Between AI recreations and social media, the music industry is playing whack-a-mole with copyright infringement.
The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), on behalf of some of the biggest labels and music publishers in the industry, is suing Twitter -- in the amount of $250 million -- for rampant copyright infringement.
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The suit, filed in a federal court June 14 in Tennessee, alleged that "Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions." Further, it said that other social media companies "recognize the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platforms."
Twitter, however, "does not, and instead breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators."
This issue has been ongoing since before Elon Musk's run at the helm of the bird app. The suit says that the NMPA alerted Twitter of 300,000 tweets that violated copyright law since December 2021.
Twitter, according to The New York Times, was in the process of negotiating a licensing deal with Universal, Sony and Warner before Musk bought the site, though the negotiations fizzled out after Musk's purchase last year.
A potential deal, according to the Times, could cost Twitter $100 million annually.
The lawsuit went on to name several prominent social media companies -- TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat -- saying they have all entered into licensing deals with music publishers. Twitter is the only major platform that hasn't.
Music Business Worldwide estimated that TikTok paid the music industry around $179 million in 2021 as part of its licensing deal; YouTube paid out around $2.6 billion (the platform generated $28.84 billion in ad revenue for the year).
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The lawsuit included a list of 1,700 songs that have been infringed upon and asked the court to fine Twitter $150,000 per violated work.
Among numerous citations of music videos and popular music-related Twitter accounts, Musk's own tweets came in the suit.
"Twitter's most senior executive has previously described the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) -- a statute that, among other things provides for notice and takedown of infringing copyright material -- as a 'plague on humanity.'"
Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.
