A group of music publishers part of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NPA) is suing Twitter for copyright infringement.
The civil suit, which includes publishers like Universal Music and Sony Music, alleges Twitter uses infringed music as a part of its business practices.
Tweets containing video have higher engagement than those with text, images or GIFs, states the lawsuit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Tennessee. “The pervasive infringing activity at issue in this case is no accident.”
While such violations have been addressed by the platform’s competitors, Twitter “instead breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators.” The suit says these violations occurred both before and after Elon Musk purchased the company in October 2022.
The NPA began sending Twitter infringement notices on a weekly basis starting in December 2021.
“Twitter tells the world that it respects rightsholders and acts expeditiously to remove unauthorized uses of copyrighted works,” the filing states.
“But the reality is that 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 are seeking up to $150,000 for each incident of infringement.
Source: M.D. Tennessee District Court Via: TechCrunch
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