Patrick Moxey’s Payday Ends Legal War With Sony Music & Ultra Records

The years-long legal battle between Ultra Records founder Patrick Moxey and Sony Music has finally come to an end.

A lawyer for Moxey’s Payday Music Publishing, Jeffrey Movit, told Billboard on Monday (Dec. 8) that the company and Sony have “have reached a business resolution of all of their disputes.” Payday filed a federal court notice on Friday (Dec. 5) dismissing copyright claims that had been the last remaining front in a multi-year litigation war between Sony and Payday, formerly Ultra Music Publishing.

The fight began with Ultra Records, the lauded dance imprint founded by Moxey in 1995 and sold to Sony in 2022. Sony sued Moxey less than a year later for trademark infringement, claiming he was illegally still using the “Ultra” name for his separate publishing business in violation of the sale terms.

Moxey maintained that he had the right to keep operating Ultra Publishing under its original name. But a New York jury sided with Sony at a trial last December, and Moxey complied with court orders in April by rebranding Ultra Publishing as Payday Publishing. The new name is a nod to Moxey’s hip-hop label, Payday Records.

Meanwhile, Moxey’s publishing company brought a lawsuit of its own against Sony right before the trial began last year. Ultra Publishing (as it was still known at the time) claimed Sony was distributing over 100 unlicensed compositions Ultra Publishing owns in the works of Tems, Kygo and other artists, and it sought millions of dollars in damages.

Sony subsequently slammed Moxey’s copyright lawsuit as a baseless act of “retaliation” for the trademark litigation, arguing that its licensing practices “are both appropriate and entirely consistent with the licensing practices of every other leading record label.”

That second lawsuit was dropped on Friday with prejudice, meaning the dispute is done for good and cannot be reignited later on. In addition to resolving the copyright claims, another court filing the same day said the two sides had settled a separate outstanding issue about trial costs in the trademark matter.

Reps for Sony declined to comment on the settlement.