Something has landed — an email from a rights holder, a letter from a firm you have not heard of, or a claim inside the platform itself. Before anything else: a notice is not a judgment, and in most cases it is not yet a lawsuit. It is a claim that someone believes they own music you used. What you do in the first few days affects the position more than the notice itself does.
This is general information, not legal advice. If a demand names a sum or a deadline, it belongs with a lawyer.
Three different things get called a “notice”
They arrive through different channels and they do not carry the same weight. Working out which one you have is the first step, because the sensible response to each is different.
| What arrived | What it actually is | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| A platform claim Content ID, a muted video, a blocked Reel |
An automated match inside the platform’s own system. A private arrangement between you and the platform. | Lowest. No court is involved and no damages are being sought. |
| A takedown notice Usually branded DMCA |
A formal request to the platform to remove content. You are copied; the platform is the recipient. | Moderate. Creates a record, and repeat notices carry account consequences. |
| A demand letter From a law firm, naming a figure |
A pre-action claim. Someone has decided the exposure is worth pursuing directly. | Highest. Treat as the opening move in litigation. |
We have written separately on why a platform claim is not a legal claim. The short version: clearing a Content ID claim resolves your relationship with the platform and does nothing whatsoever about the underlying rights.
The first 48 hours
- Preserve everything. Screenshot the post, the notice and the metadata. Record the post URL, the publication date and the track named. Do this before you touch the content.
- Do not delete the post. See below — this is the single most common and most damaging reaction.
- Do not reply admitting anything. An apology sent to be helpful reads later as an admission that the use was unlicensed and that you knew.
- Find out what else is exposed. A notice almost never concerns your only unlicensed track. Establish the size of the problem before you negotiate any part of it.
- Get the notice to counsel if it names a sum, sets a deadline, or comes from a law firm.
Deleting the post does not undo the infringement
The use already happened. Deletion removes your own best evidence of what was posted, when, and for how long, while the claimant almost certainly captured it before writing to you. It can also be characterized as destroying evidence once a claim is on foot — which converts a licensing problem into a conduct problem.
Why the amounts look disproportionate
Statutory damages in the US run to a maximum of $150,000 per work for willful infringement, and the ceiling applies per work, not per post. A single campaign that reused one unlicensed track across forty posts is still one work; forty different tracks is forty works. That multiplication is what turns a handful of Reels into a demand denominated in millions.
“Willful” is doing a great deal of work in that sentence, and it is why the instinct to reply quickly and apologetically is so costly. Continuing to use a track after being told about it is close to the cleanest evidence of willfulness a claimant could ask for.
What makes the position materially worse
- Continuing to post the same track while the notice is open.
- Deleting selectively — removing the flagged post and leaving thirty others using the same track.
- Assuming the platform library covered you. Business accounts and personal accounts do not see the same catalog on any major platform, and a track that appears in the app is not the same as a track licensed to your brand.
- Assuming your agency handled it. The exposure generally sits with the account that published, not the party that chose the track.
- Treating influencer content as somebody else’s problem. Rights holders have repeatedly pursued the brand that benefited commercially rather than the creator who posted.
What counsel will ask you for
Whoever advises you will want the same things, and assembling them before the first conversation saves both time and fees:
- Every post using the named track, with URLs and publication dates.
- Which account published each one, including regional and sub-brand handles.
- Where the audio came from — in-app library, a licensed catalog, or supplied by an agency or creator.
- Any license documentation you hold, and the date it was issued.
- Whether the same track appears in paid creator content.
Most brands cannot answer the first item quickly, which is the real reason a notice becomes expensive. If you are at that point now, our page for brands that have received a notice sets out what a response looks like, and an audit produces the register above as its output.
The uncomfortable general rule
A notice is usually a sampling problem, not an isolated event. Someone ran a match against your public content and told you about one result. The useful question is not “how do we make this go away” but “what else would the same search find” — and that question is answerable in days, before anyone has to negotiate anything.
