Twitter is currently facing a $250 million USD (roughly $333 million CAD) lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Nashville by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA). The social media platform is being accused of not taking action against multiple copyright violation notices.
The NMPA represents 17 music publishers including Universal Music Corp., BMG, Warner Chapell, and Sony Music Publishing. According to reports from TechCrunch, Twitter was informed that it is facing copyright violations against 1,700 songs. The organization claims the social media company failed to comply with these notices.
As a result, the music publishers’ organization is now seeking upwards of $150,000 USD (around $199,833 CAD) for each copyright violation. The NMPA alleges that Twitter “fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical ‘compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law.”
It was reported that back in March of this year, Twitter was due to sign a music licensing deal. However, The New York Times reports that the deal never went through. It’s theorized that Elon Musk and his cost-saving initiatives may have impacted the deal as its claimed similar deals cost $100 million a year.
The social media platform “stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service,” NMPA President David Israelite said in a statement to the BBC.
Last year, Musk became vocal regarding his views on DMCA. The lawsuit also brought forward a tweet Musk published in which he called the act a “plague on humanity.” As of the time of writing, Twitter has not issued a statement regarding the lawsuit.
The NMPA explains that Twitter is now home to many users uploading videos with licensed music. With Twitter Blue’s allowance of two-hour-long video uploads, fully copyrighted movies and albums can now be found across the platform.
