Twitter, which is already in soup for non-payment of rent and other bills, has another problem. The social media company is being sued for $250 million by a group of 17 music publishers for copyright infringement.
The music publishers sued Twitter in a US federal court accusing the company of enabling thousands of copyright violations by allowing users to post music without a licence.
Members of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), which includes Sony Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Universal Music Publishing Group, are seeking damages for the alleged infringement of nearly 1,700 copyrights.Most of the alleged infringement is reported to be about music videos, videos of live music performances, or other videos synchronised to copyrighted music.
What does the lawsuit say
Twitter drives user engagement with “countless infringing copies of musical compositions,” news agency Reuters cited the lawsuit as saying.
It also noted that the longstanding infringement has gotten worse since Elon Musk bought Twitter in October. It mentions other major platforms like TikTok, Facebook and YouTube properly licence music from the publishers.
Twitter “stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to licence the millions of songs on its service,” NMPA president David Israelite was quoted as saying.
The music publishers sued Twitter in a US federal court accusing the company of enabling thousands of copyright violations by allowing users to post music without a licence.
Members of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), which includes Sony Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Universal Music Publishing Group, are seeking damages for the alleged infringement of nearly 1,700 copyrights.Most of the alleged infringement is reported to be about music videos, videos of live music performances, or other videos synchronised to copyrighted music.
What does the lawsuit say
Twitter drives user engagement with “countless infringing copies of musical compositions,” news agency Reuters cited the lawsuit as saying.
It also noted that the longstanding infringement has gotten worse since Elon Musk bought Twitter in October. It mentions other major platforms like TikTok, Facebook and YouTube properly licence music from the publishers.
Twitter “stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to licence the millions of songs on its service,” NMPA president David Israelite was quoted as saying.
When Musk announced the new Twitter CEO, Israelite tweeted saying the first order of business should be to “address the massive amount of unlicensed music on the platform.”
The lawsuit also highlights that Twitter “routinely ignores” repeat infringement by users who post tweets that contain unlicensed music. The publishers allege that Twitter encourages user infringement, which increases engagement and ad revenues while giving it an “unfair advantage” over platforms that pay for music licences.
“Twitter’s internal affairs regarding matters pertinent to this case are in disarray,” the publishers said.
The NMPA also claimed that the platform not only failed to remove infringing content and has “continued to assist known repeat infringers with their infringement” without the risk of them losing their accounts.
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