They Accuse Twitter of Plagiarizing Songs They Ask for 255 Million Dollars in Compensation
Two large music chains accuse the social network of making it easier for users to publish content that infringes copyright "to promote their interests"
A total of 17 US music publishers, including Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappel Music, have filed a lawsuit against Twitter alleging that the platform must indemnify them for about $255 million for infringing the copyrights of their music. artists.
The National Music Publisher’s Association (NMPA) is in charge of protecting, promoting, and fostering the interests of music creators in the United States. It was in charge of filing this complaint, considering that the platform ” feeds its business with innumerable infringing copies of musical compositions.” .
This is indicated in the lawsuit filed against the current owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, for indiscriminately using the songs of artists who have registered around 1,700 works in the 17 publishers that make up the NMPA.
They claim in their lawsuit that “while many of Twitter’s competitors recognize the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platform, Twitter does not .”
They insist that the platform “is riddled with copyright infringement” and that both before and after its acquisition by Musk the social network ” benefited from copyright infringement, at the expense of the creators.” of music, to whom Twitter pays nothing.
Likewise, they point out that their mission is to protect the copyrights of artists as well as their activity as an association, because ” copyright protection is what allows music publishers to invest a lot of money, time, effort and talent to develop, promote, publish, manage, acquire, license and exploit in any way the copyright of the musical compositions written” by their represented composers.
Musical content as a claim
In its complaint, the NMPA suggests that it is precisely the content that it provides that makes Twitter a solid platform beyond its initial interest, since when it was formed in 2006 “it was a web for tweets of only text”.
For this reason, it accuses the social network of having provided users with the publication of content that infringes the ‘copyright’ “to promote their interests” and without the express authorization of music publishers.
As a result of this illegal activity, the signatories assure that ” they have suffered and will continue to suffer substantial and irreparable damages”, for which they are entitled to compensation for damages and prejudices valued at an amount of up to 150 thousand dollars for each work infringed.
In short, they demand compensation from Twitter of about 255 million dollars for not having respected the copyrights of artists and composers included in the catalogs of these publishing labels.
