Twitter is being sued by a group of 17 music publishers for allowing users to share music on its platform without a license.
As Reuters reports, the lawsuit seeks a trial by jury and damages in excess of $250 million, which is based on the service allegedly infringing nearly 1,700 copyrights. The publishers involved in this suit include two of the biggest names in the music business, notably Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group.
Twitter is accused of willful copyright infringement, with the lawsuit claiming, "Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law," and is "awash with infringing videos featuring music."
The lawsuit points out that other social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat, have "entered into agreements with publishers and other rights holders that compensate creators of musical compositions for use of their works on those platforms."
According to David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers Association, Twitter now "stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service."
Twitter has yet to publicly respond to the lawsuit or accusations it makes. For the company's new CEO Linda Yaccarino, who has only held the position for a couple of weeks, this will no doubt be a distraction from the wider business problems facing the social media platform.
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