Photo Credit: Dima Solomin
Back in June, X and several major music publishers moved to pause their copyright infringement battle to explore settlement discussions. Now, the parties have revealed that the talks failed to produce a resolution.
The social platform and the NMPA-corralled plaintiffs relayed as much to the court in a brief notice. Technically, said notice arrived a few days after the 90-day stay’s end – but apparently, the small expiration-notification gap didn’t stem from putting the finishing touches on a settlement.
“The Parties’ efforts to reach an amicable settlement have not been successful,” the litigants spelled out. “While the Parties will continue their discussions, they do not request an extension of the stay at this time. “
Now, the same parties are working “to promptly and jointly submit” an adjusted case management order, albeit without affecting the current trial date.
As we previously reported, a partially successful dismissal push and a couple discovery hurdles meant that this trial had been teed up for September 2026 even before the stay.
Consequently, then, it’ll be a while yet before the suit kicks into high gear. Furthermore, it’s difficult to predict exactly what the copyright-litigation landscape and music’s X presence will look like late next year.
Already, quite a lot has changed since the courtroom confrontation initiated in 2023 – referring most immediately to the emergence of comparatively pressing copyright suits against gen AI developers.
(One smaller-but-noteworthy change: X commandeered the @Music handle in August 2023, and the page has been promoting releases from Sony Music artists in particular as of late. A few of the straightforward plugs – like for Miley Cyrus’ forthcoming “Secrets” and Jade’s That’s Showbiz Baby – include evidently authorized audio.)
Closing on a related note, June also delivered rumblings of settlement and licensing talks in the major labels’ copyright suits against AI music generators Suno and Udio.
But thus far, resolutions haven’t materialized in those legal disputes, either. Amid an involved discovery process, Udio parent Uncharted Labs and the majors are scheduled to participate in a status conference on October 22nd.
And the Suno showdown seems further yet from resolving. Still plodding through discovery, the case will soon receive an amended complaint from the majors, one filing indicates.
According to the same filing – the updated suit itself isn’t yet live in the docket – the plaintiffs intend to add a cause of action concerning an alleged violation of section 1201 of the DMCA. (Despite its spelling in the joint motion, “millennium” does, in fact, take two n’s.)
As some will recall from prior stream-ripping litigation, this section pertains to the circumvention of anti-piracy technological measures.
