The American Hockey League and nine Policy groups are accused of fraud of music in a federal complaint that is completely off-key, the AHL claims in a recently filed court document.
The AHL responded to a complaint filed by manufacturing music company Associated Production Music ( APM) in September, which has a catalog that includes the well-known theme music for The Women’s Court and The Monday Night Football and The Women’s Court as well as more than 650, 000 different lines. APM accuses the AHL and other groups of using music licensed without APM’s approval or paying for a certificate. The problem cites more than 230 video on team-affiliated Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other social media platforms that supposedly use copyrighted music.
The AHL denies that it violated any copyrights in an answer written by Jeffrey A. Payne and another Jassy Vick Carolan and Miller Korzenik Sommers Rayman. The group admits it didn’t receive APM’s authorization but insists authorization wasn’t required. Additionally, the AHL claims that it “has any right or ability to control any of its]teams ‘] social media pages,” meaning that individual teams manage their accounts there.

In contrast, the response contains more than two hundred racial defenses. APM claims that APM isn’t an exclusive distributor of some of the music in dispute. The group also argues the music, or at least parts of those tunes, are in the public domain.
Fair use—the valid copying of people ‘ works for specific purposes, such as for condemnation, movie or media reporting—is mentioned in the AHL’s response as well. At least some of the social media posts in question had some sort of “news” in them. In sports teams ‘ social media posts, person performance, team activities, ticketing, and other details are frequently contained. However, teams ‘ social media posts are frequently used to promote promotion and pique fan attention, which are purposes that may conflict with a fair use defense.
Additionally, the AHL invokes the de minimis use principle, which under rights law refers to copyright that is so slight or unimportant that it ought not to break the law. Authorities have rendered a number of decisions on the subject, including de minimis for a small example of a song.
Trademark use is another protection for the AHL, which claims that the copyright holder is abusing its authority to extract large sums of money. One of the threats that 14 NBA groups are facing in a lawsuit involving Kobalt Music Publishing America and different businesses that own or have rights in music is patent use.

APM lawyers will have the opportunity to respond to the AHL’s constitutional arguments in court papers. Similar to the one involving NBA teams, this situation may have a significant impact on whether and how professional groups include licensed tracks in their social media posts.