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Federal Judge partially tosses Designer Shoe Warehouse's declaratory judgment complaint against Sony Music - wider social media infringement battle rages on. Federal Judge partially tosses Designer Shoe Warehouse's declaratory judgment complaint against Sony Music - wider social media infringement battle rages on dylan smith august 7, 2026. A year and change later, a federal judge has partially dismissed the declaratory judgment complaint filed by Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW) against Sony Music, Universal Music, and BMG. However, the wider copyright infringement battle, complete with multiple intensifying actions, is raging on. Beneath the surface, setting aside the competing cases, all manner of firmly worded filings, a marathon discovery process, and a venue-transfer motion - more on all this in a moment - the claims themselves are straightforward enough. Having spearheaded several similar suits, the rightsholder plaintiffs maintain that DSW (and specifically its Designer Brands parent) infringed a number of recordings and compositions in social media promo videos. And that's because social platforms' pre-cleared song libraries are approved for personal but not commercial use. As such, in the rightsholders' view, Designer Brands unlawfully incorporated their IP into marketing videos and must therefore pay up. Unsurprisingly, the situation isn't sitting right with Designer Brands, which, unlike the defendants in most of the aforementioned similar suits, has been firing back from the outset. In part, this refers to the aggressive assertion that the relevant platforms' own licensing deals also cover business users - and to seeking a declaratory judgment confirming that it didn't actually infringe the copyrights in question. Technically, the Columbus-headquartered company sued the initially highlighted parties after being slapped with a separate complaint from Warner Music. Now, Judge Michael H. Watson has granted Sony Music's motion to partially dismiss the declaratory action. According to the court, "first-to-file rule" aside, "this case is an improper anticipatory declaratory judgment action that should" make way for the major's subsequent case. Why use the singular "major" here? As if there wasn't enough going on in the convoluted dispute, due to "baseless threats" of additional litigation, Designer Brands demanded a declaratory judgment against Sony Music, Universal Music, and BMG alike. However, only Sony Music and a few of its subsidiaries followed Warner Music's lead and sued the Designer Shoe Warehouse owner. As such, it was Sony Music alone that moved to axe the declaratory complaint; though it's off the hook, BMG and Universal Music are still grappling with the suit. "The declaratory judgment claims asserted against the other Defendants" - meaning those aside from Sony Music - "and the counterclaims asserted in response thereto, shall proceed," Judge Watson wrote. Next, a motion to transfer Sony Music v. DSW from California to Ohio is still being considered. "If the Central District of California decides that transfer is warranted, the Court will welcome the return of this litigation between Plaintiffs and the SME Defendants," Judge Watson added. Back to the California case, then, Designer Brands just recently informed the court of the above-described decision - with an emphasis on the latter quote. Finally, in its own action, Warner Music last month confirmed plans to supersize its claims after uncovering "evidence of numerous additional infringements" during discovery. Said supersized claims will all but surely elicit a strong response from the Designer Shoe Warehouse owner. And while a pile of settlements suggests that the cases could be slam dunks for the rightsholders, until earlier in 2026, the same was true of their copyright litigation against ISPs. One unanimous Supreme Court decision later, the secondary infringement landscape looks dramatically different. Of course, this isn't to say that the DSW cases are necessarily on a similar trajectory. But it is to say that there's a clear-cut incentive for settlement-resistant defendants to pull out all the stops when fending off in-depth claims across sweeping suits.

Sony and Universal launch legal action against streaming app Musi in Canada. Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group are taking legal action in Canada against the app Musi, which they claim operates as an unauthorized streaming service by extracting music from YouTube. August 6, 2026 Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group have initiated legal proceedings in Canada against the developers of Musi, a streaming application they accuse of unlawfully sourcing music from YouTube and operating without proper licences. The action, coordinated by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and its Canadian affiliate Music Canada, alleges that Musi makes copyrighted recordings available to the public without authorization and deliberately circumvents YouTube's technical protections. The complaint describes Musi as a parasitic service that replicates the features of legitimate streaming platforms while profiting from unlicensed content through its own advertising and subscription revenue. Although Apple removed the app from its App Store in September 2024 following copyright and terms-of-service complaints from right holders and YouTube, the app remains functional for users who downloaded it before the takedown. Industry calls for platform accountability. The legal move is accompanied by a broader demand from the recorded music sector for app stores to act more swiftly in blocking or removing applications that facilitate unauthorized access to music. IFPI stated that such services undermine a music ecosystem built on licensed innovation. "We are serving notice on parasitic apps, which are designed specifically to exploit artists and their music, and undermine legitimate music services. Musi and similar illegal services have no place in today's music ecosystem which is built on the premise of empowering innovation through licensing." The organization added that the litigation sends a clear signal that services engineered to bypass platform protections and exploit music without permission are not legitimate businesses. It emphasized that coordinated industry action will continue to protect artists and fans from unlawful exploitation, with the goal of ensuring artists are paid when their music is played. Musi's prior legal challenges. Musi previously marketed itself as a startup success story on the reality television series Dragons' Den, though its legitimacy has faced scrutiny. In 2024, the company sued Apple over the App Store removal, but that lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year. Queer ballroom collectives keep gqom alive in johannesburg. Sri lanka pays 20 rupees for a radio spin. Its biggest song made its money in india. August 6, 2026

