A group of music publishers is suing Elon Musk’s Twitter for copyright infringement to the tune of $250 million. But the group faces a recalcitrant Musk who isn’t paying rent—why would he pay royalties?
Twitter has long benefitted from the presence of music on the platform, but unlike major social media sites—it doesn’t have a licensing agreement. Now music publishers are fighting back. The copyright infringement lawsuit was brought forth by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) on behalf of 17 music publishers, alleging infringement on more than 1,700 songs in the publishers’ respective catalogs.
“Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs in its service,” NMPA Chief Executive David Israelite said about the lawsuit. Twitter hasn’t directly commented on news of the $250 million lawsuit, but Musk has issued past comments on how he would run Twitter in the future.
In a tweet dated May 20, 2022 Musk writes, “My commitment: We will never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win. We will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose.”
Those words suggest Musk is ready for a long, protracted legal battle against music publishers. Part of the many layoffs he made during his early tenure at Twitter was to fire most of the people responsible for handling early licensing talks with publishers. The NMPA also alleges that as Twitter has broadened its scope from a text-based site to include video and audio—”music-infused videos are of particular and paramount importance.”
The NMPA successfully sued Peloton for copyright infringement in 2020, with the case being quickly settled—with a new licensing agreement in place. Twitter’s hand-chosen CEO Linda Yaccarino will face difficult days at the head of the social media giant as it tackles challenges like this NMPA lawsuit. Twitter’s advertising business has been in freefall since major advertisers have departed Musk-owned Twitter.