Universal Media Group

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Universal Music Group N.V.[3] (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Dutch-American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its operational headquarters are located in Santa Monica, California.[4][5] The biggest music company in the world,[6] it is one of the "Big Three" record labels, along with Sony Music and Warner Music Group. Tencent acquired ten percent of Universal Music Group in March 2020 for €3 billion[7][8][9] and acquired an additional ten percent stake in January 2021.[10] Pershing Square Holdings later acquired ten percent of UMG prior to its IPO on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. The company went public on September 21, 2021.
On February 5, 2019, John Waite and Joe Ely filed a class-action lawsuit against UMG claiming that the company was violating their right to terminate grants of copyright after 35 years in accordance with copyright law of the United States by ignoring Notices of Termination. On May 3, 2019, UMG filed a motion to dismiss the case, stating the Notices of Termination were not valid because the songs were not grants of copyright but works for hire.[175][176] On February 1, 2024, music released by UMG was muted or removed from TikTok after UMG and TikTok failed to reach a licensing agreement.[177] In 2007, with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Stephanie Lenz sued UMG's publishing company for allegedly improperly requesting that, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, UA-cam remove a 29-second home video in which Lenz's child danced to a recording of Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy".[150] After years of litigation, the suit settled in 2018, prior to the court holding a trial on whether UMG had a subjective belief that the video was infringing and not fair to use before sending its request to UA-cam.[151][152][153] In April 2016, UMG had the audio muted of a video clip showing Katherine Jenkins singing the British national anthem. They claimed that the recording of "God Save the Queen" was copyrighted, and UA-cam initially complied with this request, but subsequently offered the video with the original audio track.[154]