For food and beverage brands
The taste test went viral. The song wasn't licensed.
Taste tests, recipe videos, unboxings and energy drink hype clips all lean on popular music. We check your posts, creator videos and ads, and tell you exactly what to fix. Know every post is safe before your boss or a record label asks.
✓ No logins, just your handles✓ Results in 5 business days✓ Every flag confirmed by a person
Food and drink was where the big ruling happened
If there's one case food and beverage marketers should know, it's Sony Music against Bang Energy. Bang built its brand on fitness and lifestyle influencers posting videos with popular songs. Sony alleged hundreds of videos used its recordings without a license, and in 2022 the court sided with Sony on key liability issues, including holding the brand responsible for videos made by its paid influencers. Warner brought its own case against Bang as well.
Since then, more food and drink names have been added to the list. Warner sued Crumbl in 2025 over promotional videos on its TikTok and Instagram accounts; the case later settled in principle. Sony sued Kroger in 2026 over hundreds of alleged uses, including posts by influencers Kroger paid. These are claims, not findings, but they show where labels are looking.
Food content is a natural target. Taste tests, recipe videos, unboxings, "rating every flavor" and energy-drink hype clips are some of the most music-heavy content on social, and they're often made by creators rather than the brand.
Where the risk usually hides
- Creator taste tests and reviews you paid for or sent product for.
- Affiliate videos selling your snacks, drinks or supplements on TikTok Shop.
- Recipe and partnership content with chefs, food creators or other brands.
- Boosted posts, where a creator's organic video becomes your paid ad.
- Store and sampling footage with a recognizable song playing in the background.
A product launch, step by step
A beverage brand launches a new flavor. It ships product to 300 creators and pays 20 for dedicated videos. The brand account posts a countdown series, each edited to a trending song. Fifty creators post taste tests, most with the sound of the week. The marketing team reposts the funniest ten and boosts five. A grocery partner films a sampling event and the brand shares it, store playlist and all.
That is a completely normal launch. It's also a launch with dozens of commercial uses of songs nobody licensed, several of them paid. The brand only finds out when a letter arrives, and by then the posts may be months old and deleting them doesn't make the claim go away.
What we check
Send us your TikTok and Instagram handles. We find your posts, the creator and affiliate videos about your products and the ads running in your name. For each video we identify the real song, including songs hidden under a label like "original sound", and whether your use is likely covered. We also check that creator videos you're running are still inside the usage rights you agreed.
Every video comes back green (OK to run), yellow (check soon) or red (fix now), with a specific fix. A trained reviewer confirms every flag before you see it.
Restaurants, snacks and drinks are not the same risk
Inside food and beverage, the risk looks different depending on how you sell. Packaged snack and drink brands usually carry the most creator and affiliate content, so the exposure sits in taste tests and boosted creator videos. Brands sold through grocery and retail partners pick up risk when they reshare partner content and in-store footage. Brands with a big fitness or lifestyle angle, like energy drinks and protein snacks, look a lot like Bang Energy: lots of influencers, lots of hype tracks.
The check is the same in each case, but the fix list looks different. A snack brand might need to pause a handful of boosted creator ads. A drinks brand with an ambassador program might need to re-brief fifty creators and clean up a year of reposts. Knowing which one you are is the first useful result.
If you also run restaurants or franchise locations, those accounts carry their own risk: dozens of local pages posting to trending sounds. That's covered on our page for restaurants and franchises.
Three habits that prevent most of it
First, edit brand content with cleared music: the Commercial Music Library, a licensed library you pay for, or original audio. Second, put a music line in creator briefs, because creators will default to the trending song unless you tell them otherwise. Third, check creator videos before you repost or boost them.
For everything already posted, start with a check of the last 90 days. It begins at $500 and is free if there's nothing to fix. If you've run creator taste tests with trending songs, you'll want to know what's in there before someone else counts it.
Check your food and drink content
Common questions
Which food and drink brands have been sued over music?
Bang Energy (Sony and Warner), Crumbl (Warner) and Kroger (Sony, 2026) are among the best known. The claims cover brand videos and, in several cases, influencer content. They're allegations unless a court has ruled.
Are recipe and cooking videos safer?
Only if the music is cleared. A recipe video featuring your product is marketing, and the background track needs a commercial license or a cleared source.
Can we use a song if the creator already had permission to post it?
A creator's ability to post a song on their personal account doesn't extend to your brand's ads. The license that covers their personal video doesn't cover your marketing.
What about retail and grocery partners posting our product?
Their posts are their responsibility, but if you repost or boost them, you take on the music in them. Check before you share.
Is this legal advice?
No. We tell you what's in your content and how to fix it. For a specific claim, talk to a lawyer.
Related
General information, not legal advice. Platform rules and licenses change; check the current terms or ask your lawyer about your situation. Lawsuit figures are as reported and represent claims, not findings, unless noted.