A bunch of 17 music publishers sued Twitter in Nashville, Tenn., federal court on Wednesday, accusing the corporate of enabling hundreds of copyright violations by allowing users to post music and not using a license.
Twitter drives user engagement with “countless infringing copies of musical compositions,” the lawsuit said.
Members of the National Music Publishers’ Association, including Sony Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Universal Music Publishing Group, are in search of greater than $250 million in damages for alleged infringement of nearly 1,700 copyrights.
The lawsuit said the longstanding infringement has gotten worse since Elon Musk bought Twitter in October, and that other major platforms like TikTok, Facebook and YouTube properly license music from the publishers.
Sony Music Publishing, which is home to Beyoncé, is certainly one of the plaintiffs.Getty Images for Parkwood
Taylor Swift is amongst the large name artists represented within the suit.
Twitter didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
The artists represented by the suit include Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Miranda Lambert and Rihanna.
NMPA President David Israelite said in an announcement that Twitter “stands alone as the biggest social media platform that has completely refused to license the tens of millions of songs on its service.”
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Twitter “routinely ignores” repeat infringement by users who post tweets that contain unlicensed music, the lawsuit said. The publishers said Twitter encourages user infringement, which increases engagement and ad revenues while giving it an “unfair advantage” over platforms that pay for music licenses.
“Twitter’s internal affairs regarding matters pertinent to this case are in disarray,” the publishers said, noting deep cuts to the corporate’s legal and trust-and-safety teams since Musk took control.
