Proactive Investors - Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is being sued for US$250mln by seventeen music publishers claiming the social media platform enabled copyright infringements on thousands of songs.
“Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating publishers’ and others exclusive rights under copyright law,” The National Music Publishers' Association (MTPA) has alleged in a Tennessee district court filing.
Twitter has “facilitated” and “profited” from copyright breaches both before and after Elon Musk bought the site in October, the MTPA claimed on Wednesday.
Unlike rival social medias TikTok, Facebook (NASDAQ:META), Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, Twitter has not bought licences for music featuring on the site, giving it an “unfair advantage,” publishers said.
Plaintiffs, including the likes of Universal Music (AS:UMG) and Sony, asked the court to sue Twitter for up to US$150,000 for each of the near 1,700 song violations.
This includes music by big-name artists such as Green Day, Ed Sheeran and Katy Perry.
Twitter has faced a large-scale shakeup since Musk’s US$44bn takeover last year, including the sacking of around 75% of staff and subsequent efforts to monetise the site.
Referencing Twitter’s own research, the MTPA explained how videos were used to drive engagement on the site, which users can “extremely” easily add infringed music to.
The allegations come as Twitter’s leadership has seen a reshuffle in recent months, including the resignations of trust and safety bosses Yoel Roth and Ella Irwin as concerns linger over content moderation on the site.
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