The NMPA (National Music Publishers Association) previously filed a copyright lawsuit against social media platform X due to piracy concerns. Elon Musk plans to fight back against these claims.
Earlier on in the year a lawsuit was filed against the social platform X which was previously known as Twitter, however, for the purpose of this article we will be calling it by its new name. This lawsuit was first filed due to speculations of the platform failing to protect music artists. Songs were being used in acts that could be labelled as piracy.
Both Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta have licensing deals that allow music to be used on the platforms. These deals see artists being paid through distributors who send their music to the social sites. Meta platforms will flag music that is being used unfairly. All songs added to Meta’s libraries will display the correct artist information.
X doesn’t have any licensing deals and therefore shouldn’t be allowing users to share music belonging to artists who aren’t aware how and where their tracks are being used. The music industry has regularly called X out for ignoring infringement claims. However, the social platform haven’t put measures in place to stop this.
X were hit with a large lawsuit
After many complaints, X were finally hit with a lawsuit of millions of dollars. Various publishing companies came together to tackle this issue and the NMPA stepped up to fight the case. Two months after this was first filed, X have hit back, requesting that the courts dismiss these claims. It’s to be expected.
The NMPA don’t seem to be phased by this response though. They’re set to continue on with their lawsuit, in the hopes to win this battle for all music artists. A spokesperson for X went on to say ““The law requires that direct infringement arise from active, knowing, non-automated conduct by a defendant — not from the passive, automated operations of a website.”
By this, X are suggesting the platform would have had to actively choose to infringe on artists rights, rather than simply missing these music pieces being posted. While this point might be valid, it doesn’t deflect from the fact that X have a large workforce and someone should be responsible for overseeing what is posted to the platform.
Of course, no one person could check every tweet, but other platforms have measures in place for the system to flag any music that could potentially be copyright. X should follow suit and increase their measures. Perhaps moving forward they will, however the platform have been ignoring warnings for quite some time, so maybe it’s time they pay up.
