Twitter Hit With $250 Million Copyright-Infringement Lawsuit From Music Publishers
Twitter Hit With $250 Million Copyright-Infringement Lawsuit From Music Publishers
The National Music Publishers Assn., acting on behalf of 17 major music publishers, is filing a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter for its failure to license and pay for the mus…
The National Music Publishers Assn., acting on behalf of 17 major music publishers, is filing a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter for its failure to license and pay for the mus…
I assume Elon fired the compliance and moderation teams whose job was to prevent such a lawsuit from occurring.
From the complaint:
Twitter’s change in ownership in October 2022 has not led to improvements in how it acts with respect to copyright. On the contrary, Twitter’s internal affairs regarding matters pertinent to this case are in disarray.
So you seem to not be far from the mark here. The NMPA has become increasingly frustrated with the "slowness" of DMCA claims during the AIMP summit in February. Israelite has indicated that Twitter stands alone in how it's handled DMCA requests, which has been to largely ignore them, and that Twitter should lose protections offered by the DMCA to tech companies.
Honestly, I think the NMPA's talk of "hiding behind the DMCA" really hits at their take on things. I mean, Twitter is a shit show for sure, but I think if the recording industry had it their way, they'd get a chunk of pretty much every website no questions as opposed to the "give people a chance to get out of jail free by just removing the content."
But all that said, the company that autoreplies the poop emoji to all emails does not surprise me that they're forwarding all DMCA takedown requests to the recycle bin.
so sick of idiot billionaires.. we need federated twitter and facebook replacements, well ok there is mastadon but its still yukky
The National Music Publishers Assn., acting on behalf of 17 major music publishers, is filing a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter for its failure to license and pay for the music widely available on its platform.
The` complaint seeks more than $250 million in damages for hundreds of thousands of noticed infringements of approximately 1,700 works.
“Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law,” the complaint reads in part. “While numerous Twitter competitors recognize the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platforms, Twitter does not, and instead breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators…
“Twitter knows perfectly well that neither it nor users of the Twitter platform have secured licenses for the rampant use of music being made on its platform as complained of herein,” it continues. “Nonetheless, in connection with its highly interactive platform, Twitter consistently and knowingly hosts and streams infringing copies of musical compositions, including ones uploaded by or streamed to Tennessee residents and including specific infringing material that Twitter knows is infringing. Twitter also routinely continues to provide specific known repeat infringers with use of the Twitter platform, which they use for more infringement. Twitter profits handsomely from its infringement of Publishers’ repertoires of musical compositions. …
“Twitter’s unlawful conduct has caused and continues to cause substantial and irreparable harm to Publishers, their songwriter clients, and the entire music ecosystem. Twitter’s unlawful conduct enriches Twitter at Publishers’ and their songwriters’ expense and to the detriment of their copyrighted musical compositions. Twitter has rebuffed calls for it to obtain the licenses or other agreements needed for musical compositions to be lawfully used on its platform.”
An email to Twitter’s press account requesting comment returned an autoreply with a poop emoji.
As bad as Musk is, I oppose copyright and other so-called "intellectual property" more.