June 27, 2023: The lawsuit claims that Twitter "routinely ignores" repeat violations by users who submit messages containing unlicensed music. What does copyright mean? Read on!
On Wednesday, June 14, a group of 17 music publishers sued Twitter in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, accusing the firm of aiding thousands of copyright infringement by allowing users to broadcast music without a licence.
According to the lawsuit, "countless infringing copies of musical compositions" increase user engagement on Twitter.
But what does copyright mean?
The legal right of the owner of intellectual property is referred to as copyright.
A copyright protects original works of authorship. Artistic, literary, or intellectually created works, such as novels, music, movies, software code, photographs, and paintings that are original and exist in a tangible medium, such as paper, canvas, film, or digital format.
Copyright thus simply means, the right to copy. This right to copy or duplicate can only be given by the individual or Company who have registered the product under copyright law.
The only people who have the sole right to reproduce a work are the original authors of that work and anyone to whom they grant permission.
For a specific period of time after which the copyrighted object enters the public domain, copyright law gives original material producers the sole right to continue using and duplicating their work.
In the U.S., the work of creators is protected by copyright laws until 70 years after their death.
Back to the main article:
Members of the National Music Publishers' Association, including Sony Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Universal Music Publishing Group, are suing for more than $250 million (INR 20,49,19,87,500) in damages for claimed copyright violation of approximately 1,700 rights.
According to the lawsuit, the long-standing violation has gotten worse since Elon Musk purchased Twitter in October, and that other big platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube legally licence music from the publishers.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement, NMPA President David Israelite stated that Twitter "stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to licence the millions of songs on its service."
According to the publishers, Twitter encourages user infringement, which improves engagement and ad revenue while providing it an "unfair advantage" over platforms that pay for music licences.