Sony, Universal and other record companies sue Twitter for violating intellectual property

About twenty major record companies, including Universal and Sony, denounced Twitter this Wednesday in a United States court for benefiting from the compositions of its artists in what it considers a “massive violation of intellectual property that harms music creators”.

The record companies filed a civil lawsuit against X Corpthe company of billionaire Elon Musk that encompasses Twitterin a Nashville (Tennessee) court, and demand a jury trial to obtain compensation of US$ 150,000 for each work subject to infringement, works that can add up to “hundreds of thousands”.

According to the document, Twitter uses the music and video repertoires of the complainants to “attract and retain” users and boost their interactions, which “Feeds the lucrative advertising business“from the social network”at the expense of the authors and to the detriment of their” compositions, protected by rights of “copyright”.

“Twitter you have refused calls to obtain licenses or other agreements necessary to be able to legally use the musical compositions on your platform”, add the companies, which point out that other social networks such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat do pay for the use of these works.

The lawsuit refers only to the state of Tennessee, where Nashville is located, one of the world capitals of music, since it is the headquarters of many of the complainants and affected artists, he points out.

The record companies, through their employers National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA)They claim to have spentsignificant time and resources in identifying“works subject to infringement and violations of”copyright” specific, and say they have notified the social network of the existence of some 300,000 illegal tweets.

Twitter was acquired last year by Musk, who for months has made changes to try to monetize the services of the social network and increase its income while cutting expenses such as personnel, and this week he has ceded command to the executive Linda Yaccarino.

Source: EFE