Twitter has been sued by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) for alleged copyright violations involving nearly 1,700 songs.
The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in federal court in the Federal District Court in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 14 by NMPA on behalf of 17 major and independent music publishing companies including Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management, and more.
Elon Musk’s X Corp and Twitter are listed as defendants.
Plaintiffs are seeking more than $250 million in damages and injunctive relief for what they say is Twitter’s “willful copyright infringement.”
“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,” the plaintiffs wrote….