A group of 17 music publishers sued Twitter on Wednesday, seeking up to $250 million in damages for copyright infringement of nearly 1,700 songs owned by Elon Musk. It has become the latest bane for social media platforms.
The publishers have filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Nashville, accusing Twitter of violating copyright law by allowing users to post music on its platform without their permission. Negotiations between Twitter and the music industry to strike a broader licensing deal broke down months ago.
“Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that outright refuses to license millions of songs on its service,” David Israelite, president of the Music Publishers Association of America, a trade group, said in a statement. said.
Twitter and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit details the publisher’s allegations that Twitter failed to crack down on rampant music piracy on the service. The lawsuit points to certain tweets in which the music was used without permission, including a post about Rihanna’s song “Umbrella,” which according to the lawsuit contains two minutes of the song’s music video. It is said that there is According to the lawsuit, the post received 221,000 views and 15,000 likes, but was never approved by the song’s publisher.
The suit seeks statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each of the approximately 1,700 infringing works, totaling approximately $250 million.
Music publishers represent copyright for songwriting and composition, separate from copyright for recordings.
The lawsuit alleges that music publishers have filed copyright laws through protocols outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law that protects Internet service providers when users post copyrighted material. It also documents attempts to notify Twitter of the infringement, outlining a set of guidelines on how to do so. was dropped off.
According to the lawsuit, the Music Publishers Association of America has notified Twitter about 300,000 tweets containing copyrighted music since December 2021, but the company routinely delays or responds to notifications. I don’t think so.
Twitter has been in licensing talks with three major music labels — Universal, Sony and Warner — since 2021, but talks stalled after Musk bought the company for $44 billion in October. A music rights deal that requires social media companies to compensate publishers and record labels when users post or play content, including songs, could cost well over $100 million a year. There is
Since buying Twitter, Musk has cut costs by laying off employees, skipping rent payments and avoiding paying bills to various vendors. Ad revenue has dwindled and the company faces billions of dollars in debt payments from the Musk acquisition. Musk said Twitter was on the road to bankruptcy.
The lawsuit seeks to use Mr. Musk’s own words against him. Quoting a series of tweets, he said current copyright law “goes beyond authorship protection by absurdity.”he Added“Excessive DMCA is a plague for mankind.”
