Twitter Facing $250M Copyright Infringement Lawsuit From Music Publishers

Dozens of music publishers are suing Twitter over allegations of widespread copyright infringement and seeking hundreds of millions in damages, telling the Elon Musk-owned site it can no longer “refuse to pay songwriters and music publishers.”

In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday (June 14) in Tennessee federal court, the publishers allege that Twitter has infringed over 1,700 different songs from writers like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé — a claim that, if proven, could put the social media giant on the hook for as much as $255 million in damages.

“Twitter profits handsomely from its infringement of publishers’ repertoires of musical compositions,” the music companies write in their complaint, which was obtained by Billboard. “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 did not respond to immediate request for comment.

The plaintiffs named in the lawsuit include Concord, Universal Music Publishing Group, 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.

The lawsuit, announced by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) at its annual meeting, shouldn’t come as a total surprise. In a February speech, NMPA president/CEO David Israelite called Twitter his “top legal focus” this year. He warned that the company was “hiding behind” the Digital Millenium Copyright Act – the federal law that limits how websites like Twitter can be sued over copyright infringement by their users.

In a statement on Wednesday, Israelite echoed that threat, saying that Twitter could no longer “hide behind the DMCA and refuse to pay songwriters and music publishers.”

“Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service,” Israelite said in a statement. “Twitter knows full well that music is leaked, launched and streamed by billions of people every day on its platform.”

The DMCA provides websites like Twitter with a legal immunity — a “safe harbor” — against copyright lawsuits over material uploaded by their users, so long as they promptly remove infringing content and ban repeated violators from the platform. But in their new lawsuit, the publishers allege that Twitter failed to do either, meaning the site has legally forfeited the DMCA’s protections.

“Twitter routinely ignores known repeat infringers and known infringements, refusing to take simple steps that are available to Twitter to stop these specific instances of infringement of which it is aware,” the publishers wrote.

The NMPA annual meeting has recently featured at least one bombshell litigation announcement. Last year, the NMPA launched a legal action against more than 100 different apps that skim music from digital services without obtaining licenses, sent cease-and-desist notices to Apple and Google app stores and filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against music video-making app Vinkle. In 2021, Israelite announced a $200 million copyright infringement lawsuit against Roblox for hosting thousands of unlicensed songs within the game’s library.

The NMPA’s public grievances with Twitter date back to at least April 2021, when Billboard published a guest column, co-penned by Israelite and RIAA chief Mitch Glazier. In it, the two leaders called for social media platform to license music and noted that in the last year, music creators had sent over 2 million notices to Twitter of unlicensed and infringing appearances of copyrighted music on the platform, more than 200,000 of which were of unreleased songs. “The company’s response to date has been totally inadequate,” the article lamented. It went on to suggest three ways for Twitter to address the grievances the music business has had with its operations: “licensing music and pay music creators like others do,” “better content protection tools,” and “stop demanding exorbitant payments from creators for content protection.”

Since Jack Dorsey stepped down from Twitter in November 2021, Twitter has been in flux. When Musk bought the company and assumed the role of CEO in October 2022, he kicked off an era of controversial leadership, widespread cost-cutting measures and mass layoffs. Over the past two years, Israelite has repeatedly taken to the platform to express his hope that subsequent chiefs like Parag Agrawal, Musk and now Linda Yaccarino would “finally” “take a new approach” with licensing music.

But in Wednesday’s lawsuit, the publishers said things had only gotten worse: “Twitter’s change in ownership in October 2022 has not led to improvements in how it acts with respect to copyright. On the contrary, Twitter’s internal affairs regarding matters pertinent to this case are in disarray.”

Licensing for games, social media and other applications is quickly becoming a major component of music publishers’ income. At last year’s annual meeting, NMPA announced that licensing from new revenue streams — like Twitch, Roblox, Peloton and others — now account for 29.1% of music publishers’ income, something that is expected to only rise over time. This has come with the success of the NMPA’s aggressive legal agenda in recent years and has helped publishers diversify their income from streaming, which is strictly regulated in the United States by the Copyright Royalty Board.

In the lawsuit against Twitter, the publishers noted that TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat had all entered into such broader licensing deals, enabling their users to use copyrighted music while still compensating songwriters. Twitter, they wrote, cannot not continue to be the exception.

“Twitter is seizing for itself an artificial competitive advantage against companies that are not violating copyright law, undercutting existing markets, cheapening the value of music and undermining publishers’ well-established business models,” lawyers for the publishers wrote.

Read the entire complaint against Twitter here: