Twitter Faces A $250 Million Copyright Infringement Suit From 17 Music Publishers
Twitter has been hit with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit in the state of Tennessee alleging “rampant infringement of copyrighted music” on its platform.
The 17 entities behind the litigation include prominent independent music publishers, as well as Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner Chappell Music.
Their complaint seeks over $250 million in damages for “hundreds of thousands” of alleged infringements of approximately 1,700 works.
In the complaint, obtained by MBW, the publishers argue that, “Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law”.
The suit adds: “While numerous Twitter competitors respect the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platforms, Twitter does not, and instead breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators.”
The lawsuit names Elon Musk’s X Corp, the company that owns and operates the Twitter platform, as the only defendant.
The full list of companies suing Twitter, all named as plaintiffs, include Concord, Universal Music Publishing Group, peermusic, ABKCO Music, Anthem Entertainment, Big Machine Music, BMG Rights Management, Hipgnosis Songs Group, Kobalt Music Publishing America, Mayimba Music, Reservoir Media Management, Sony Music Publishing, Spirit Music Group, The Royalty Network, Ultra Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, and Wixen Music Publishing.
Commenting on the lawsuit in a statement on Wednesday (June 14), David Israelite, CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), which represents the interests of major and independent publishers in the US, said: “Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service.
He added: “Twitter knows full well that music is leaked, launched, and streamed by billions of people every day on its platform. No longer can it hide behind the DMCA and refuse to pay songwriters and music publishers.”
Unlike rivals like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, Twitter does not have licensing deals in place with major music companies. Twitter’s lack of music agreements with rightsholders has long been a matter of contention, and the platform is regularly criticized for turning a blind eye to infringement.
In February last year, global recorded music body IFPI branded Twitter as “a significant concern to the music industry”.
“Twitter stores and gives the public access to a large amount of copyright-protected content and is a major platform for distributing infringing music content, both audio and video,” the IFPI said in its submission to the EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watchlist Consultation at the time.
Source: MBW
