The National Music Publishers’ Association in the US has sued Twitter for $250 million over a massive copyright infringement
The lawsuit, filed in the federal court on behalf of 17 music publishers, is seeking damages and injunctive relief for Twitter’s “wilful copyright infringement”
“Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law,” the lawsuit read
The lawsuit listed around 1,700 songs that have been included in multiple copyright notices to Twitter, asking the court to fine the micro-blogging platform up to $150,000 for each violation
According to the lawsuit, the “pervasive infringing activity at issue in this case is no accident”
While the Twitter platform began as a destination for short text-based messages, it widened its business model to compete more aggressively with other social media sites for users, advertisers, and subscribers
“By design, the Twitter platform became a hot destination for multimedia content, with music-infused videos being of particular and paramount importance,” the lawsuit added
The NMPA claimed that Twitter has failed to remove infringing content once notified and has “continued to assist known repeat infringers with their infringement” without risk of them losing their accounts