The musician behind the viral TikTok song “Cheese Tax” is suing Kroger and LG Electronics for allegedly featuring the dog-themed meme track in social media posts without paying for synch licenses.
A pair of copyright infringement lawsuits, obtained and first reported by Billboard, were filed on Monday (Oct. 19) by Matthew Hobbs, who posts original music about dogs to more than 800,000 followers on his TikTok page Puppy Songs. One of his best-known tracks is “Cheese Tax,” which went viral in March 2023 and has been featured in tens of thousands of TikTok user videos.
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Under TikTok’s terms of service, individual accounts are free to soundtrack their personal posts at no cost with sounds from the in-app library, which includes both trending audio clips like “Cheese Tax” and music that’s been pre-cleared by labels and publishers. Commercial accounts run by brands, however, are limited to a narrower commercial music library unless they purchase synch licenses directly from music rightsholders.
Hobbs says his music has never been in the TikTok commercial library, and that he’s done synch deals in the past with brands like BarkBox, Purina, Petco and DoorDash. But according to Monday’s lawsuit, Kroger and LG both allegedly included “Cheese Tax” in TikTok videos without buying licenses.
The lawsuit claims that in March 2023, when the song was “rapidly gaining viral popularity on TikTok,” Kroger sought to “capitalize on that popularity” by playing it in a social media advertisement for the nationwide supermarket chain. The same month, LG allegedly used “Cheese Tax” as the soundtrack for a video of a dog next to an open refrigerator sold by the brand.
Kroger and LG both took down the videos this past April after Hobbs’ lawyers sent legal demands. However, Hobbs says he still hasn’t been compensated. He’s now seeking financial damages from both companies for copyright infringement, as well as from LG for unauthorized removal of copyright management information.
“Prior to its removal, the video remained publicly available on Defendant’s commercial TikTok page for more than three years, during which time Defendant publicly displayed and performed the works for its commercial benefit without any license or authorization from Plaintiff,” reads Hobbs’ lawsuit against Kroger. “Each day the Video remained publicly available on Defendant’s commercial TikTok page constituted a separate act of infringement.”
A rep for LG declined to comment on the lawsuit. Reps for Kroger did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday (Oct. 20).
It’s become common in the last few years for music rightsholders to bring legal claims over unlicensed music usage on corporate social media accounts. While many of these matters settle privately, brands like Chili’s, Marriott, Crumbl and EssilorLuxottica have all ended up in litigation over the issue.
This is the second time in two months that Kroger has faced such a lawsuit. Sony Music sued the grocery giant in August over unauthorized TikTok and Instagram posts featuring songs by Harry Styles, Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus and SZA.