Nothing brings the music industry together like mutual hatred. As The New York Times reports, a group of 17 music publishing companies have sued Elon Musk's Twitter for copyright infringement, asking for $250 million USD in damages.
The lawsuit sees the publishers argue that, unlike other social media platforms, Twitter has made no deals in licensing the music posted to it. In this filing alone, the 17 companies cite 1,700 infringing songs — and they're requesting $150,000 for each of them.
The document reportedly goes on to outline the ways in which the companies attempted to bring these infractions to the website's attention, citing approximately 300,000 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notifications since 2021.
In addition to quoting an offending tweet that features two minutes of Rihanna's "Umbrella" (boasting 221,000 views and 15,000 likes), it also quotes a tweet from Musk himself, where the bajillionaire writes, "Overzealous DMCA is a plague on humanity."
Prior to Musk purchasing the social network, Twitter had been in talks with the three major record labels to negotiate licensing rights. The site's new overlord put said talks on hold.
"Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service," National Music Publishers' Association president David Israelite said in a statement.
The lawsuit sees the publishers argue that, unlike other social media platforms, Twitter has made no deals in licensing the music posted to it. In this filing alone, the 17 companies cite 1,700 infringing songs — and they're requesting $150,000 for each of them.
The document reportedly goes on to outline the ways in which the companies attempted to bring these infractions to the website's attention, citing approximately 300,000 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notifications since 2021.
In addition to quoting an offending tweet that features two minutes of Rihanna's "Umbrella" (boasting 221,000 views and 15,000 likes), it also quotes a tweet from Musk himself, where the bajillionaire writes, "Overzealous DMCA is a plague on humanity."
Prior to Musk purchasing the social network, Twitter had been in talks with the three major record labels to negotiate licensing rights. The site's new overlord put said talks on hold.
"Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service," National Music Publishers' Association president David Israelite said in a statement.
