Photo Credit: Vyshnavi Bisani
After a year of litigation and a month of finalizing a settlement, Warner Music and Crumbl have officially put their copyright infringement battle to bed.
Warner Music Group (WMG) and cookie chain Crumbl have finalized the agreement behind their copyright infringement settlement, which was announced last month.
The settlement was initially confirmed in a Utah federal court filing dated May 22, after the lawsuit was first brought about in April 2025. The parties said they expected to resolve the dispute in full on or before June 15, 2026. Now that settlement is complete.
In April 2025, WMG sued the Utah-based cookie chain with allegations that it “achieved its success by infringing Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings and musical compositions on a massive scale in promotional content posted on social media platforms.”
Warner’s complaint claimed that Crumbl had used at least 159 WMG recordings and compositions in promotional videos posted on TikTok and Instagram, where the company has 9.8 million and 6.1 million respective followers. The filing alleged that the works included those recorded or composed by artists and songwriters like Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Beyoncé.
WMG described the videos posted to Crumbl’s social media accounts as being central to the company’s marketing strategy, “frequently [featuring] unauthorized use of Plaintiffs’ sound recordings and musical compositions—usually featuring chart-topping and award-winning artists—as a principal and indispensable element of the Crumbl videos.” These videos typically featured “no speaking or sound other than the music integrated into the video.”
The music company was seeking up to $150,000 in statutory damages per infringed work, which could have amounted to damages of up to $23.85 million had the court granted the maximum penalty for each work cited. WMG also sought a permanent injunction prohibiting Crumbl from further infringement.
The terms of the settlement have not been publicly revealed, but it arrives amid a deluge of copyright infringement cases brought by major music companies like WMG against businesses for the unauthorized use of music in social media posts. Warner alone has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against fashion retailer PacSun and shoe retailer Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW) over the alleged infringement of more than 200 works in TikTok and Instagram posts.
Universal Music Group and Concord sued fashion brand Quince last month over the “rampant and brazen infringement” taking place in TikTok posts. Sony Music Entertainment brought similar cases against DSW, the University of Southern California, and Marriott Hotels.
