing.

TikTok's 2025 Commercial Music Library: What Brands Still Get Wrong On July 25, 2025, TikTok implemented sweeping changes to its Music Terms of Service that fundamentally reshaped how brands can use audio on the platform[1][4].

Instagram Business Accounts and Copyright: The Licensing Gap Nobody Talks About Instagram's approach to music licensing creates a peculiar paradox: the platform offers brands access to thousands of popular songs through its in-app music picker, yet using those same tracks for commercial purposes can expose companies to copyright infringement lawsuits.

Copyright Lasts a Lifetime and Beyond Copyright outlives most of us. In the United States, it usually lasts for the author’s life plus 70 years. That is a huge span of time.

Your dress sketch goes viral on TikTok. Orders spike. Then, within weeks, your pattern shows up on big-box racks and knockoff sites. Sales drop. Critics say “trends move fast,” but you know what happened.

The VARA lawsuit SRipLaw filed in federal court against country music star Upchurch has caught the attention of the music, art and legal worlds. News reports have caught the key points of the Visual Artists Rights Act, while social media have picked up the conversation.

TMZ, Pitchfork, BET and others quickly report on SRipLaw copyright infringement filing  'KIDS SEE GHOSTS' USED MY VOICE...Where's My Cut, Bros?  Kanye West, Kid Cudi & Ty Dolla $ign Sued Over "Kids See Ghosts" Sample  Kanye West's hit collab with Ty Dolla $ign and Kid Cudi left out another featured artist ...

Kevin Liles, a photographer in Atlanta, is suing Brian Kemp’s campaign and the Georgia Republican Party for their use of images Liles took of Stacey Abrams. 

Ring in the new year and ring in the public domain! Click here.  After a twenty year hiatus, tomorrow will finally see the 95 year long copyrights of works released in 1923 expire.

The American Bar Association Journal Magazine reports on our appeal in the case of Pohl v. Officecite here.

As a photographer, you know that it takes a lot of work to take that perfect picture.  For some of you photography is a way of living, your daily job, and the means for paying your bills.  

The Wall Street Journal just published an article entitled Fake Goods on Alibaba Hurt U.S. Small Businesses: Despite Jack Ma’s pledge to champion U.S. small firms, many struggle to get counterfeits removed from Taobao, which landed back on U.S.

VHT, the real estate photo giant, filed suit for copyright infringement against Zillow Group in July 2015 alleging that Zillow had been stealing tens of thousands of VHT’s photos and illegally using them for its own profit and gain on the Zillow Digs website.

If you find it on the internet than it must be free.  How wrong is that! It's about time that photographers get the respect they deserve and their photographs receive the value that they deserve.

Our firm represents many real estate and architectural photographers. Our experience suggests that the unique challenges facing real estate photographers are not currently being addressed by the different photography associations.  

On February 5, 2014, Iran Watson brought a claim against Kappa Map Group, LLC in federal court for copyright infringement for the unlicensed use of one of Watson’s photographs on the cover of an Atlanta Street Atlas published by Kappa.