Twitter Nailed With $250 Mil Copyright Suit
• The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), acting on behalf of 17 major music publishers, has filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter for its failure to license and pay for the music widely available on its platform. According to Variety, the complaint seeks more than $250 million in damages for hundreds of thousands of noticed infringements of approximately 1,700 works.
The complaint reads, in part, “Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law. While numerous Twitter competitors recognize the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platforms, Twitter does not, and instead breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators…”
It continues: “Twitter’s unlawful conduct has caused and continues to cause substantial and irreparable harm to Publishers, their songwriter clients, and the entire music ecosystem. Twitter’s unlawful conduct enriches Twitter at Publishers’ and their songwriters’ expense and to the detriment of their copyrighted musical compositions. Twitter has rebuffed calls for it to obtain the licenses or other agreements needed for musical compositions to be lawfully used on its platform.”
As a delightful kicker to Variety‘s coverage, it states that an email sent to Twitter’s press account requesting comment returned an autoreply with a poop emoji…
• The plaintiffs in the suit include: Concord, UMPG, peermusic, ABKCO Music, Anthem Entertainment, Big Machine Music, BMG Rights Management, Hipgnosis Songs Group, Kobalt Music Publishing America, Mayimba Music, Reservoir Media Management, Sony Music Publishing, Spirit Music Group, The Royalty Network, Ultra Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, and Wixen Music Publishing.
