A collection of music companies that includes several industry heavyweights is suing Twitter for copyright violations, alleging that the social media giant has infringed on roughly 1,700 songs. The suit, filed in Nashville on Wednesday, is seeking as much as $150,000 per infringement, or up to $250 million in statutory damages. “Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service,” National Music Publishers Association president David Israelite said in a statement. “Twitter knows full well that music is leaked, launched, and streamed by billions of people every day on its platform. No longer can it hide behind the DMCA and refuse to pay songwriters and music publishers.” The plaintiffs include household names like Universal, Sony, and Warner—all companies that had tried and failed to reach licensing agreements with Twitter in recent years. Negotiations came to a standstill after Elon Musk bought the platform for $44 billion last October.
Read it at The New York Times
