Twitter was recently hit with a lawsuit in the US, put forward by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA). The musical body is suing the social network on behalf of 17 music publishers, and is seeking US$250 million (~RM1.16 billion) in damages.
According to lawsuit that was filed in the state of Tennessee, the music publishers claim that Twitter “fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law.” The lawsuit indicates that the list contains 1,700 or so songs that have already been included in multiple copyright strikes to the platform, and is asking the court to fine Twitter for as much as US$150,000 (~RM695,000) for each violation.
It should be noted that the musical copyright issue occured prior to Elon Musk’s US$44 billion (~RM203 billion) takeover of Twitter last year, but talks about licensing deals between the social media platform and music publishers hit a snag in the road after the takeover by the owner of Tesla and SpaceX. The deal itself would have cost it more than US$100 million (~RM463 million) a year, had it gone through.
It also doesn’t help Twitter’s case that the lawsuit mentioned the tweets from Musk, especially ones referencing his Twitter Blue Package that allows subscribers to upload longer videos. This particular problem led to users being able to upload full-length movies on to the platform, which all stayed on for hours before being ultimately being taken down. It also doesn’t help that there is also evidence – why Musk never actually had it taken down is beyond us, but perhaps this is his way of staying true to his word of making the platform free-for-all and without restrictions – where the man himself recommended a user to turn subscriptions on, after the individual had complained about their account being suspended after five copyright strikes. Suggesting that they pay the platform to hide the offending material, so that they wouldn’t get flagged.
@elonmusk just announced that a new Twitter CEO will be starting in 6 weeks. First order of business – address the massive amount of unlicensed music on the platform. Songs have value.
— David Israelite (@DavidIsraelite) May 11, 2023
At the time of writing, Twitter has yet to respond to the lawsuit since it was filed by the NMPA. On another note, Musk’s new CEO for Twitter, Linda Yaccarino, still has a little more than a month to go before they can slide into their role. At which point, Musk may just brush the legal issue off to her.
