What the Crumbl case is teaching about audio on social
The Warner Music lawsuit against Crumbl Cookies is the most expensive object lesson yet on what 'trending audio' actually costs a brand.
In April 2025, Warner Music Group sued Crumbl Cookies in federal court in Utah, alleging that Crumbl used at least 159 WMG recordings and compositions in TikTok and Instagram videos without licensing them. The complaint seeks up to $150,000 per work in statutory damages, which puts the headline exposure at roughly $24 million. As of early 2026, the case is in discovery, and Crumbl’s motion to limit damages is in front of the court. The “innocent infringement” defense looks weak, in part because one of Crumbl’s own TikToks from January 2024 acknowledged that “legal said we can’t use any trending audios.”
I have been pointing to this case all year because it captures, in one fact pattern, the largest blind spot in business social media practice. The TikTok and Instagram audio libraries that brands use to make videos feel native are not licensed for commercial use. The licenses TikTok and Instagram pay to music publishers cover ordinary user uploads, not posts by businesses promoting products. When a brand account uses a trending audio, the brand is not borrowing from a platform license that covers it. The brand is performing a synchronization use of a copyrighted recording without authorization.
Three things about the Crumbl complaint are worth noticing because they generalize.
The first is the influencer leg of the claim. Warner alleges that Crumbl not only published infringing content from its own accounts but also worked with influencers who received “perks and rewards” in exchange for content promoting Crumbl, and that some of that influencer content was itself infringing. The legal theory is that the brand can be liable for infringement embedded in sponsored content, whether the brand directed the music choice or not. Brands that run influencer programs without specifying allowed music sources are creating a second copyright surface area on top of their own.
The second is the willfulness inflection. WMG sent Crumbl a cease-and-desist letter in August 2023. Crumbl, per the complaint, kept posting infringing content for months afterward. That continued use is what unlocks the higher end of the statutory damages range, because willful infringement under the Copyright Act allows damages up to $150,000 per work instead of the lower default. The Mystery Cookie TikTok admission, which read as a joke at the time, is now the central piece of evidence WMG is using to argue willfulness. Public-facing posts that acknowledge legal advice you then ignored are an unforced error.
The third is the trend. WMG and Universal Music Group have brought similar cases against Bang Energy, Chili’s, Marriott, the University of Southern California, and others. The music industry has decided that brand uploads on TikTok and Instagram are a meaningful enforcement target, and the cases keep being filed. This is not a one-off.
The practical guidance is short. If your company uses TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube Shorts for marketing, audit the audio in every post, not just the recent ones. Move to royalty-free or properly-licensed music libraries (the platforms themselves offer commercial-cleared libraries that are easy to confuse with the general audio search, so the distinction matters). Write influencer agreements that prohibit unlicensed music in sponsored content and put the indemnification where it can actually reach. Respond to cease-and-desist letters the day they arrive, not the next quarter.
The Crumbl case is not interesting because Crumbl did something unusual. It is interesting because Crumbl did exactly what most brands have been doing on social since 2020, and the bill finally came due. The difference between the brands that will see a similar lawsuit and the ones that will not is whether the audit happens before the cease-and-desist or after.