The Music Industry is Suing Twitter for More than $250 Million for Alleged Copyright Violations
A group of music publishers representing songwriters such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are suing Twitter for alleged copyright infringement, arguing that the platform profits from the unpaid use of compositions.
Twitter users frequently post videos containing renowned music, and artists wish to be compensated when their work is used in this manner. The company owned by Elon Musk is one of the few social media platforms that has not entered into licensing agreements governing the use of music on its platform.
The lawsuit, filed by the National Music Publishers’ Association on behalf of 17 music publishers, is the opening salvo in what could be a lengthy legal conflict between the music industry’s largest rights holders and the social-media platform. NMPA states that it is seeking more than $250 million in damages for hundreds of thousands of alleged infringements involving 1,700 tracks that it has identified.
YouTube, Facebook and Instagram by Meta Platforms, Snap, and TikTok are among the platforms that pay artists when users post videos containing their tunes.
“Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service,” according to David Israelitta, chief executive officer of the NMPA. The lawsuit represents some of the most prominent names in music, including the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Miranda Lambert, and Rihanna.
Twitter did not comment immediately.
The lawsuit cites a letter sent by a former Twitter policy executive to members of Congress in 2021, in which the company stated that it “unequivocally opposes copyright infringement and has invested in tools to assist rightsholders’ content protection efforts.”
The lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday in the Middle District of Tennessee, alleges that Twitter engaged in, facilitated, and profited from copyright infringement at the expense of music creators before and after Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last year.
Twitter has expanded its business model from a destination for short text-based communications to a destination for multimedia content to compete more aggressively with other social-media sites, “with music-infused videos being of particular and paramount importance.”
The platform “breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators,” according to the NMPA’s lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that Twitter does not recognize the need for licensing agreements and is sluggish to remove infringing content at the request of rights holders. It is alleged that the platform frequently fails to remove recordings that have been flagged by rights holders.
According to former employees, Twitter previously maintained that it complied with federal copyright law and had mechanisms in place to respond to take-down requests for musical content by rights holders.
The licensing of music to social media, fitness, and gaming platforms online has been a strategy of music rights holders pursuing revenue growth beyond streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music.
NMPA filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Peloton in 2019, seeking more than $300 million in damages for more than 2,000 alleged violations. This case was resolved in early 2020 with the parties entering into a new licensing agreement.
Musk has a history of refusing to back down in legal disputes and showing a propensity to go to trial as opposed to settling. “We will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we are likely to lose,” he tweeted in 2022 in reference to assembling a legal team at Tesla, where he serves as CEO.
The lawsuit is an additional obstacle for Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, as she begins her tenure at the helm of the social media company. Yaccarino, who began his tenure as CEO of Twitter last week, is tasked with stabilizing the ad business.
