Photo Credit: Patrick Moxey, Founder and CEO, Payday Music Publishing
One hard-fought legal battle later, Sony Music and Patrick Moxey’s Payday Music Publishing (formerly Ultra International Music Publishing) have put their marathon dispute to rest.
Both parties made that resolution official in a dismissal notice yesterday, about eight months removed from Ultra Publishing’s Payday rebranding. As we reported, the name change followed Sony Music’s purchase of Ultra Records – but not the namesake publishing company.
Having scooped up 50% of the label in 2012 before buying the other 50% in 2022, Sony Music in a complaint accused Moxey of seeking “to perpetuate the falsehood that he remains involved with Ultra Records by wrongfully continuing to use” the central trademark in the publishing world.
It doesn’t really need saying in light of the newly inked settlement, but Moxey disagreed with the assessment. The case went to trial in late 2024, with the jury ultimately siding with Sony Music but opting against awarding damages.
That development set the stage for Ultra Publishing’s rebranding as Payday – a pivot that evidently laid the groundwork for the litigants to iron out a few adjacent hang-ups.
In the main trademark suit, these hang-ups included a more than $10,500 “taxation of costs” entered against Ultra/Payday in May 2025. Now, on the heels of “settlement discussions concerning the” taxation, both sides just recently confirmed they’d “amicably resolved” the matter and “discharged” the bill.
Meanwhile, as we broke down, Ultra Publishing last year fired off a copyright complaint against the major over its alleged “knowing, willful, and utterly inexcusable copyright infringement.” Technically, the suit has been stayed since May – or not long after Ultra Publishing became Payday.
But in a joint notice yesterday, picking up where a deficient dismissal notice had left off late last week, Ultra/Payday finalized the resolution by dismissing all its claims “with prejudice and without costs or attorneys’ fees to any party.”
Unsurprisingly, Payday and Sony Music opted against publicly disclosing the settlement’s specifics. Nevertheless, it seems safe to say that they’ve turned the page on their dispute – at least in terms of locking horns in the courtroom.
Even so, the ugly litigation in question hardly suggests that the companies are in a hurry to huddle together. On the other hand, Ultra/Payday has for years been partnering with Universal Music’s Virgin Records on an Ibiza “creative week.” And earlier in 2025, the publisher hosted a songwriting camp in Paris with Warner Music’s newly launched Adore.
