On Wednesday, a bunch of 17 music publishers sued Twitter, charging it with infringement on around 1,700 songs and demanding up to $250 million in compensation. It is the latest stumbling block for Elon Musk's social media site.
The publishers claimed that Twitter had broken copyright laws by allowing users to upload music to the service without their consent. The lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court in Nashville. Broad license deals had been the subject of months of discussions between Twitter and the music industry.
Requests for comment from Twitter and Mr. Musk were delayed.
According to the publishers, the lawsuit described Twitter's alleged failure to control widespread copyright violations of music on the service. It cited particular tweets where music was used without authorization, such as one regarding the Rihanna song "Umbrella" that contained, according to the lawsuit, two minutes of the song's music video. The case claimed that despite the post having 15,000 likes and 221,000 views, the song's publishers had not given their consent.
For a total of around $250 million, statutory damages of up to $150,000 were sought in the lawsuit for each of the nearly 1,700 works that were violated.
Separate from the copyrights for recordings, the copyrights for songwriting and composition are represented by music publishers.
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