LG’s Seoul headquarters. Photo Credit: Seoul Institute
Today in social media copyright complaints: A pair of infringement actions against Kroger and LG, which allegedly incorporated a protected track into TikTok videos without authorization.
Georgia-based singer-songwriter Matt Hobbs, the creator of Puppy Songs, submitted the lawsuits to a California federal court yesterday. Puppy Songs, for its part, is billed as “a collection of nearly 200 original songs that tell stories about life with a dog.”
One of those songs is a “global mega-hit” entitled “Cheese Tax,” which Hobbs wrote, recorded, and then released in February 2023. Out of the gate, the minute-long effort, currently sitting at 4.05 million Spotify streams, “became viral” on TikTok, according to the suits.
Per the complaints, it also caught the attention of LG and Kroger, the latter of which allegedly used the track in a TikTok video 10 days after it became available to the public.
Unsurprisingly, given the courtroom confrontation, the retail giant allegedly failed to license “Cheese Tax.”
(As many know from the sizable pile of social media infringement battles, TikTok’s pre-cleared music library is approved for personal, not commercial, use. And as spelled out in the Kroger suit, “Cheese Tax” was not “at any time” featured in TikTok’s Commercial Music Library.)
Subsequently, Hobbs learned of Kroger’s post in December 2025 and sent a cease-and-desist letter in March 2026, the legal text indicates. The company is said to have deleted the video the following month.
Evidently, the deletion wasn’t accompanied by an agreement, and Hobbs is demanding relief for the alleged direct infringement of the relevant recording as well as the underlying composition.
Though similar, the LG action accuses the South Korean conglomerate of downloading “a video posted by the TikTok user @vito.the.boxer” and then posting the clip – containing “Cheese Tax” – to its own page. While it probably doesn’t need saying in light of the action, Hobbs maintains LG didn’t have permission to do so.
(Incidentally, @vito.the.boxer, an account that’s apparently dedicated to documenting the antics of a boxer pup named Vito, “has no right to license the Works to anyone” and didn’t have permission to use them “for any commercial purpose.”)
Consequently, LG is facing the same direct infringement claims as well as a pair of counts for allegedly violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
In brief, the defendant allegedly provided false copyright management information (CMI) by passing off the video (and “Cheese Tax”) as its own when uploading to TikTok. Additionally, it allegedly “intentionally removed and altered that CMI,” once again by downloading and then reuploading the clip to TikTok sans Hobbs’ information.
On the relief front, the filing party is seeking actual damages or the statutory maximum of $150,000 a pop on the willful infringement side (for the composition and the recording as well) from both defendants.
And for the alleged DMCA violations, the plaintiff is calling on LG to cough up at least $2,500 (and up to $25,000) in statutory damages per violation, meaning “each distribution, public performance, and public display of the Works with false or altered CMI.”
As for how the complaints fit into the bigger social media infringement picture, the actions, most but not all levied by the major labels, are certainly piling up. Since 2026’s start, Ray-Ban owner EssilorLuxottica, Quince, and Kroger once again have been slapped with claims of this nature.
And different suits have been flying under the radar; Hobbs in April sued Land O’Lakes and Arby’s owner Inspire Brands for allegedly posting videos containing “Cheese Tax.” Inspire and Hobbs put their case to rest last month.
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