Lawsuit focused on X/Twitter copyright infringement partially allowed to move forward

The growth of social media as a platform for content creation and use has sparked many discussions and legal attempts to define usage and ensure proper payouts to labels and artists. Now a lawsuit aimed at X/Twitter has been allowed to partially move forward as the companies complain of copyright infringement.

When first introduced as a social media platform, X which was then known as Twitter, served as a space for short messages and has evolved to include various media and audio content to its space. In a coalition of 17 music industry bodies, led by the likes of Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Group, Warner Chappell, and BMG, the companies filed a suit in July 2023 seeking $250 million in damages for hundreds of thousands of alleged copyright infringements. X responded by requesting the claim be denied but US District Judge Aleta A. Trauger has only partially denied the claim, agreeing that the platform responded to infringements in due time but it is not clear “to what extent X Corp may be liable for the infringing acts of users on its platform.”

The new filing states: The plaintiffs complain that, ‘[w]hile the Twitter platform began as a destination for short text-based messages,’ it has since become a ‘hot destination for multimedia content, with music- infused videos being of particular and paramount importance.’ There are lawful ways for a social media company to offer such media – particularly, by entering into licensing agreements with rights holders, as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat have done. Copyright licences, though, typically must be paid for, and X/Twitter is, the plaintiffs suggest, effectively trying to generate the kind of revenue that one would expect as a lawful purveyor of music and other media, without incurring the cost of actually paying for the licences.”

X/Twitter is unique from other social media platforms in that it has never negotiated a licensing deal with music labels and publishing houses.