Copyright disputes move from courtrooms to ice rinks, guitar shops and AI legal tools

Some of the most watched music on YouTube and YouTube Music vanished on a Saturday in late September 2024. Adele, Kendrick Lamar, Britney Spears, Green Day, Kanye West and Burna Boy tracks were replaced by a short message: "This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country." The Verge reported the blackout on 29 September 2024.

SESAC stands for the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers. It has existed since 1930 and licenses public performance of more than 1.5 million songs for 15,000-plus affiliated songwriters, composers and publishers, according to its own website. It is smaller than BMI and ASCAP but represents big names, and private equity firm Blackstone acquired it in 2017. YouTube spokesperson Mariana de Felice told The Verge the company had held "good faith negotiations" and could not reach an equitable agreement before expiration. A deal was announced the following Monday, with music to be restored "over the next day or two." Variety, citing an unnamed source, suggested the timing might have been a negotiating tactic, since the previous deal did not expire until the following week.

An Olympic routine saved by a social media push

Copyright clearance is not only a platform problem. Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté, a six-time national champion, learned late last week that the Minions-themed short program he had skated all season would not be cleared for the Milano Cortina Winter Games, The Guardian reported on 3 February 2026.

He had submitted the music through the International Skating Union's recommended rights-clearance process months earlier and had competed without issue, including at the European championships in Sheffield. On Tuesday, he thanked fans after Universal gave permission for the routine. "Because of you Universal Studios reconsidered and officially granted the rights for this one special occasion," he wrote on Instagram, adding that a couple of things still needed to be tied up for the other two pieces of music.

The ISU's director-general, Colin Smith, described the underlying problem to The Guardian as structural. "The music industry has no common clearance platform," he said. "There are multiple buckets of rights, and within those buckets the clearance process isn't done on a single platform." Smith said the ISU was working with the IOC and the music industry on a "multi-pronged approach."

The stakes can be financial. Canadian ice dancers Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac lost two Prince songs planned for their Olympic rhythm dance. Canadian pairs skaters Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps dropped a Phil Collins cover after a licensing quote in the tens of thousands of dollars. At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, American pairs champions Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier were sued over a cover of House of the Rising Sun, a case later settled privately for an undisclosed sum understood by The Guardian to be around $1.4m.

Guitars, glass domes and legal databases

Design disputes follow the same pattern of borrowing and denial. Canadian glass artist Victoria Balva wrote in January 2025 that a stained and leaded glass skylight rendered for Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters resembled her domes and ceilings. Nikken, the Japanese architecture and interior design firm on the project, conducted an internal investigation and accepted that an employee had looked at her designs, she said. A new proposed design was eventually produced, which she confirmed no longer looked similar to her work, though she said it still contained a couple of minor elements. The case had not been fully resolved at the time of writing, and she said four months of her professional life were taken away.

In the guitar market, German retailer Thomann is suing Fender over a wave of cease-and-desist letters tied to the Stratocaster body shape, Guitar World reported on 22 June 2026. Thomann's own Harley Benton brand received one. The retailer argues the Stratocaster is not a copyrightable work of art, pointing to a Dusseldorf court ruling, and says it is acting for smaller brands without the means to litigate. "Many of those affected do not have the financial and legal means to conduct such a legal dispute," CEO Hans Thomann said.

AI has added a new front. The Canadian Legal Information Institute sued Vancouver-based Caseway AI in November 2024 in the British Columbia Supreme Court, alleging a bulk and systemic download of its legal database. BetaKit reported on 26 March 2026 that the two sides had settled, with confidential terms and a joint statement that each would move forward independently. Caseway called it a shift away from slowing technological progress through litigation.

At the Court of Justice of the European Union, meanwhile, the Dutch Supreme Court has referred three questions about geo-blocking and VPN use in a dispute over the Anne Frank manuscripts, TorrentFreak reported 25 September 2024. The Anne Frank Fonds argues that VPN circumvention undermines blocking; the defendants say state-of-the-art geo-blocking plus a user declaration is enough. The answers could affect every service that relies on geographical licences.