On June 14, National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) sued Twitter on behalf of 17 music publishers for violating copyright regulations. The NMPA filed a lawsuit against Twitter in a federal court of United States in Nashville, Tennessee, seeking more than $250 million (roughly Rs. 2,055 crores) in damages.
Mayimba, Kobalt, Hipgnosis, Universal, Polygram, BMG, Sony, EMI, Concord, Wixen and Warner Chappell are some of the members of NMPA representing the most prominent artists in the music industry, such as Rihanna and Louis Armstrong have alleged that Twitter has purposefully infringed the work of about 1,700 songs and for per work infringed they are seeking $150,000.
NMPA alleges that “Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law”.
According to the lawsuit, “Twitter permits and encourages infringement, including of Publishers’ musical compositions, so that it can continue to reap huge profits from the availability of unlicensed music without paying the necessary licensing fees for it”.
Twitter competitors like Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube recognize “the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platforms”. But Twitter doesn’t have licensing deals, “Instead it breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators” and gives it “a valuable and unfair advantage over its properly licensed competitors”.
According to NMPA President David Israelite, Twitter “stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service”.
As per the lawsuit before and after the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk for $44 billion, “Twitter has engaged in, knowingly facilitated, and profited from copyright infringement, at the expense of music creators, to whom Twitter pays nothing”.
According to the lawsuit, “Videos with music, including infringing copies of publishers’ songs, attract and retain account holders and viewers, and grow the body of engaging tweets on the Twitter platform”. The lawsuit also contained examples of Twitter statements expressing how crucial music is to the platform and its users. “Twitter then monetizes those tweets and users via advertising, subscriptions, and data licensing, all of which serve to increase Twitter’s valuation and revenues.”
Twitter “consistently and knowingly hosts and streams infringing copies of musical compositions” by users and “routinely continues to provide specific known repeat infringers with use of the Twitter platform, which they use for more infringement”. Since December 2021, NMPA has sent formal infringement notices to Twitter on a weekly basis.
Publishers, through NMPA, have spent significant time and resources identifying and notifying Twitter of specific infringers and specific infringements. They have identified 300,000 infringing tweets.
The lawsuit states, “Twitter’s policies and its response to the NMPA Notices make clear that Twitter does not take its legal obligations with respect to copyright infringement seriously”. NMPA alleges that “Twitter has repeatedly failed to take the most basic step of expeditiously removing, or disabling access to, the infringing material identified by the infringement notices.”
As per the lawsuit, Twitter “has not adopted, reasonably implemented, nor informed subscribers or account holders of, a policy to terminate users engaging in repeated acts of copyright infringement.”
The NMPA alleges that Twitter conducts harm “legitimate markets”, and deprives “Publishers and their songwriters of hard-earned, deserved income from their creative endeavours”. As per the lawsuit, the company profits a lot from these infringements.
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