Crumbl Lawsuit: Warner Music, Dirty Dough, and TCPA Claims

The Crumbl lawsuit that drew the most attention was Warner Music Group’s April 2025 copyright case over songs used in TikTok and Instagram marketing, and it reached a confidential settlement in principle in May 2026. Around that headline case, the Utah-based cookie chain has also fought a trade secrets battle with rival Dirty Dough, and it currently faces pending class actions over undisclosed service fees, alleged website tracking, and unsolicited promotional texts. Federal labor regulators separately fined Crumbl franchisees for child labor violations in 2022.

Warner Music Group Copyright Suit

On April 22, 2025, Warner Music subsidiaries including Atlantic Records, Elektra Entertainment, and Warner Records sued Crumbl LLC in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, captioned Warner Records Inc. et al v. Crumbl LLC (Case No. 2:25-cv-00316-HCN).¹ The complaint alleged Crumbl used at least 159 copyrighted sound recordings and musical compositions in social media promotional videos without obtaining synchronization licenses.²

Music, according to Warner, carried much of Crumbl’s social content. Some posts paired songs directly with flavors. Lil Mosey’s “Blueberry Faygo” promoted a blueberry cheesecake cookie. Coldplay’s “Yellow” ran with a yellow sugar cookie. BTS’s “Butter” accompanied a butter cake cookie. Other videos showed employees dancing to tracks like K CAMP’s “Lottery (Renegade),” and some captions quoted lyrics directly. Warner also alleged that Crumbl worked with influencers who received perks and the promise of paid partnerships in exchange for posts using copyrighted music.²³

The complaint framed the conduct as willful. Warner said Crumbl received a cease-and-desist letter in August 2023 but kept posting videos with unlicensed music. It also pointed to a January 2024 TikTok in which Crumbl itself said, “We were gonna make a funny video to promote Mystery Cookie, but legal said we can’t use any trending audios,” language Warner called an admission that the company knew licenses were required. The complaint further noted the 2022 lawsuits against Bang Energy over similar TikTok marketing, where a federal court in Florida granted partial summary judgment finding direct infringement across 140 unlicensed videos.²

Warner brought claims for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement.³ It sought statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work under the Copyright Act, roughly $23.85 million across the 159 identified works, plus a permanent injunction, costs, and attorney’s fees, with a jury trial demanded.⁴

After roughly 13 months of litigation, the parties told the court in late May 2026 that they had reached an agreement in principle. A magistrate judge stayed the case on May 26, 2026, with finalization expected by June 15, 2026.⁵ Financial terms were not disclosed.¹

Crumbl v. Dirty Dough Trade Secrets Case

In May 2022, Crumbl sued Dirty Dough LLC and brothers Bennett and Bradley Maxwell in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah (Case No. 2:22-cv-00318), alleging trade secret misappropriation, trade dress infringement, and unfair competition. Bradley Maxwell, a former Crumbl process engineer who left in June 2019, allegedly downloaded 640 megabytes of proprietary data, including 66 recipes, sales figures, rotating menu details, and store build-out specifications, then uploaded them to Dirty Dough’s Google Drive in September 2021. Crumbl also accused Dirty Dough and Crave of copying its recipes, packaging, and brand identity.⁶

In August 2023, Judge Howard C. Nielson denied Crumbl’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The court said Crumbl had shown a likelihood of success on the trade secret misappropriation claim but found no ongoing irreparable harm, because the stolen data had already been returned under a prior stipulated order. The judge also found no evidence that Dirty Dough had incorporated the stolen recipes into its products, noting the recipes “differed substantially” from Crumbl’s. He called Crumbl’s requested relief, which would have barred Dirty Dough from opening any new franchise locations, not narrowly tailored and potentially the “economic death” of the competitor, and said a required corrective public statement would amount to prior restraint.⁷

By October 2023, the companies reached a tentative settlement. In a joint statement, they acknowledged that a former Dirty Dough owner had downloaded Crumbl’s recipes and operational information while employed at Crumbl. Dirty Dough agreed to return the misappropriated information and to change certain cookie boxes, with 30 days to finalize the written agreement.⁶

Service Fee Class Action

Lisa Watson and Angela Keers filed a proposed class action in August 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, alleging that Crumbl deceptively charged customers a 2.95% service fee without disclosing it until checkout in its mobile app.⁸ Crumbl moved to dismiss, but on June 7, 2024, Judge Daniel J. Calabretta denied the motion and allowed the case to move forward.⁹

Website Tracking Privacy Class Action

A separate proposed class action, Lockhart v. Crumbl, LLC (Case No. 4:24-cv-02607), was filed May 1, 2024, in California federal court. It alleged that Crumbl embedded web-tracking technology from Stripe on its website to intercept customer data without consent. According to the complaint, the tracking captured names, email and delivery addresses, geographic and IP locations, payment details, and browsing activity, and stayed on users’ browsers after purchases so Stripe could observe activity on other sites. The suit was brought under the California Invasion of Privacy Act.¹⁰ Crumbl moved to dismiss in mid-2024, calling the complaint “poorly drafted.”¹¹

TCPA Text Message Class Action

In 2025, Victoria Soboleski filed a class action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (Soboleski v. Crumbl LLC, Case No. 2:25-cv-11839-JEL-DRG), alleging that Crumbl sent unsolicited promotional texts to phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry without consent. The messages sent to Soboleski were allegedly intended for someone else. The proposed class covers anyone in the United States who received more than one such promotional message within a 12-month period while on the DNC list and who had not given their number to Crumbl. As of September 2025, the case was in discovery.¹²

Franchisee Child Labor Fines

The child labor matter is a federal enforcement action, not a private lawsuit, and it hit franchisees rather than the corporate parent. In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that 11 Crumbl franchisees across six states had been fined a combined $57,854 for child labor violations. Investigators found that 46 minor-aged workers, some as young as 14, had worked hours exceeding federal limits or operated prohibited equipment such as ovens. Penalties ranged from $1,468 to $15,417 per franchise, affecting locations in California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington, with a San Ramon, California, franchisee receiving the largest individual fine.¹³ Crumbl corporate said it was “actively working to understand what has occurred” and would push franchisee compliance.¹⁴

1
Bloomberg Law. Crumbl Settles Warner Music Copyright Suit Over Social Media Ads
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Billboard. Warner Music Lawsuit Crumbl Cookie Social Posts
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CCH Business. Atlantic Recording Corp. v. Crumbl Complaint
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Digital Music News. Warner Music Group Sues Crumbl Cookies
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Digital Music News. Warner Music Crumbl Lawsuit Settlement
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KUTV. Utah Cookie Companies Crumbl, Dirty Dough Reach Settlement Over Recipe, Packaging Dispute
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California Lawyers Association. Crumbl LLC v. Dirty Dough LLC, 2023 WL 5180370
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Courthouse News Service. Consumers in Class Action Claim That Crumbl Deceptively Charges Customers a Service Fee
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Bloomberg Law. Crumbl Cookies Can’t Shed Suit Alleging Deceptive Service Fees
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ClassAction.org. Cookie Chain Crumbl Hit With Privacy Lawsuit Over Alleged Stripe Data Tracking
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Law360. Crumbl Aims to Burn Privacy Suit Over Info-Tracking Cookies
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PACER Monitor. Soboleski v. Crumble LLC Discovery Plan
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U.S. Department of Labor. Crumbl Cookies Franchisees Child Labor Violations
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Restaurant Business. Crumbl Cookies Franchisees Fined $58K for Child Labor Violations