Photo Credit: Afif Ramdhasuma
X is suing music publishers and the NMPA with allegations of “weaponizing” takedown requests and colluding to “coerce” the platform into licensing deals.
Elon Musk’s X has been embroiled in legal battles with music publishers united under the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) since 2023. Now, the former Twitter is countersuing with allegations that music publishers colluded with the NMPA to weaponize the copyright takedown process in order to force the platform into industry-wide licensing deals.
Filed on Friday, the antitrust lawsuit claims the NMPA and 18 music publishers, including the Big Three—Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony Music Publishing, and Warner Chappell Music—“weaponized” the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in a years-long campaign with requests to take down allegedly infringing content.
Starting in 2021, Musk’s platform claims the NMPA began “bombarding X with takedown notices every single week” to “leverage monopoly power” and force the company into acquiring licenses across the industry at “inflated rates.”
According to X, the company has been “denied the ability to acquire a U.S. musical-composition license from any individual music publisher on competitive terms.” The platform has been in a legal battle with the NMPA since 2023, when the music publishers’ association sued X over allegations of mass copyright infringement.
“X/Twitter is the only major social media company that does not license songs on its platform,” said NMPA President and CEO David Israelite. “We allege that X has engaged in copyright infringement for years, and its meritless lawsuit is a bad faith effort to distract from publishers’ and songwriters’ legitimate right to enforce against X’s illegal use of their songs.”
X filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas federal court—a jurisdiction preferred by the company due to more favorable rulings. Besides unspecified damages, the filing asks for an injunction to stop what X calls “coercive,” “non-competitive” negotiation tactics.
The suit comes in the wake of the NMPA’s motion asking the judge in its own case against X for a stay of proceedings, indicating they seemed to be close to settling. In November, an update said they “have made very substantial progress toward settlement and worked on a written settlement agreement.” But X claims music publishers have refused to negotiate deals on an individual basis, which has left the matter unresolved and the case open.
