Elon Musk’s X is suing the major music publishers and the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) over allegations that they “weaponized” takedown requests and exploited their monopoly power to force the social media platform to license music at jacked-up rates.
In a blockbuster lawsuit filed Friday (Jan. 9), lawyers for X (formerly Twitter) accused publishing units of Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment of violating federal antitrust laws by colluding against the site in an illegal conspiracy.
X’s attorneys claim the plan was orchestrated by the NMPA and its president/CEO David Israelite, who they say personally threatened to “inundate” the company with takedown notices if it didn’t agree to his terms — and then did so when X refused to play ball.
“The music publishers collude, rather than compete, to attempt to force X to take industrywide licenses, harming not just consumers and X users … but also X, which suffers ongoing harm from defendants’ coordinated and coercive campaign,” the suit reads.
In a statement to Billboard, Israelite said that X is the “only major social media company” that doesn’t license the songs on its platform. “We allege that X has engaged in copyright infringement for years, and its meritless lawsuit is a bad faith effort to distract from publishers’ and songwriters’ legitimate right to enforce against X’s illegal use of their songs,” he continued.
Reps for all three majors did not return requests for comment.
The new case comes more than two years after the publishers filed their own suit against X, which has long held out against licensing music directly. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat have all entered into such deals, giving users a licensed library of songs to add to their videos.
That case claimed that users on X, operating without such a license, had infringed more than 1,700 songs from writers like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé — claims that could lead to $255 million in damages. In 2024, a judge refused to dismiss the case and allowed it to move ahead toward trial. Though the case was recently paused for talks, it resumed in November after the sides said they were “unable to complete a settlement.”
On Friday, X turned the tables with an aggressive legal counter-punch, accusing the NMPA and the publishers of sweeping antitrust violations by working together against the site in a “conspiracy to leverage collective monopoly power.” It claims that the defendants in the case represent 90 percent of the market for musical compositions.
“Rather than engage in a competitive process and individually negotiate a license for their catalogs, the music publishers colluded through NMPA in a concerted refusal to deal with X independently,” the company’s lawyers write.
To implement that alleged scheme, X says the publishers “weaponized” the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the federal law that governs takedown requests to social media sites. According to the suit, Israelite warned the company in an email that, if it did not take a blanket license, he would send such notices “on a scale larger than any previous effort in DMCA history.” He allegedly warned that such an action would turn X’s most popular users into “repeat infringers,” whom sites are required by law to terminate. “NMPA also made clear that X could make this all go away — for a price.”
When the platform refused to cooperate, it says NMPA made good on its threats, sending more than 200,000 takedown requests in the first year alone, many for posts “not subject to any legitimate claim of infringement.” X says those efforts continue to this day.
“Because X has resisted defendants’ attempt to force it to buy industrywide licenses it does not need, it continues to be buried in hundreds of pages of takedown notices nearly every week,” the site’s lawyers claim.
Friday’s lawsuit makes explicit what X has long shown through its actions: That it does not believe it needs to take the same kind of blanket license as TikTok and Instagram. To make that case, it cites the DMCA’s so-called safe harbor, which shields digital platforms from liability for illegal materials uploaded by their users, so long as such content is promptly removed when it’s flagged.
In the modern internet ecosystem, most major social media platforms have decided they’d rather have licensed libraries of music as a perk for their users and as a means of avoiding endless takedown fights. But X says such an approach is a market choice, not a legal requirement.
“A platform … does not need to license all the copyrighted musical works that its users may post and instead may choose to rely on the statutory safe harbor,” the company’s lawyers write, “X — which has instituted a robust DMCA-compliance policy — has long relied on the safe harbor.”
In addition to publishing units of the three majors, the suit also names as defendants many prominent independent publishers, including Concord Music, Downtown Music, Kobalt Music, Reservoir Music and Wixen Music.
Hence then, the article about elon musk s x sues music publishers for collusion coercive campaign was published today ( ) and is available on billboard ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Elon Musk’s X Sues Music Publishers for Collusion: ‘Coercive Campaign’ )
Also on site :
- Diesel was mistakenly distributed instead of regular unleaded at many Colorado gas pumps
- Man police shot in Brooklyn hospital was former NYPD officer, police said
- Coach of softball teams in San Bernardino, Orange counties accused of molesting player