18 Music Publishers Sued by X

X (formerly Twitter) has filed an antitrust lawsuit against 18 music publishers and the National Music Publishers Association, escalating a protracted licensing dispute that has left the platform without proper music rights agreements.

As reported by Variety, the social media company filed the legal action last week, alleging that publishers colluded to force X into purchasing industry-wide licences at inflated rates.

The lawsuit targets major music publishers, including Sony, Universal, and Warner, claiming they “conspired to leverage their combined market power” to coerce X into accepting blanket licensing deals. According to court documents, the defendants allegedly attempted to “leverage monopoly power” while denying X the opportunity to negotiate competitive deals with individual publishers.

X argues that the music industry’s approach prevents fair competition between publishers, forcing the platform to either accept comprehensive licensing packages or face legal action for hosting unlicensed content. The company seeks a court order granting it the right to negotiate separate deals with individual publishers, alongside unspecified damages.

The battle between X and music publishers began intensifying in 2023 when the NMPA filed its own lawsuit against the platform. The dispute centred on X’s reluctance to secure the necessary licences to legally host thousands of songs on its platform, making it the only major social media company operating without proper music licensing agreements.

Negotiations between the parties appeared promising as recently as November, with both sides claiming they had “made very substantial progress toward settlement and worked on a written settlement agreement”. However, discussions ultimately collapsed before reaching a final accord, leading to the current legal escalation.

NMPA president-CEO David Israelite responded firmly to X’s lawsuit, stating: “X/Twitter is the only major social media company that does not license the songs on its platform. 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.”