Soundtrack estimates that improper music streaming by US businesses leaves $1.4 billion in royalties unpaid each year. That figure describes a market-wide licensing gap, not a bill an individual label can send. To act on a business use of its catalogue, a rightsholder first needs to identify what the business did with the music and which claim follows from that use.
Start with the use, not the estimate
A business can put music to work in different ways. Soundtrack’s survey concerns improper streaming by businesses, while Sony Music’s lawsuit against Kroger and 17 affiliates alleges unauthorized use of recordings in social media posts. A play through a business music service and a recording placed in a post call for different evidence. One inquiry starts with where music was played and how the service accounted for it. The other starts with the post, the recording it contains and the permission claimed for that use.
That distinction matters when a label reviews a suspected use. A screenshot of a post can identify the account, the recording and the content at issue. It cannot, by itself, establish how music played at a business location was licensed or paid for. Conversely, a service statement may help trace business-service royalties without explaining who authorized a recording in a social post. Treating both as a single pool of “business music” risks sending the right question to the wrong counterparty.
The $1.4 billion estimate can justify looking for gaps in business licensing. It cannot set a catalogue’s recovery target. A label should work from identifiable uses and its own rights records: which recording is involved, who can authorize that use, what permission exists and what payment record should follow. That turns a broad market estimate into a checkable catalogue question.
Keep a payment dispute distinct from a permission dispute
SoundExchange and Music Choice are disputing business-service royalties and have proposed damages discovery followed by settlement talks. Their proposed sequence shows the role of records when a payment amount is contested. The parties would examine information relevant to damages before attempting to settle. A label reviewing its own business-service income should similarly preserve the statements and correspondence that connect a use to an amount paid or disputed.
The Kroger matter sits at a different point in the process. Kroger and 17 affiliates have moved to dismiss Sony Music’s lawsuit over allegedly unauthorized recordings in social media posts. A motion to dismiss challenges the lawsuit; it is not a royalty statement or a finding that a post was licensed. For a label, the immediate task in a comparable situation is to preserve the post and locate the agreement or authorization that covers the recording. Pricing a claim before identifying the permission at issue leaves the central rights question unresolved.
These proceedings also put different numbers in view. Soundtrack’s annual estimate concerns royalties it says businesses leave unpaid across the United States. Damages discovery in the SoundExchange and Music Choice dispute concerns the amount at issue between those parties. A label’s own claim would have to begin with its own catalogue, rights and records. The same word, “royalties,” does not make those amounts interchangeable.
Build a separate file for each path
An independent label can make a business-use review more useful by sorting each lead before assigning a value to it:
- Business playback: Record the business or service involved, the catalogue item, the observed use and any statement or payment record tied to it. The SoundExchange and Music Choice business-service dispute illustrates why the accounting trail matters when the amount is contested.
- Social media use: Save the post, identify the recording and check who granted permission. The Kroger motion in Sony Music’s copyright lawsuit concerns an allegation of unauthorized use, so the authorization record belongs at the front of this file.
- Market estimate: Keep the $1.4 billion annual figure as context for where to look. Do not enter it as expected income for the catalogue.
Choose the next action from the missing record
If the label has evidence of business playback but no clear payment trail, it should trace the service and its royalty records. If it finds a social post containing its recording, it should establish the post’s origin and check the permission record. If it has only a sector-wide estimate, it should identify an actual use before assigning any amount to a claim.
This ordering keeps enforcement tied to what can be shown. A proposed damages phase in the business-service dispute points toward accounting evidence; a dismissal motion in the social-post case puts the claim itself under scrutiny. For an independent catalogue, the practical decision is to open two files when the same business both plays and posts music. Each file needs its own use, rights check and payment question.