Companies winning employer branding awards and why. Every year, a fresh batch of trophies gets handed out to companies for having the "best" employer brand. Scroll LinkedIn in awards season and you'll see the same thing on repeat: a leadership team in a conference room, a shiny logo, a caption about being "humbled and honored." What you rarely see is the part that actually matters - what these companies did differently, month after month, to earn that recognition in the first place. That's the part worth digging into, especially if you're the person inside your organization responsible for making the case that culture and employer brand deserve a real budget line. So here's a look at who won employer branding awards in 2026, what the judges were actually looking for, and the patterns that separate a company that wins from one that just applies. Why employer branding awards matter beyond the trophy. It's tempting to write these off as vanity metrics, especially when workplace culture best practices get reduced to a single trophy photo. They're not, and here's the practical reason: candidates check. Before a strong applicant accepts an offer, they're reading reviews, checking who your current employees are talking about you online, and - increasingly - asking an AI assistant to summarize what it's like to work at your company. An independent, credible award is one of the few signals that cuts through that noise, because it wasn't written by your own marketing team. There's a cost side to this too. Companies with a recognized employer brand consistently report shorter hiring cycles and lower cost-per-hire, simply because more of the right people are already coming to them instead of the other way around. An award doesn't create that effect on its own. It's a marker that the underlying work - the surveys, the culture fixes, the follow-through - was already happening. Who actually won in 2026, and what set them apart. Pilmico Foods Corporation (Aboitiz Foods) took home Best Employer Brand at the 2026 LinkedIn Talent Awards in the under-1,000-employee category. What got them there wasn't a single campaign - it was consistency. After a corporate rebrand, the team built "Feed Your Future," a run of employee-led content: real testimonials, day-in-the-life features, and a five-part series called "My Role, My Impact" that showed how ordinary jobs connected to a bigger mission. Their regional employer branding lead framed it simply: the recognition reflected a journey the whole team had built together, not a one-off win. JPMorgan Chase topped LinkedIn's 2026 Top Companies ranking, ahead of Google and Amazon, largely on the back of its investment in AI upskilling and internal mobility. In a year where job security feels shakier than it has in a while, the companies that ranked highest weren't the ones with the flashiest perks - they were the ones visibly investing in where their people would be in three years, not just where they are today. Ford Motor Company, Sony Music Entertainment, Highmark Health, and Credicorp all picked up honors at the 2026 Rally Awards for recruitment marketing and employer branding. The common thread across the winning entries wasn't budget size - several winners were solo practitioners or small teams. It was specificity. Ford's intern social ambassador program worked because it let actual interns tell the story instead of HR doing it for them - the same reason unscripted leadership conversations tend to land better than a polished campaign. Highmark Health's winning entry, built around real employee stories, worked for the same reason. Energage's 2026 USA TODAY Top Workplaces program recognized 1,661 employers this year, all with 150+ employees, all selected using the same method: direct, anonymous employee feedback, not a self-submitted application dressed up to look good. That's a meaningfully different bar than a nomination form. The pattern underneath all of it. Strip away the different judging criteria and logos, and the same three things show up again and again in the companies that win: They let employees do the talking: Every winning campaign above leaned on real employee voices - video, testimonials, day-in-the-life content - instead of polished corporate messaging. Candidates trust a current employee's honest take more than any tagline a marketing team could write. They measured before they marketed: LinkedIn's award criteria track actual engagement data. Energage's process runs on real survey feedback. None of this is guesswork or a gut call from leadership about "how things feel." The companies that win know, with actual data, where their culture is strong and where it isn't - and they act on the second part before broadcasting the first. They treated it as ongoing work, not a campaign: Pilmico's win came from a sustained content effort, not a single flashy push timed to awards season. That's probably the least glamorous finding here, and also the most useful one: there's no shortcut. The companies that keep winning are the ones that never really stopped doing the work between award cycles. What this means if you're building your own Employer Brand. None of this requires a Fortune 500 budget. It requires a genuine read on how your employees actually experience working for you, and the discipline to act on what you find before you try to tell the world about it. That's the order that trips most companies up. It's far more common to see the announcement - a new careers page, a culture video, a LinkedIn banner - go out before anyone has actually asked employees what it's like to work there. Judges and candidates can both tell the difference between a brand built on real listening and one built to look good in a screenshot. A structured employee engagement survey is usually the honest starting point. Not a pulse check with three questions once a year, but something that actually maps engagement, leadership trust, and retention risk across the organization - the same kind of data the award programs above are quietly built on. From there, a credible third-party workplace certification gives you something an internal survey alone can't: outside proof that you're not grading your own homework, the same way certified organizations already use their badge as a hiring signal. FAQ: employer branding awards. What are employer branding awards, exactly? They're recognitions - from platforms like LinkedIn, Rally Recruitment Marketing, and Energage - given to organizations that demonstrate strong employer branding, employee engagement, and workplace culture, usually judged on a mix of engagement data, employee feedback, and campaign execution. Do employer branding awards actually influence hiring? Independent, third-party recognition tends to carry more weight with candidates than self-reported claims, since it's typically backed by employee survey data or verified engagement metrics rather than a company's own marketing copy. Can a small or mid-sized company realistically win one? Yes - several of the 2026 Rally Award winners were small or solo teams. Award programs tend to reward specific, authentic storytelling and measurable engagement over sheer marketing spend. Where should a company start if it wants to build toward this kind of recognition? With an honest employee engagement survey. Most award programs and certifications are built on real employee feedback data, so that's also the most useful starting point for a company trying to strengthen its culture before it tries to market it.